Book of the Month....June 2008

Five Skies, by Ron Carlson
(Click on title to check availability.)

One summer in the Rocky Mountains, three men are brought together to construct a ramp to nowhere – a causeway for a daredevil motorcycle rider to jump across a canyon. As the men work together, their wounded lives and backgrounds are gradually revealed: Darwin’s wife died and he is in the grip of grief and fury; Arthur, after betraying someone close to him, has abandoned his career as a Hollywood stunt engineer to build this road to emptiness; Ronnie, the youngest of the three, is a petty thief and runaway looking for a way back to a normal life.

Carlson, writing his first novel after several succesful short story collections, describes how these three men grow into a family of sorts. Redemption, tragedy, and grace come at the end. Meg