Into the Fire

We meet Jo-Lynn, nearing fifty, marriage on the skids, and childless, at the gravesite of her favorite Great-Uncle Jim while the snow flurries dust her face and the young pastor who’d never met the now dead man delivers a few final prayers. Following this solemn event, we travel immediately to the “big house” with the wraparound porch where Jo-Lynn spent treasured times in her youth with her Great-Aunt Stella and Great-Uncle Jim in Cottonwood, Georgia. It’s a far distance and culture away from her home with her husband in Druid Hills, Atlanta.

Things Left Unspoken by Eva Marie Everson is a delightful, but not without its brutal honesty, tale about a family with secrets. It suggests in the telling that every family has those hidden things which it seems to them are best left unspoken. This is the Southern Fiction that makes our mouths water at the cooking, our souls cringe at past and present prejudices, our hearts break at the innocence and disappointments of young love and mature love, and the sometimes filleting of lives by cruel twists and unexpected turns.

Told primarily in first person by the woman who’s come to the funeral without her husband because her life with him has fallen into the pretentious collection of status and wealth accumulations, Jo-Lynn is uncertain what their future together holds. When she is offered an opportunity to renovate her Great-Aunt’s “big house” to its original grandeur, she snaps up the job as a lifeline to reclaiming her own persona in the loving place of her childhood. Having yielded long ago in her 22 year-old naiveté to remaining childless at her future husband’s request, she faces the emptiness of her decision and the shallow, self-centered conduct of their current life together.

Told in a back-in-time and forward-to-the-present rhythm, it works to give a feel to the emotional history of those things left unspoken, a compassion and heart for those who made serious sacrifices in that past, and an understanding for one of the concluding scenes which was done so well.

This is not a “based on a true story” novel, but it’s told with loving care by the author who relied on different members of her own family and events in her life to meld these interesting and thoughtful characters together to offer more than a late developing suspense story. This book offers come-to-life characters who are deeply rooted in the genteel culture of the south along with those ordinary folks who maintain their southern manners and conduct complete with all its gossip and cooking and hidden agendas. Written very well by Eva Marie Everson and not cut short for the sake of word counts, Things Left Unspoken allows us the time to take honest looks at the individuals she writes about without making hasty judgments as to their inner characters or lack thereof. She demonstrates the solid faith of individuals who live it personally in unique relationships with their Savior.

A good story written very well.

Father, may your blessings rest on Eva Marie as she continues to write stories with impact. Encourage her in ways new to her and keep her writing for your glory. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.