Lee Martin The Bright Forever

The Bright Forever

Lee Martin

In a summer night in 1972 Tower Hill, Indiana, nine-year-old Katie bikes to the library but fails to return home. Her family owns the "itty-bitty" town's biggest business a glassworks firm and is considered Tower Hill's First Family so when something happens, townsfolk react.

Katie's parents and her teenage older brother seem to love Katie, who always appeared contented. Her summer math tutor, reticent lonely Henry kissed the preadolescent on the day she vanished and has stolen hair from her bedroom; he feels guilty for his sick desires but his student respected him, something he has never known especially during his abusive childhood. Remarried widow Clare knows her charming abusive spouse Raymond has drug induced blackouts and wonders could he have killed the girl. Raymond knows that pathetic Henry has a crush on the little girl and uses it.

Though hope remains at first, as days pass, a stunned town believes the First Daughter is dead. The searchers become angry while pondering their own transgressions; increasingly the conversation turns towards avenging vigilante righteousness.

Readers will appreciate this tense thriller that brings the underlying tension of the Ox-Bow Incident to the 1970s. The seemingly simple act of riding a bike turns ugly forcing everyone to introspect on their own sins as the changing perspectives enable the audience to understand the actions and reactions over a few days to the missing child; especially intriguing is Katie's parents wondering if they are being "punished". The collective guilt (though overdone) insures that THE BRIGHT FOREVER turns eternally dark for the townsfolk as the loss of innocence means no counterbalance to the eternal gloom of adulthood's reality shattering youthful dreams.

ISBN: 1400097916

Harriet Klausner