Billy Beasley, Home (Abbeyville, SC: Moonshine Press, 2022), 234 pages.
Things just don’t seem to go Trent Mullins way. Never able to please his father, he has stopped trying. Two different women have broken his heart (and one of them twice). Depression has set in. To break out of the depression, without pills, Trent finishes up his business in Wrightsville Beach and leaves everyone behind, including his high school age son, and heads to Brunswick, Georgia. Most people don’t even know where he’s at, except Jackson, one of his friends. In Brunswick, he manages a small marina and lives in a small, isolated house out by the water. His landlords are a black couple who run a restaurant in Dylan Town. Then the call comes. Trent learns his father is dying. He heads back to Wilmington where he’s forced to face and make peace with his past. But where is Trent’s home? Where is our home?
Billy Beasley weaves a good story. Like his other stories, this one is set mostly around Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach, a place where I lived from age 9 to 24. The other setting, along the Georgia Coast, is a place I lived for six and a half years. And even though Dylan Town isn’t a real place, there are similar towns along the Georgia coastal plain. All one must do to find them is to gets off Interstate 95 and travel the backwoods roads lined with live oaks draped in Spanish moss.
This is Beasley’s fourth book and I’ve read them all. This is also the third book I reviewed in this blog. The others I’ve reviewed here include The Girl in the River and The Preacher’s Letter. In addition to exploring family themes, like his other books, this one also explores friendships across racial lines. Without being preachy, Beasley also interjects his faith into the story. My only criticism of the book is that Beasley spends a little too much time telling us what is going on in Trent’s mind. Showing instead of telling us what he’s thinking would have strengthened parts of the book.
Two weeks ago, when I was in Wilmington for Williston’s 9th Grade Center 50th Anniversary project, I was also able to attend Beasley’s book release party at Noni Bacca winery the next afternoon. I was glad to go as I caught with another friend from high school that I haven’t seen since graduation. I have known Billy since the fourth grade and generally, when I’m in town, we’ll meet up for coffee or a beer.
I loved the book signing picture, Jeff! Such a happy moment for an author.
Where is home? Good question. I couldn’t wait to get out of Nova Scotia, and now when I think of home, I think of Smith’s Cove, Nova Scotia even though I could never live there year round now. My mother referred to that as “being buried in the Cove.” She wanted out desperately, too. Yet my heart returns to the area daily. That’s where generations of my roots are. Where I feel connected to my ancestors.
But I’ve lived more than half my life in Colorado, so home is always Colorado, and the geography of my heart is the Four Corners region.
A simple answer is Terry is my home. Wherever he is that’s home for me ~ Not that he’s been able to pry me from our physical home to move to another place. I’m as stubborn as a barnacle on a rock. I love our house. This rolling stone loves her little townhome with all of her heart.
I believe that hearts can expand indefinitely, so there’s room in mine to love all my homes.
Sounds a good book.
Always nice to meet up with old classmates too.
All the best Jan
I need to look back at your reviews and see which one I’d like to start with. Perhaps you have a favorite?
“A River Hideaway” is my favorite.
To my knowledge, none of my former classmates has written a book. You’re lucky to have such a prolific friend!!
As far as I know, Billy is the only elementary school classmate to write a book. I have several classmates from higher ed who later wrote books, but they are all non-fiction or poetry.
Sounds like you really like his books which is great.
Yeah, I’m glad he is able to tell a story well, otherwise I would have to make an excuse for not reading them
Thanks for the review, Jeff. I will pass it along to the reader in the family that enjoys this genre. Glad you were able to connect with some old classmates.
Thanks for passing it on. But I think I heard a rumor that you recently read a book, right?
I read Girl in the River at your suggestion and really liked it. This one sounds good. I like Bill’s mix of action, drama, and topics that are around all of us.
I’d forgotten that you read “A Girl in the River”. Thanks, he does vary the pace well.My mind doesn’t think in fiction enough to write like that.