The Burr in the Burbs

I was vacationing along Lake Michigan at the historic Lakeside Inn with my family when my wife and I both finished the novels we were reading at the same time.  Mine was a pulpy thriller by Robert Bloch (The Scarf) that Julie naturally had no interest in.  But as she told me about the story she’d just put down by Haven Kimmel, I knew I had to read it next.

The Solace of Leaving Early was published in 2002.  It’s what I would call a theological drama.  There are two protagonists: a female graduate student who walked out of her oral exams and went home to rural Indiana and a local small church pastor who agonizes over his sermons while he gardens.  Both characters have heads swimming with questions about the meaning of life and death and faith.  Their paths cross when one of the young woman’s childhood friends and the pastor’s parishoners dies under tragic circumstances.

If you’ve ever pondered Alfred North Whitehead‘s take on grief, or Kierkegaard‘s definition of faith, then you and author Haven Kimmel have something in common.  But even if those particular questions haven’t occurred to you, undoubtedly you have been affected by a painful loss and Solace knows just where you’re coming from.  Kimmel’s characters are quirky and insightful.  The story should be a downer, but it’s not and I couldn’t stop reading it once I got going.