Review: Touching and original novel
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 8, 2012
For some reason reading this book made me think of "The Shack" by William Young. The stories aren't really that similar, but it had a similar tone of religious reverence combined with down-to-earth familiarity. Nate finds himself in "Under Heaven," a form of purgatory/limbo, after he is horribly murdered. He must face what happened to him before he can decide how and where to move on. Nate's story is intertwined with the story of another little boy, Jesse who is trying to referee the relationship between his mother and his drug-addicted father. It is clear that at some point the stories will inter-connect, but I was still surprised at how it happened.This was NOT a perfect novel. It really desperately needed an editor as there were many times that sentences were missing words or started off in one direction and ended up somewhere else. Paragraphs would start off in third person ("Nate watched his grandmother walking towards him") and switch to first person (I didn't recognize the person with her.) It was sometimes confusing to figure out pronouns. However, I give the author a pass because the story really WAS that good.The characters were so clearly drawn that I feel that I know them. I found myself wishing I could know more about Nate's relatives' lives and I wanted to know what happened in the parts of Nate's life that we missed. I wanted to know more about Nate's friend Ricky.Beyond the characters, Greaton created a world in "Under Heaven" that was truly original, yet felt like home. I was so intrigued by the concept and his deft handling of religious tradition that was not theologically offensive (to me, at least) and yet seemed able to explain concepts that we all struggle with. For example, I would have assumed that reincarnation and heaven could not coexist, and yet in this novel, it makes sense. Souls travel rather freely between various "worlds" and yet, there are still rules and respect for the divine.I very much enjoyed this book, and will be ruminating on it for some time. I hope that eventually Greaton finds an editor because this book deserves to be more widely read. I look forward to more from this author!