Few novels written today make the reader want to leap inside and join the action.
Goodnight , McNeal's first novel, is just one of those gems. His story about love and hatred, loss and redemption in small-town America truly is a phenomenal piece of prose. The harsh, realistic depiction of the meanness and evil produced from ignorance and isolation is reminiscent of lives in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood . Still, McNeal's mythical small town remains warmly compelling, and as its name suggests, dreamlike, otherworldly, and outside of time. His storytelling is magnificent, deftly changing time, place, and narrator to create a spellbinding plot.