It's time for a review of 'Dark Meadow', one of my favorite new stories in Adam Johnson's collection 'Fortune Smiles' which recently won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2015. Are you paying attention? Adam Johnson won a national book award, arguably the highest honor our society bestows on writers other than the Pulitzer Prize. So should you read 'Fortune Smiles'? Well that question has already been answered by people much smarter than you or me.Johnson does two things really well in 'Dark Meadow'. One, he crafts a legitimately interesting plot about a line of code that could be used to find all the child porn viewers in Los Angeles. This storyline is interesting enough by itself to warrant an entire novel. But that's not enough for Johnson because the protagonist of 'Dark Meadow' is a computer repairman who just so happens to be a pedophile. He's not just any pedophile though. He is a round character. He reads National Geographic, grows roses in his yard and was a member of the Marine Scouts. You shouldn't root for this character because he is a total creep. But is this guy really so different from you or me?
There are so many sources of tension in this story. You never know what Mr. Roses A.K.A. Dark Meadow is going to do. His saving grace is self-awareness. His understanding of his own trauma allows him to control his perverse behaviors. He wants to break the cycle of pedophiles constantly creating other pedophiles. The more one thinks about this story, the more one realizes how devastating it is. It's definitely one to seek out if you have the chance.
Buy Fortune Smiles here:
https://amzn.to/2P6F9Kg
Related Posts:
Is this a sick joke? This story is a disgusting attempt to apologize and humanize pedophilia. It is a sad commentary that you and others champion this "story" because it marks certain literary check boxes. It is disgusting, irredeemable, and as a survivor of sexual abuse I am horrified to know that you or anyone else in the writing world could ever recommend and defend it.
ReplyDelete