Customer Reviews based on the first chapter of Luke Wallin’s novel
The Soul Tree, an unpublished novel which was a semi-finalist in Amazon.com’s 2008 contest.
The Soul Tree - Official ABNA Entrant — 2008
Read the first chapter of
The Soul Tree
The first eight reviews are by friends of LW. (Amazon.com encouraged these, and they certainly are fun for the writer.) The last two are by strangers.
SOUL TREE touches the soul
January 20, 2008, By Kaylene Johnson [Kaylene is the author of the 2008 biography of Sarah Palin, the Republican Veep nominee,
Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down, as well as the books
Portrait of the Alaska Railroad and Trails Across Time: History of an Alaska Mountain Corridor. She earned her MFA from Spalding University’s MFA in Creative Writing program, where she worked with Luke and others. Visit her at Kaylene.us]
Luke Wallin's
The Soul Tree is a testament to the power of story. Jack Henry Calloway ventures outside the cocoon of his genteel southern upbringing into a world that is as dark as it is inviting. As Jack Henry tries to navigate a troubling friendship, he is confronted not only with a strange boy's sinister intentions, but with his own inner questions about faith. The tension of the story is almost visceral. Readers feel every nuance, from the cool earth of the cave to the clinking of dishes at the family dinner table. A beautiful and haunting tale.
Fog on the Preteen Horizon: Wallin's Mastery of Religious Terror and Youth
January 21, 2008, By Christopher Lirette (Moncton, NB, Canada)
Luke Wallin moves through the landscape of preadolescence with the verve of a poet and the aplomb of an apocalyptic herald.
The Soul Tree begins with the precocious nine year old, Jack Henry, whose life is haunted--by God, mortality, sexual discovery, and a mysterious youth named Edwin, whose appetite for religious melodrama is only matched by his sadism.
Wallin's compelling characters may be what draws you in to his menacing and strangely beautiful Southern world, but his clear and musical prose will keep you in thrall. The narrative is from Jack Henry's perspective, with all his simplicity and vigor. Occasionally, his thoughts verge on the philosophical, but this is because the world he lives in is a world of moral urgency.
In the first scene, Edwin offers Jack Henry the chance to became a "savior" of a snake he had nailed to a tree. From the crucial moment when Jack Henry pries each nail out of plant and snake, the narrative is tense with Jack Henry's need for moral surety in the harrowing fog of his youth and of the suburban woods behind his house.
Wallin's fiction is expert, engaging, and entertaining. Despite the density of emotion, he manages to convey also the humor and sentimentality of Southern familial politics and of growing up a boy in the woods and churches of Mississippi.
The Soul Tree's emotional power causes a devastation within the reader, impelling the reader to create a better reality from her ruins.
Gripping Coming-Of-Age Story
January 17, 2008, By Louella Bryant "Rosebuddy" (Lincoln, VT)
Wallin's
The Soul Tree begins with some of the most tension-filled scenes I've read in literature. A 9-year-old boy feels powerless enough when faced with the mysteries of the adult world, but add to that a relationship with a slightly older boy who has a fundamentalist fanaticism and a penchant for cruelty and you've got a story that will scoot you to the edge of your seat. Wallin has a way of putting me into Jackson's skin and reminding me of my own childhood and the trials and horrors I experienced myself. But Jackson has an even tougher challenge: to find his way through the thick spiritual maze of his Southern Baptist society and into the bright light of his own beliefs. I applaud this work both for its content and delivery. The writing runs clear as a mountain stream and ranks as southern literature up with Sherwood Anderson and, as universal literature, in the realm of Steinbeck. Bravo, Mr. Wallin!
Listen to Luke
January 21, 2008, By Dennis L. Pearson
Growing up in Mississippi was a blessing and a curse. I'm thankful for both.
Lao-Tzu said, "Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty, only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good because there is evil."
We Southerners were blessed with a generous helpin' of both. This rich cultural feast was not wasted on Mr. Wallin. In
The Soul Tree he sevres it up with finger lickin' good morsels of well-crafted words.
Listen to Luke if you grew up in the South -- if you didn't, listen even harder. You may even find Redemption.
Master Storyteller, Luke Wallin
January 20, 2008, By Lloyd Kelly (Louisville,KY USA)
Wallin is a master storyteller with a philosopher's sensibility. He keeps the pages turning with anxious anticipation. So well crafted that the craft is invisible. So smart and subtle the reader is carried along by story and plot without consciously realizing how the big questions are being raised.
The writing has charm. For example, the following represents a family dinner scene from page seven, you can see for yourself what I am talking about.
He squinted his deep brown eyes, and his face wrinkled up all the way to his hairline. He wore a low, prickly crew cut, and bumps and blue veins showed on his scalp. Uncle Doc was my great uncle, Granny June's younger brother. She'd told me that he "fell between generations, and nobody understands him." This was a polite way of referring to his drinking, among other things. We could have been proud of him, because he was a medical doctor, but for some reason nobody understood he mostly helped black folks. People considered it odd.
The characters are real -- very real. There is an older boy who has power over the narrator, I know this person, and I have experienced him. Religion is woven into the fabric of the story. Read this excerpt from page twelve and see what Wallin can do in a short paragraph.
As if under a spell, I followed him into the woods and down the winding trail to the base of the hill where he'd dug his cave. I'd like to say I have no idea why I followed him, but there was something exciting in his moves, his ruthlessness, that I needed in my boring life. Everything about the bible was so exciting--David's cutting off penises of his enemies as a brideprice for his first wife, Tamar's brother raping her and then despising her--the emotions people felt back then were so strong, and they just acted them out. I read the bible every night before bed, and those Old Testament stories filled my dreams. But my family was so normal, making note of every little twitch off the path of righteousness, of every time Uncle Doc used a swear word, or Granny June smelled up the kitchen by cooking with garlic. Edwin acted on his desires, no matter what they were, like some character from the distant past.
Luke Wallin knows the South--trust me--he knows and understands it. His ear for language and eye for detail transports us. His gift for recognizing the telling detail gives him authority of voice. Like all good literature, the specific leads to the universal and transcends regionalism.
An authentic, unique, brilliant American voice; I would like to add to Ms. Bryant's Bravo, Mr. Wallin! Bravo, Mista Wallin!! Five Stars
A haunting look at the twentieth century American south
January 24, 2008, By Eva S. Gordon (New York, NY)
In a clear and sensitive adolescent voice, Wallin's protagonist speaks of growing up in the pre-civil rights era American south. This period in our history does not receive a lot of attention in contemporary literature--and Wallin dares to describe it from the point of view of the young, upper middle class white boy who fears and is confused by his culture. This book marks a brave departure from the politically correct, easy norm of good versus evil, white versus black, by shedding a much-needed light on all those many people who grew up in the south confounded by religious doctrine and inescapable racism. Wallin gently sets down the history text book notions we have about 1950s America, and draws us a gentle, new, imagistic portrait of growing up scared on the right side of the tracks. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in adding dimension to their understanding of recent American history, or for that matter to anyone looking for a great story to add dimension to their life.
Poignant Tale on the Complexities of Boyhood
January 23, 2008, By Lauren Turnbull (New York, New York)
Luke Wallin's
The Soul Tree illustrates with grace and poignancy the maturation of young Jack Henry in a society defined by its religious fervor. Wallin entices the reader with Edwin Fancher, a cruel and determinate young boy whose mysterious nature both frightens and captives Jack Henry. Wallin's work beautifully evokes the sensuality and discontentment that comes with growing up, and the loss of naivete that follows. A powerful work - elegant and commanding.
Good and Evil
January 22, 2008, By, Heather T. Shaw
The Soul Tree - Official ABNA Entrant Wallin's gripping story had me alternately charmed and terrified from the very beginning where he refers beautifully to 'the powerful phrases from my parents, like, "Father we thank Thee for these and all Thy blessings" to the second paragraph where he came upon a living snake nailed to a tree. I read on reluctantly, as my fears grew and were confirmed by the horrors which lay ahead while my curiosity would not allow me to put the chapter down. And I'm glad I persevered, despite the nightmares I dread tonight, as "The Soul Tree" is one of the most beautiful, haunting stories I've read in a long time.
I'm not sure if Wallin is taking us by the hand and leading us gently down the path of the good and evil of childhood, or gripping us firmly by the arm and dragging us along, no matter how fearful or reluctant the reader; in any case he succeeds in luring us to continue reading. The contrast between the narrator's orderly home life with parents he loves and respects and 'the real world' outside those doors is startling and the loneliness of what he must face brings to mind the universal challenges of childhood and making one's way in the world.
Wallin's sensitive and stirring prose draws us in even as we recoil from the torments he describes. I found myself rooting for this narrator every step of the way, and rooting for the success of this promising novel.
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These reviews are by people who are strangers to LW.
Ominously beautiful and terrifying Southern gothic
January 25, 2008, By R. Kyle (Knoxville, TN)
Jack Henry's 9 years old and certainly not ready for the heartstopping encounter in the woods with Edwin Fancher, a 15 year old whose trademark is shooting the tails off large dogs. In his presence, Jack Henry 'redeems' a snake and a rabbit from death at his hands. From then on, Edwin becomes Jack Henry's protector and mentor.
Fancher's dangerous--not just to animals, but he's got all the classic developing traits of a serial killer: animal torturer, megalomania, he seems to believe he's a messenger from God.
A prime example of this is when Fancher convinces Jack Henry that spying on a naked Melissa Worthington is preparation for their one true marriage and it's okay as "long as they don't touch her." More strong Biblical symbolism: "She held my concentration like an apple in her hand."
A friend wrote me last night and challenged me to write a review on this piece. I am so out of my depth reviewing an excerpt like this. I read
The Soul Tree last night and it literally scared me wide eyed for a couple of hours. This from a person who reads Lovecraft. Yes, Edwin Fancher is a very scary kid. Luke Wallin has done an incredible job describing Fancher's forays into madness from the perspective of an inexperienced and frightened 9 year old Jack Henry.
This is Southern lit at its best: atmospheric, symbolic and heavy with the culture. Wallin's got strong sensory detail in here and he "shows". He'd be a great author to study if you can handle the scenes with Edwin.
Me? I'm making a note of Luke Wallin's name and waiting for the book to come out. I'd read it on a sunny day--with all the lights on.
Good luck, Luke Wallin. You've done well with this excerpt and I hope you can soon join some of the Southern greats!
Cannot Wait to Read the Rest of This
February 4, 2008, By Jarucia Jaycox Nirula (Seattle, WA, USA)
The Soul Tree by L. Wallin starts with a walk in the woods with young Jack Henry; nine is 'just old enough to wander the dark shady woods...'
He soon encounters a creepy character, 15 year-old Edwin Fancher, who is watching a snake he nailed to the tree the day before.
As the excerpt progresses, Jack Henry is inexplicably pulled into a series of strange and increasingly sinister activities with Edwin. Edwin's character appears to have developed a sudden affinity for Jack Henry, possibly considering himself Jack Henry's redeemer and spiritual guide.
What's presented in this excerpt is both an engaging story and superb writing. The storytelling, from Jack Henry's perspective, is simple enough and has the comfortable feel of the imagination, impulse and emotion of a nine year old boy. If there were any serious flaws, no bells went off as I read through the piece.
Just enough attention was given to each of the presented characters to provide substance for their persona's as well as give context the settings for the unfolding relationships. I rather enjoyed the mesmerized way Jack Henry would simply follow Edwin, though he feared him. Totally unexplainable, but so are the actions of many a nine year-old boy.
Given the synopsis, this story promises to be very interesting and I seriously cannot wait to read the rest of it.
