Into the Fire

Some of you who’ve attended a Christian college or university might have experienced a rude awakening. Not all who attend know Jesus. And if they’ve known Him, not all will follow Him at school or off campus. As in many cases across our country, the siren song of independence that comes with “going away to school”, even if that simply means living on campus instead of at home, brings with it a new reality and a potentially very different world. In Admission, published by Moody Publishers, Travis Thrasher presents Jake Rivers and his friends at large on a Christian college campus with little or no intention of following rules and buckling down to study for their degrees. As the story unfolds, the title makes me first think of the process for “admission” to any college or university, and then makes me wonder just exactly why these young men chose this particular one, but in the aftermath of their final spring break together, the admission Jake seeks is far greater than the requirements list to being accepted at a school.

I attended the University of Washington for a year and a quarter. That last quarter was after my three month adventure to Europe and constituted one class. School wasn’t my thing even though I did well in it. My worst dreams, and they’ve been reoccurring, consist of being back in school, being late to a class because I can’t find it, etc. You know the kind. When I didn’t get any of the classes I wanted for the following spring quarter, I found a way to work with horses. Race horses. Over thirty years later, we have two in the back “yard”, and I’m done working. Yay! The point being I didn’t meet a lot of Jakes and Carnies and Alecs at college, but I certainly met them at the racetrack over the years.

Admission follows the rebellious Jake and his even more wild and unpredictable “best” friend Alec through their binges and ventures which consist of mostly drinking and smoking but occasionally requiring the assistance of a few drugs. One of their friends, Carnie, the big quiet guy whose words are measured and usually hit a home run when he decides to be vocal, becomes distant and unavailable after a few parties and events that seem to go way the wrong way.

In the midst of all the trouble Jake manages to get into, he meets his dream girl who happens to take the “rules” of both college and Christianity quite seriously. Jake’s fun-loving, fun-defending antics serve only to alienate her even though “something” exists between them, something Jake definitely yearns for without wanting to scale down any of his lifestyle.

When Jake winds up in the hospital, Alec decides to plan a spring break to remember, but eleven years later Jake is forced to face what he absolutely cannot remember about that “camping trip” with his buddies. When Jake accepts an unusual “job” to find a man’s daughter last seen with his old “friend” Alec, strange things happen to the old friends he finds in order to search for Alec. Through the journey backward to those days, Jake and the friends he locates must confront the event that changed their young lives forever.

Travis paces this story perfectly taking the reader back and forth from the rip-roaring drunken escapades of boys and a few girls with no regard for rules and little respect for authorities forward to the present-day Jake and his friends “all grown up”. Jake’s honest and significant transformation makes a quiet but bold statement for real change, and by the time we get to the end and admission of this strange mystery in his life, we’re both relieved and hopeful that Jake’s stance will ultimately impact his old friends in some lasting way and that Jake can finally make peace with himself about his regrets and find the love he always wanted but wasn’t ready to receive.

Once again, even though this novel was published in 2006, Travis Thrasher delivers a poignant and realistic account of a group of young people who think they can live “free” while being in total bondage. If you’ve got a son or daughter or young friend who’s headed away to college, this book should be required reading. Telling it like it is, Travis doesn’t shrink back from the dirty details. There’s so much truth in this story, revealing the shallow consciences or pious judgments of different sets of young adults who often grow out of these things—or sadly never do. Some people prefer being disillusioned.

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Father, thank you for the honesty seen in Travis’s writing. Thank you for the courage he displays in showing both sides of humanity. Thank you that he allows the gospel to be present without pressure. Thank you for the talent you’ve given him. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.