Labor Day--what a great read!

An escaped convict convinces a young teen and his mother to take him in, and instantly the reader is pulled into the world of this novel--one I just discovered although it was first published in 2009. (Finding this book was one of the benefits of diving deep into Amazon's categories while researching category placements for my forthcoming novel.)

In Labor Day, by Joyce Maynard, thirteen-year-old Henry is approached by a bleeding stranger on one of his rare shopping trips with his depressed but loving mother, Adele. The two agree to take Frank home with them, where they learn that Frank needs a place to hide while he heals.

Frank knows the danger he is placing them in. That first night, as the heat outside infiltrates the house, he ties Adele up. That way, Frank explains, if anyone questions them, they'll be able to answer truthfully--that he forced them to help him. But the truth is far more complex, for although Frank was convicted of murder, he is at heart a kind man, and both Adele and Henry fall under his spell. By the end of the weekend, Frank and Adele are in love, and planning their escape to Canada.

I hate that sense of dread a plot like this gives me--that knowledge that this is just not going to end well. There were times when I dreaded reading, knowing that bad things were going to happen, and very soon.

The remarkable thing, though, is that while the police prevent their escape, and while Frank is sentenced to an additional 18 years in prison for kidnapping Adele and Henry, the author doesn't dwell on this. Instead, we see Adele begin to emerge from her shell, and Henry as well. The lessons Henry learned from Frank--from how to make a peach pie to how to throw a baseball--see Henry past a rather miserable and isolated childhood into an easier adolescence and an eventual career as a baker. Years later, a letter arrives from Frank, and the happy ending these characters deserved finally arrives.

So often the basic message of a literary novel is that the world is a miserable place, and that suffering happens, and that we might as well just give up now, pausing only to appreciate the elegant writing which the author has so graciously allowed us to read. This book hit the sweet spot for me, because the writing was graceful, the characters were flawed and complex and captivating, and then the plot allowed them to earn their happiness.

Perhaps I've read one-too-many romance novels, and just can't handle an unhappy ending. (And yes, I hear you. There is no such thing as too many romance novels, even if some of them are just as poorly written as the nay-sayers would have readers believe.) But at my core, I want to believe that a happy ending is possible, even if it has to be dragged out of the ruins of a terrible situation. I want to believe in redemption and joy and finding a way past tragedy to something on the far side. Even if life doesn't always give us that option, I want to keep believing.

A novel like this one lets me do so.