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Dark of the Center Line
Abraham Jacobsen is misfit for this world. His peculiar gifts have cursed him with a past of good deeds he cannot escape, with dreams and visions he cannot explain, with a future as stone-set as the etchings on a grave marker. Now, just as he has found a suitable place to loose his haunted thoughts in the outer blanks of rural Illinois, Abraham finds himself the prime suspect in the murder of a local girl. He is edged in upon by a priest who wants to see him canonized, an ancient vigilante group with ties to the county's founding fathers, the dead girl's farmer father, and local law enforcement. In his roving, Abraham has burned up the road of life in both directions, scorching and scarring as many as he has helped or healed. And the journey has only taken him deeper within the dark of the center line, into a country nothing-world of fields, farms, and roads, a place that seems peopled with his own inner demons and bad memories. But does the dark of the center line lead somewhere too? WINNER of the 2017 International Book Award in the "Visionary Fiction" category.
224 pages, Paperback
Published March 25, 2016
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 8, 2016
The main story arc is a grisly murder mystery, but there's more to it.
We follow Abraham, a seemingly ambivalent main character/suspect, who may be capable of contradictory acts of violence and healing. He is followed closely by a supporting characters, who--along with the reader--struggle to figure out Abraham's M.O. He is neither hero nor antihero. Rather, a man who has followed a strange path to present time & place. We find him wandering through life, world-weary, yet introspective.. unafraid, but not resigned.. friendly enough, but not nice.
Perhaps the real main character is the setting: Midsummer in modern rural East-Central Illinois. The places are real, though not unlike myriad other pockets of the Midwestern landscape. These are the places and small towns you "pass through." It's the kind of place with its own local folklore, unsolved mysteries, entrenched bloodlines and corresponding ways of life. What if you didn't pass through, but stayed put? At least long enough to absorb the peculiar atmosphere and whatever has been simmering below the surface since long before you showed up.
Weishaar's writing captures that subtle, slow, sinking feeling you get when "out there among the corn" transmutes into "out here among the corn." It's unshakeable, unsettling, and ethereal enough to keep you wondering if it's something in the air or if it's in all in your head.
There's plenty that Dark of the Center Line shows to the reader, and a lot that it doesn't, which can feel frustrating at times. Answers to the big, obvious questions can be presumed by book's end. But if you keep thinking about it, or read it twice, even more could be inferred about Abraham and his place in the world.
We follow Abraham, a seemingly ambivalent main character/suspect, who may be capable of contradictory acts of violence and healing. He is followed closely by a supporting characters, who--along with the reader--struggle to figure out Abraham's M.O. He is neither hero nor antihero. Rather, a man who has followed a strange path to present time & place. We find him wandering through life, world-weary, yet introspective.. unafraid, but not resigned.. friendly enough, but not nice.
Perhaps the real main character is the setting: Midsummer in modern rural East-Central Illinois. The places are real, though not unlike myriad other pockets of the Midwestern landscape. These are the places and small towns you "pass through." It's the kind of place with its own local folklore, unsolved mysteries, entrenched bloodlines and corresponding ways of life. What if you didn't pass through, but stayed put? At least long enough to absorb the peculiar atmosphere and whatever has been simmering below the surface since long before you showed up.
Weishaar's writing captures that subtle, slow, sinking feeling you get when "out there among the corn" transmutes into "out here among the corn." It's unshakeable, unsettling, and ethereal enough to keep you wondering if it's something in the air or if it's in all in your head.
There's plenty that Dark of the Center Line shows to the reader, and a lot that it doesn't, which can feel frustrating at times. Answers to the big, obvious questions can be presumed by book's end. But if you keep thinking about it, or read it twice, even more could be inferred about Abraham and his place in the world.
April 15, 2016
Really interesting story but I don't know how to describe it exactly. There is a miracle worker, healings, dwarves, bar fights, songs and more. I suggest you read it and then read it again because there are a lot of great lines to mull over. Solid read for sure. It is a bit disjointed in places, seemingly, but it all starts to make sense by the end.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews