I liked the first two-thirds of this book, when it revolved around a son's attempt to find out more about his deceased father's inner thoughts. Abruptly it changed into a sci-fi book with a flashback (I think) to when the family went on a trip to the moon via the father's homemade spaceship. This incident wasn't mentioned again, and could easily be lifted out of the book without causing any plot disruptions.

Overall I think the book was mediocre, and putting in a random chapter that was pure sci-fi did nothing to make things better.

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What an interesting character Jess’s father is. Whimsical. A master storyteller. A mad inventor. It made me envious. The thing with the pie was great – right in the face of the hydro engineer who stupidly opened the dam and flooded the river and ruined the bridge and the garden that Jess’s dad built for his mother.

The only weird part was the trip in the space ship. I couldn’t figure out if it was something that he made his family participate in or some kind of metaphorical fairy tale. The rest of it was interesting. All the people that Jess met had known and loved his dad. They all wanted to give space to bury the two parents side by side (after their over subscribed cemetery screwed things up and buried someone else next to Jess’s dad). It was set in the rural Appalachian mountains but no one seemed like a hick or overly countrified. Nice. The man who wrote this obviously cares about where he came from. He has a love for his characters and treats them with great gentleness and dignity.

The musicians reminded me of the ones in O Brother Where Art Thou (It’s the Soggy Bottom Boys!). The end was a bit odd though. They go and try to dig him up in the middle of the night and all they find are some fox’s bones. Where Jess’s dad really is, is never known. Kind of a weird ending for a very down-to-earth book.

A good read, but it was obviously part of the trilogy. I read the first two 14-15 years ago and forget a lot of them. I'll have to return to them to remind myself. ( )