The little miracle in this scene is how author Tony Earley balances the genuine wonder at electrification with the slow realization that while something has been won, so something is lost. “The uncles’ electric lights drew fragile boundaries around their houses; around those boundaries a blackness crept that suddenly seemed as big and powerful as God. Jim had never noticed the darkness before.” The bigger miracle is that there are a dozen such scenes in this deceptively quiet, beautifully wrought evocation of childhood.
The story opens on Jim’s 10th birthday and ends a year later. In that time, Jim sees the ocean for the first time, plays ball in front of a stopped passenger train that might or might not have Ty Cobb on board, visits his dying grandfather and watches a traveling salesman court his widowed mother. But the apparent casualness of the plot masks extraordinary craft. Concentrating on the small events that make up a life, Earley has wired together almost every one of these seemingly inconsequential moments. By the end of the book, the life of this boy and his family blaze at you like a whole town of lights.
Jim the BoyTony Earley (Little, Brown) 227 pages. $23.95
