A Delightful and Inspiring Read, No Caveats
Review by Bob Selle of A Fevered Land by Dennis Morrow (Dog Ear Publishing, 192 pages)
Bob Selle, a 41-year veteran of the Unification movement, is an independent writer and editor who lives and works in the Washington, D.C. area.
A novel by longtime Unificationist Dennis Morrow (his first!) is a wonderfully good investment of time and attention for anyone, regardless of their faith or even non-faith.
Skipping the usual awkwardness and uncertainty of the amateur writer, Dennis gives us a plot that captures our attention from start to finish. And it’s not just the story line. It’s his evocative descriptions of warm family home life, an earthy Pennsylvania farm environment, a recurring mysterious affliction that kills the farm family’s horses one after another, and a kindly spiritual healer who applies her skill to try to solve the mystery where all the veterinarians have failed. It’s also his self-assured command of dialogue to create a realistic atmosphere and portray characters who are credible and memorable.
It’s not only these things that excite the reader. It’s the fact that Dennis writes confidently and compellingly throughout, seeming to find just the right turn of phrase in sentence after sentence to make a thought or a feeling or a description “pop.” It’s also that he finds thoroughly natural ways to weave into the story line and dialogue elements of theology, nuggets of practical wisdom, and discussions of the “Big Questions” of life. And when Dennis gets into considering the spiritual world, how it syncs with the physical world, and the kind of negative feedback loop that can develop between the two worlds when innocence is poisoned, his writing gets downright poignant and breathtakingly persuasive.
The central people in the novel are the members of the nonreligious but close-knit, warmhearted and upright Bambrough family. Over the course of 10 years, the horses they own die like falling dominoes. Not the horses that board on the farm, just the family’s own animals. The vets are stumped. Finally, when the filly that’s the pride and joy of 10-year-old Darcie Bambrough falls deathly ill, the family is moved to “hold their nose” and in desperation try one last thing.
The spiritual healer they invite in opens a window on the spiritual world that allows the intervention of an American Indian spirit guide named Quiet Oak who seeks to liberate a slave girl who had been horribly murdered on the land some 150 years earlier.
All told, in its captivating story and colorful, confident writing, this is a delight of a novel. You will be pleased.
A Fevered Land is available in both print and e-book format at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble. With the ISBN 978-1457525629, the book can be ordered at any bookstore in the U.S.