Including An Interview With the Author
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
After his father dies suddenly and his family’s fortune takes a nosedive, Jonas Shore starts selling weed and pills to cool kids at his Philadelphia high school to support himself and his mother; that is, until his hustle catches up with him and he’s sent away to Lafayette Academy.
In this testosterone-fueled boarding school for fatherless boys, Jonas learns how to survive. He and his roommates form a tight unit, vowing to have each others’ backs for life, but their bond is tested after a brush with death threatens to rob them of their futures.
Two decades later, Jonas is balancing a family and several successful businesses when one of his old Lafayette pals shows up with ghosts from the past, threatening to destroy everything he’s built.
Set to a killer soundtrack with Zeppelin, Bowie and Philly R&B, Scorched is an engrossing portrait of a young man’s coming-of-age and a gripping look at what happens when he tries to outrun his past.
- Publisher : Holloway Press
- Publication Date : April 28, 2024
- Paperback : 254 pages
My Thoughts
An author should feel proud if he can keep a reader up until 2:30 a.m. reading his book. Yep! I had to know the ending, be it satisfying or sad. No matter what it was.
Scorched is a novel that explores the life of Jonas, a 15-year-old who wants to soften the load for his mother and help with finances after his dad dies. However, like many his age, Jonas relies on a method that causes him to spend time at Lafayette Academy. There, he meets four roommates who he bonds with in ways he can never imagine.
Early on, the book caught my interest and had me turning pages, but only in the last part of the book were the pages flying. Silver did a great job of making situations feel believable. At no time did I have to suspend disbelief.
The author covered many years in very few pages. It was well-written and explored a unique coming-of-age story that covers family situations, a boys’ home, business life, marriage, divorce, and everything in between.
My Concerns
I’m not usually one who recommends lenghthing a story, but in this case, I think a few more pages of descriptions, regarding characters and surroundings, would have added to the experience. I think being able to visualize more of the surroundings, not jut the happenings, would have been nice. Also, there was a little something missing with the characters. I think I needed to see a little more of their inner feelings by their actions.
That said, I’m only talking about enhancing an already great book.
Final Thoughts
This is a novel you won’t want to overlook. The author seemed to know his characters and allow them to tell their stories.
My takeaway: The consequences of our actions stick with us, sometimes in the cobwebs of our minds, other times in our relationships, and of course, legal recourse can come into play too.
Thumbs up, Don Silver. You won me over.
My thanks to #BooksForward and the author for a gifted book.
4.5 stars rounded up to 5
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DON SILVER has been a musician, talent scout for a record company, record producer, business person, and consultant to CEOs. He has an MFA from Bennington College. His first novel, “Backward-Facing Man,” published by Ecco/HarperCollins, was hailed as “memorably offbeat” (New York Times) and “illuminating and entertaining” (Pittsburgh Tribune) and was described as having “real bite” (Publishers Weekly). His second novel, “Scorched,” will be released in May 2024. Originally from Philadelphia, Don lives in Asheville, NC. Learn more at www.donsilver.net.
Interview
1. What inspired you to write “Scorched”?
I had a buddy whose father died when he was thirteen. I remembered the effect this had on him into middle age and wondered what it would be like to lose a parent at that age if you had a lot of anger toward them. I started getting a picture of a character, then decided to set it in the 1970s when I was that age. The story unspooled from there.
2. What’s your writing process like?
When I write, it’s 7 days a week. When I take more than a day off, I tend to lose connection to my characters and it’s harder to intuit dialogue and know what happens next. Early on in “Scorched,” I became a full-time single parent of a seven-year-old, so I learned to focus for short periods of time, sometimes only an hour or two.
3. “Scorched” is undoubtedly a literary novel, and yet it has a gripping, propulsive ending as Jonas’ dark past finally catches up with him. What do you hope to achieve by blending literary and thriller techniques?
I’m interested in characters and the experiences of life, but I love a good thriller with high stakes and deadlines. In “Scorched,” I started exploring my main character during times of stress. By the middle of the book, he and his friends had gotten themselves in enough trouble to pick the pace up quite a bit.
4. Family dynamics seem to play an important role in “Scorched.” In the book, how do family dynamics influence how the characters see themselves and the decisions they make?
“Scorched” begins with a teenager who has a complicated relationship with a parent. By late adolescence, he manifests a mental illness which, though not entirely understood, is thought to be genetic. How he deals with these issues in middle age, how it affects his friends, family and co-workers is one thing that drives the plot.
5. Can anyone truly outrun their past?
Like all of us, the characters in “Scorched” experience the past in a few different ways. Their temperaments and circumstances of their early lives drive their behavior. Things they say and do that have consequences going forward. And the way they reflect and make meaning out of their personal histories. I think this last aspect of the past can be reshaped.
6. What reaction do you hope to get from readers?
I like when I relate with a character and what happens in a book and lose myself in the experience of reading. “Scorched” is a window into the past. Specifically, what it was like being a certain type of kid in the U.S. in the 1970s.
7. What’s next for you?
Over the years I’ve written characters that are adjacent to me, but not me, in that they don’t think, say, or do things I would do. I might try a novel set nearer to where I live in western NC, with a character that’s more like I am but in a made-up situation.
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