Story for the Week
When I was in college, I was actively involved in our Campus Ministry program. I grew up going to church every week, made my Confirmation, participated in youth group, went to church camp. I wasn’t raised Catholic, but I went to a Catholic college, not because I wanted to go to a religious college but because they had a good journalism program. But it was natural for me to get involved in Campus Ministry.
I didn’t go to Mass every week when I was in college. I don’t go to church every week now (or I didn’t before the pandemic), but I’ve always tried to live my faith, be a good person, not blame God for the bad things that happen in life or for my own bad choices, and always believing that He knows I’m a good person even when I don’t act like one.
I believe that it’s not the building you go to, it’s not the action of going to church that demonstrates your belief. It’s the way you carry out each and every day. And when we have a not-so-great day, we get a do-over the next if we’re truly sorry for the not-so-great way we acted the day before.
One of my favorite stories from the Bible is the story of Job. Short version, Job never strays from praising God. Satan makes a bet with God that Job only praises Him because he has been blessed with wealth and a loving family and that if God would allow Satan to take things away, Job would turn away from God. Satan is allowed to do whatever he wants except to take Job’s life, and despite everything he loses (his wealth, his family, his own health), Job never sways from his faith. He is rewarded with the return of everything along with additional wealth.
I blogged before about my trip to Tunica County in If Only Fiction Could Become Reality, where I met people who lived with nothing but believed that they stood to inherit great wealth in Heaven. Even though that trip had a huge impact on me, it was a one-off. There were other activities I participated in on a more regular basis, one of which was almost monthly trips into Chicago to man a homeless shelter overnight. A van full of college students would arrive at the men’s shelter in the early evening. We would greet them, feed them, get them settled, and then take shifts so that someone was always awake if the residents needed anything.
One month, they asked for volunteers to go to the women’s shelter, and I opted to go. That evening, I met a woman who came in a little inebriated, so she needed some help getting settled on her cot. She was quite talkative, and she started telling me how she ended up homeless. She had been a high school Spanish teacher. When she lost her job, she eventually ended up being evicted from her home, and she didn’t have anywhere to go. And it’s hard to find a job when you don’t have an address or an outfit to interview in or a place to print a resume. (This was long before the days when resumes were submitted online.) With as much as she had lost, however, she still believed that God was good and that things would turn around for her.
That evening has stuck with me. I was only a freshman, nowhere near graduation, counting on my degree to set me up for success in a career. I have never forgotten that anyone can find themselves in a tough situation. I know there are some who believe that it’s their own fault, they make bad decisions, that they somehow “deserve” it. Sometimes they do make bad decisions (which is a huge theme in the book I reviewed here), and sometimes it’s just one piece of bad luck.
There, but for the grace of God, go I.
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 stars for The Same Ledge by Daniel James
284 pages
Publication Date: June 2, 2020
Purchased on Amazon
Publisher’s Description
Behind the postcard imagery of London, the darkest parts of the city house some of the saddest stories.
When Michael met Cameron, they were two boys who shared a bond and a ledge, an escape from their turbulent and violent home lives. But when Michael leaves, their lives drift apart into dramatically different directions until the events of the past bring them back together. They are no longer boys, but the ledge remains. Can they save themselves? Can they save one another?
This raw debut from Daniel James is a literary fiction that delves into fragile friendships, social inequality and mental health.
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Trigger Warning: suicide, physical abuse, drug abuse
The Same Ledge is the debut novel from Daniel James. I “met” Daniel recently because we both follow the #writingcommunity on Twitter, and we were both invited to a “bookish” chat group. Most of the people in the group are in the UK, so I spend a lot of time catching up on conversations that occur overnight. There are lots of topics, not all of them books, but one day we were talking about NetGalley, and the conversation came around to Daniel mentioning that he had only been an author for a couple of weeks. So of course, I started looking for his book. 😁
He eventually had to send me the link because apparently there’s more than one author named Daniel James (go figure), and the book looked interesting, so I promised him I would make it next on my to-be-read list.
I’m so glad I did, and I hope he’ll be writing more.
The book is told from the perspectives of Michael and Cameron, childhood friends with similar dysfunctional home lives. They are inseparable, Michael being the smaller follower and Cameron being the bigger defender. They spend their time in school together, and Cameron is a constant presence at Michael’s home after school. They spend a lot of time on the roof of the apartment building with their legs dangling over the ledge, watching what’s happening below.
As they get older, Michael’s life takes him away from home in a different direction. I don’t want to give away too much of what happens to Michael and Cameron. It is harsh. It is raw. It is tragic.
And this book is fantastic!
To be honest, I thought the first 35% or so was slow going, and I remember telling my daughter that I wasn’t sure about this one. It is a slow build with more description than dialog. There’s pretty regular use of the c*** word (which I generally dislike), but as I said, this is a harsh story and the harsh dialog is effective.
This is not a light read. It is one of those stories that you have to work at, but it is so so worth it at the end. I flew through the last 65% of the book in less than a day, and I remember literally gasping out loud at one point near the end. (You’ll know when you get there.)
Finally, I respect the author’s acknowledgement after the epilogue that the book explores issues that have impacted his life, so I want to close this review the way he closed the book: “Sometimes life is difficult. Please remember to reach out before you drown, you are not alone. There are people that understand, there are people there to help you.”
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