Fourth of July Creek

Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great character novel. Pete is a social worker in a backwoods town in the early 80s, and though he tries to do right by his clients, it's not always easy to know what the right thing is. He tries hard, but he is flawed as well. Everyone is a little rough around the edges, so there are some difficult scenes...social work is not pretty. Henderson also plays with literature rules, (changing tenses in a sentence, suddenly omitting commas), that can be a little distracting, but overall works. There is such wonderful pacing throughout the book that the ending comes suddenly and not explained fully to my satisfaction. Wonderfully drawn themes of betrayal, God, family and forgiveness. Beautiful imagery.

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Such a pretty picture Rachel, Beth, and Pete made, as ideal as a water molecule, hydrogen, hydrogen, oxygen.