Review: `For three days I knew of love. In three steps I die.'
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 24, 2013
Andrew Joyce takes a leaping chance on providing a follow-up to an American classic - and oddly enough he succeeds! Joyce is an inveterate hitchhiker and doubtless that lifestyle has supplied him with the rich imagination he so freely offers in his furthering the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.In Joyce's well-sculpted atmospheric tale teenagers Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are veterans of the Confederate army in the Civil War, having taken on that path for yet another adventure and not as standard bearers of abolitionism. Tom was shot in the arm, Huck nursed him, but that was the end of the adventure in the war zone. Deserting the army they fled West, but during Tom's recovery period Union soldiers disrupt - a sergeant makes vile threats but Huck shoots him and one of the two privates with the sergeant, the remaining private (Jed) deserts with Tom and Huck and in their plan to `go West young man' Huck decides to go to Missouri, Jed to California, and Tom to China! Years pass and the various adventures of the individuals differ until they meet again years later, each with a new take on life. The three renegades see the bigger picture of living a life that counts for the good of their fellowmen.This is a quick read and a nostalgic one for those who have lived with Tom and Huck in their minds since childhood. It is a fresh take on an old tale of camaraderie and it works! Grady Harp, September 13