After reading Dr. J’s review of Tony Earley’s The Blue Star, I decided to investigate Mr. Earley’s work.  My inquiry revealed that Jim the Boy came before The Blue Star, so I thought I’d start with it.  Quasi-spoiler alert:  You can bet the farm I’ll be checking out The Blue Star forthwith.

The book tells the story of Jim Glass, a ten year-old boy living during the Great Depression in rural Aliceville, North Carolina.  The story spans about a year in his life and tells of his fears, desires, curiousities, motivations, and other feelings as he begins a new school year with children from the mysterious Lynn’s Mountain (sort of the other side of the tracks), lives life with his mother and three uncles (his father passed away a week before Jim was born), and explores some people and places that are completely new to him.  Earley’s ability to write with simplicity but with such depth, particularly as he goes inside the mind of a ten year-old boy and tells the story in the third-person, is flat-out remarkable.  Sample quotes from the book, to give you a feel for his writing style:

He leaned over so that the warm wind whistling in through the open window blew directly into his face.  When he closed one eye, the black line along the edge of the state highway disappeared into the front fender of the truck, as if the tire inside were coiling it up like a rope.  When he stuck his head out of the window and looked back, he saw the line unrolling neatly behind them, marking the way they had come.  They would be able to find their way home.

and

The oak tree he stood beneath seemed to mark the exact center of the empty fields; the blue bowl of the sky balanced directly above it, which made the place seem important, even though nothing in the landscape, save the tree itself, suggested import.

and

[Jim] had heard every story his mother and uncles had to tell about his father so many times that over the years his father had become less vivid.  It was as if each story was a favorite shirt that had been worn and washed and hung in the sun so often that its fabric, while soft and smooth and comfortable, was faded to where its color was only a shadow of what it had once been.

and

He tugged at his beard as if pulling on it opened a door that let his thoughts out.

I could go on and on, but I won’t — I’ll let you see for yourself by reading the book.  I loved this book.  And I’ll confess that this book doesn’t have a clear defined ending.  But unlike some other books which frustrate me because they don’t have a true denouement, where everything gets wrapped up in a neat little package at the end except for the questions that are supposed to remain open, this book doesn’t fall short in any way, either.  Jim turns eleven, and it is clear that many more thoughts and adventures will occupy him in the future, and I absolutely want to be there for them.

(You can read Tim’s review of Jim the Boy and The Blue Star here: ed.)