Skip to main content

Review: The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson



Review: The Never-Open Desert Diner
James Anderson
Crown Publishers
2015

If you haven’t read this one, I think you are missing a good book.  Feels like a flashback to an earlier time when reading was enjoyable, the story absorbing, tender but authentic, and well spun.  The title says much more than I first thought.  Lots of other things are not open in this desert.  Doors are locked and behind them the pasts that hold people in the desert.  
 
The dust cover front leaf says, “The Never Open Desert Diner powerfully evokes an unforgettable setting and introduces readers to a cast of characters who will linger long after the last page.”  Generally, these descriptions go overboard, but this one describes what I found in this book.  Ben Jones and Walt will remain with me for a long time.  They might be archetype characters.  The author does have an MFA after all and has done some editor type work.  He probably knows a little about that sort of thing.  Whatever or whoever they are, the reader becomes involved immediately with them.

A brief synopsis of the story line is that Ben Jones stumbles across an archway in the desert that he’d not seen in his 20 some years of delivery truck driving this route.  He decides to check it out since he needs to answer the call of nature anyway.  He discovers a house behind the arch that he assumes is deserted.  It isn’t and the story goes from there.  The scene where he meets the resident of the house is laugh out loud humor.  This book has plenty of wit, humor, danger, and pathos.  The bad guys are really despicable, too.  All that teamed with the cast of characters mentioned above make for a good read and it is.  Find a copy and see what you think.   

It’s the most satisfying fiction read I have run across in quite a while.  Action, dialogue, story all worked for me. Good work, James Anderson.

I received this book from the publishers in return for a review.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot by Mo Isom

Review: Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot Mo Isom Baker Books 2018 I picked this one up after I’d seen a video promo by the author, http://moisom.com/sexandjesus#.   Sounded like she had something to say.   She does.   And even if you don’t think it applies to you it does in ways that aren’t necessarily related to sex, but just as a human being with desires.    Isom subscribed to many of the conversations that govern relationships in general, and those with men, for her generation, the millennials.   This book is not her life story, but it does describe some moments that were important to her journey then and now.   Her openness to share those times surprised me.   Her point without spoiling the book is that she had not understood what linked sexual intimacy to ordinary life, the why’s, if you will.   Was it not taught, discussed?   Or was she not interested in hearing might be a valid...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: When God’s Ways Make No Sense by Dr. Larry Crabb

Review: When God’s Ways Make No Sense Dr. Larry Crabb Baker Books 2018 I chose this book because the title intrigued me.   When God’s Ways Make No Sense.    There have been plenty of times when that seemed truer than I’d like to admit.   Are we even allowed to say something like that?   Even if we think it.   So, an author willing to take on that topic had my attention. And mostly because I wanted his take on what to do about it? As it turns out Crabb pretty much gave away his case very early on in his book with a single scripture quote.   The basic idea is God is GOD and we are not.   His motives and actions are incomprehensible to mankind and He owes no explanation for them either.   Crabb admits near the end of his book that he is not a theologian which I knew going into this book, but his arguments are theology.   Or at least I think so.   I found his repeated circling the topic a bit frustrating. ...
1 comment
Read more

Review: Anatomy of the Soul

Anatomy of the Soul Curt Thompson. M.D. Salt River, an imprint of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 2010 This is the most helpful,insightful book I’ve read in a long time. There’s advice, guidance, explanations and examples to illustrate discussion offered by the author. Best of all, for me anyway, it explains some of what I had suspected about how things work all along. Dr. Thompson links human anatomy and physiology to the spiritual part of our being throughout the text. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. And God uses His creation of the physical body in amazing ways. The author does a great job showing God’s wisdom found in research and the discoveries that science has made recently in neuroscience. Whether science wants to or not, it is describing the wonders of creation. Read this book. The text will require thought, evaluation, and time to go through. The author’s writing style is quite readable and he covers the material well. While this isn’t a how to or self help boo...
4 comments
Read more