Annette Smith, A Bigger Life

A Bigger Life

Annette Smith

NavPress, Feb 2007, $12.99

ISBN: 1576839958

In Eden Plain, Texas, hair stylist Joel Carpenter knows he messed up badly when his high school friend Leslie, who left town almost a decade ago, returned home to help her parents. She and Joel had an affair, which their spouses find out about; this led to Kari divorcing him and sharing custody of their young child Colton; he gets him on weekends like several of the other fathers do. He hopes to make it up to her by being the best dad to their son, but deep down he prays to the Lord, although he distrusts organized religion, that Kari takes him back.

However, he soon has other issues to contend with when Kari informs him that she is dying from cancer; they both know Colton must come first. Kari tries to forgive Joel's trangsression that devastated their marriage and persuade him to turn to God so that he can forgive himself. However, her comforting message from Psalm 51:17 and kindness from the ex-husbands' posse and others fail to relieve Joel of his anger over why bad things happen to good people at a time when Colton desparately needs his dad because he cannot comprehend what is happening to his mom.

Told from the perspective of Joel, A Bigger Life is an enjoyable inspirational family drama that grips the audience from the lead character's opening comment that though his rommate Abe is also a hair stylist, neither are the "stereotype" gay and never slows down as other prejudical notions are shattered. Joel is a terific protagonist struggling with a battered belief system at a time when he prays to the Lord to save Kari's life and his son needs to believe in him. The support cast augments the understanding of what Joel feels and disbelieves until friends help him find hope on a personal plane with Jesus.

Harriet Klausner