Again, I need to be able to add that half star; it wasn't perfection but oh so very close! ( )

Northwest Corner by John Burnham Schwartz continues the story from his novel Reservation Road. Dwight Arno is now fifty years old and out of prison. He is now living in California and is the manager of a sporting goods store. Dwight is surprised by an unexpected visitor, his estranged son, Sam. Sam has left college in Connecticut and is running from something he has done. Northwest Corner examines the lives of ordinary men and woman who are all damaged in some way and are all searching for meaning and redemption.

All the chapters are short and each one is from the point of view of a different character. Rest assured, though, that you do not need to have read Reservation Road in order to appreciate Northwest Corner. For those who have read Reservation Road, the characters include: Dwight, Sam, Ruth, Penny (Dwight's girlfriend), and Emma Learner.

Schwartz explores his damaged characters, their desires and fears, while slowly building an emotional tension that should resonate with most readers. The characters are all so very, very real - so true to life.The sheer raw emotion that leaps off the page is heart wrenching, yet does not feel manufactured. The characters feel like real people. You know these people. You feel their sadness and despair. You may have been through circumstances similar to these tortured souls. You will hope that they find redemption, that there is some resolution to their pain.

This is an incredible novel, exquisitely written. Schwartz is a gifted, poetic writer with a keen sharp insight into human character. There are observations throughout the novel that are brilliant gems of perfect cut and clarity. His descriptions transport you into the scene with the characters. While the plot itself is not full of action, the emotional landscape explored is packed full to overflowing.

Very Highly Recommended - one of the best; http://shetreadssoftly.blogspot.com/
( )

I don't know how this would be as a standalone novel, as I read Reservation Road just beforehand. In some ways, I liked this better; a little tighter focus on a few individuals. I am reminded of Anne Frank's father (Otto?) saying, "We never really know our children." We never really know our parents. We never really know one another. And yet...Kurt Vonnegut was fond of quoting his own son, Mark, saying (and this might be a paraphrase): "We're here to help one another through this, whatever it is." ( )

John Burnham Schwartz's NORTHWEST CORNER is simply one of the most moving, page-turning novels I have read in a long time. With his super short and precisely worded chapters, Mr. Schwartz's writing is evocative proof positive that less is indeed more. Here's an early sample that let me know I was going to love this book. Protagonist Dwight Arno, a divorced ex-con who has not seen his son in more than a decade, suddenly has him back in his life, and he doesn't know how to deal with it. Watching him sleep, he is suddenly afraid his son is dead -

"I'm halfway to the bed, stepping panicked over my set of dumbbells strewn across the rubber-matted floor, when I see his chest rise. I stop to watch him breathing in and out, until I'm sure."

A simple enough description of a father's sudden and unreasonable panic for the safety of his child, albeit a 22 year-old one. It made me remember when I was a new father and would often lean over my infant son's sleeping body, watching, listening to him breathe, sometimes touching him to be sure. Dwight Arno may have been an absent father, a distant father, but even then, after years apart from his son, he was still very much a father. Schwartz is a master of finding the right word, the perfect phrase. The kind of writing I found here, in NORTHWEST CORNER, is rare and precious. It packs a powerful emotional punch.

I know that this novel is a sequel to an earlier one, RESERVATION ROAD. I gotta read that book. In the meantime, I will press this one on anyone who appreciates fine writing. Very highly recommended. ( )

Told in alternate chapters, all third person, except for Dwight Arno. Schwartz uses not only alternate points of view but also goes back in forth in time from 1975, when the hit and run accident which unites all characters, occurred and the present. The parallel between the present and the past is an accident in which Dwight's estranged son Sam is involved. I found this technique to be far more effective in generating tension in pacing and empathy with the characters than a straight ahead narrative. I live in the Northwest corner so that aspect was particularly intriguing for me. This novel combines drama, well drawn characters using minimal description and good, simple writing. ( )