Michael Knight (2) (1969–)

There are certain anomalies surrounding the marketing descriptions of this book. Looking at it in the book store one might be intrigued by the ideas of ghosts, girls school, pregnant teenager, and even the historical backstory of Disney’s proposed American History related theme park, expecting a coming of age, YA, gothic confection of a story. And if this is the reader’s expectation, he or she may be surprised to find a literary novel which takes place in a girl’s school at a particular point in history, but which is really about the threads of history and how they shape and haunt our lives. Everyone in this story is haunted, often in ways they do not realize, both young and old, haunted by personal history, by the history of others, and how this history shapes day to day interactions without being understood, and even the larger forces, history of a place, of a culture. Michael Knight’s elegant spare prose and lack of sentimentality bring strength to this tale of how history flows around us, of a girl attempting to keep herself together, of the meeting of fears and expectations, and the way growth and change, often slip in when we aren’t really paying attention.

I enjoyed this book intellectually, enjoyed reading it more the further I got into it, but in the end, this reader never found herself fully engaged with the characters. Hence only a three-star rating.… (meer)

Stories and a novella set in and around Mobile, Alabama. In “Water and Oil” a teenage boy’s loss of innocence and sudden awareness of the harshness of life coincide with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A strange dynamic occurs between a college student home for the holidays and the burglar who breaks into her father’s home during a New Year’s Eve burglary in “Smash and Grab.” In “Our Lady of the Roses” a young art teacher contends with changes in her life. In “Jubilee” a successful, genteel, perhaps perfect, couple live their lives in the week leading up to the husband’s fiftieth birthday, with accompanying elaborate party. The novella, “Landfall” tracks a family as a hurricane approaches Mobile.

Marked by the south, this collection presents people that could be real, with real problems. “Marcus Weems was the sixth richest man in the state of Alabama but he lost his wife to cancer like everybody else.”… (meer)