reprint or license Print E-Mail

tool name close tool goes here

'Eli the Good' is a snapshot of childhood as it used to be

By Jacalyn Carfagno Herald-Leader Staff Writer

BOOK REVIEW

Eli the GoodBy Silas House. 304 pp. Candlewick Press. $16.99.

Eli the Good will strike familiar notes for anyone who knew rural life in this part of the country a few decades back.

In this novel, aimed at the young-adult market, Kentucky writer Silas House sets the stage in 1976, as Eli Book and those around him struggle to deal with a changing — and changed — world.

Early on, 10-year-old Eli observes that everyone in his family has secrets. And indeed they do.

It was a time before public confession became the rage, when adults and children lived in separate worlds. Was it only a few decades ago that subjects like serious illness, family ruptures, disintegrating marriages and mental trauma were considered off-limits for children?

The secrets set the characters in motion in this novel as Eli tries heroically to understand what's happening.

House, a talented and often elegant writer, often hits the nail on the head as his young narrator reacts to what he sees and suspects, as when Eli views the pat Christian eternity through the eyes of a restless pre-teen: "I sometimes lay awake thinking about the end of time or eternity, which — even if spent in heaven — was bound to get boring at some point."

There are aching moments when House makes the reader feel Eli's pain, ambivalence and confusion. But House also sometimes descends into an almost precious sensibility that can make Eli, and those around him, a little hard to believe.

The same goes for the plot. Without spoiling it, the central drama about Eli's family is compelling and believable. The subplots, though, sometimes seem layered on rather than woven into the fabric of this novel. Did the summer of 1976 have to be a crucial turning point for virtually every character is this book?

In notes on the dust cover, House says the book is about friendship, love, self-discovery and learning that you don't always agree with people you care about.

I read the essential themes of this book as a meditation about the mixed blessings of freedom.

A child growing up today, with parents perpetually hovering, will be amazed at the pure freedom that Eli has as he jumps onto his bike and roams the countryside. But he can't always enjoy this freedom as he lurks in the background of the adult world, pining to be really seen by his parents.

None of the adults seem worried about things that obsess so many of us now: health care costs, mortgages and paying for college. But that self-reliance carries the heavy cost of unwillingness to reach out for help when memories of his time in Vietnam consume Eli's father and threaten the family.

Adults in general and writers in particular are often sorely tempted to idealize the past, and House sometimes seems willing to give in to that urge. Still, he has created an evocative book that will give young readers a unique view into the one time and one place where the fictional Eli Book spent his 10th year.