BOOK REVIEW - NANCY KLANN-MOREN: THE CLOCK OF LIFE

The Clock Of Life by Nancy Klann-Moren
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

(Reviewer's note - I am a writer and freelance reviewer. I received no compensation or inducement to review this book. Thank you. vmls)

Nancy Klann-Moren’s The Clock of Life is a rich, wonderful story with a distinctive flavor and narrative, engaging characters, and written with a compassion for some of the darkest days in the history of America.

*

The Clock of Life is an excellent historical fiction, which takes place in the American South in the last quarter of the 20th century. Reminiscent of To Kill A Mockingbird in many respects, The Clock of Life is a “coming-of-age" story about a young boy growing up in a small town in Mississippi. It is a story of truth and freedom… of injustice and inequality.

Told in ‘first-person’, in a clear, compelling voice, Jason Lee, the son of deceased Vietnam War veteran JL Rainey recounts his growing up in Hadlee, Mississippi during a time of much unrest in America. The Vietnam War and the civil rights movement had a profound and lasting impact on much of the country and Jason Lee's 'world' bears much of the brunt of that… a world where racism and intolerance runs deep. Jason Lee learns a great deal about his father and the kind of man he really was through stories from others. It is from these stories that a yearning grows.

In his befriending of a black schoolmate, Jason Lee - through many trials -grows in both character and spirit, learning and appreciating the meaning and value of friendship, freedom and tolerance for others in a society that often takes freedom for granted and does not fully appreciate the sacrifices of those who went before… those who fought and died to secure and ensure freedom for all… and a society that too often turns a blind eye to tolerance and acceptance, unable or unwilling to stand up to injustice and inequality.

Jason Lee wants to be like his father.

Ghosts of the past and the realities of a society rife with injustice and inequality, Jason Lee faces many challenges – not least among them broken hearts and the loss of a very close friend - and while [growing up] he doesn't always make the right decisions, Jason Lee, like the rest of us - especially those who also grew up in that time - learns and grows from his mistakes. He learns that while the 'right thing' isn't always the easiest thing to do… it is the right thing to do.

Jason Lee is becoming the man his father would have been proud to call son.

*

The author brings a strong narrative style, a very definitive sense of place and a stunning eye for the idiosyncrasies of rural life in the American South to The Clock of Life. Page after page is rich with a flavor that rings true for anyone growing up in that same period and place. One of the greatest strengths of this story, I feel, is the dialogue, with its finely-balanced dialectal quality, which adds to the overall imagery through-out the story.

There is a realism and depth to the characters in The Clock of Life that is sadly lacking in a lot of the fiction on today's market. Historical fiction especially demands richness in character, place and plot. Nancy achieves all three with such seeming ease that one forgets that this is her very first novel.

A minor scene perhaps, but like countless other 'little' scenes throughout the novel, Jason Lee and Samson's first shared experience with moonshine really struck a chord with this reader; in that relatively short passage is a great deal of truth.

A constant thread through-out The Clock of Life is the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War… both times of bitter conflict in which many lost their moral compass, some never to regain it... and the inequality and injustice those events engendered, and the scars left behind.

The Clock of Life is a powerful and thought-provoking morality play, if I may use that phrase, which will have a lasting impact on the reader. I came away from this story with many of the same feelings I had after the first time I read To Kill A Mockingbird. Nancy has written a humbling and inspiring tale of the courage and the strength of the human spirit, a story that evokes in the reader a broad range of emotions and hopefully, a degree of compassion and understanding for our fellow citizens.

If there is one thing we can take away from this story, it is this….

It is one thing to know the difference between right and wrong; that’s something we all learned in the third grade. It is quite another thing to have the courage and conviction of one’s beliefs and to live one’s life for the betterment of mankind and to have empathy and compassion for the family of man. Freedom isn’t free and justice isn’t blind. We should not live our lives with the presumption that freedom doesn’t have a cost and that justice can be dispensed equally with eyes shut.

Nancy has earned numerous accolades – among them, her debut novel was a finalist in the 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards - for The Clock of Life, which should come as no surprise, and her novel has been adopted by the Los Medanos College’s English Department, to be taught in the school’s freshman writing classes.

The Clock of Life is a "must-read" and I recommend it without hesitation. Thank you, Nancy, for a thoroughly engaging story… one that will stay with the reader for a long, long time.


Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw
6 August 2013
(Writing under a large mushroom, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest)

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VICKI ABELSON’S WRITING CHALLENGE 2 – WHAT SCARES YOU?: SECRETS

In Vicki Ableson's second 30 Day Writing Challenge, we are supposed to write about what scares us.  This is going to be an interesting 30 days.  Dr. Kay is back on speed-dial.

~*~

Day 5 of Vicki's WC2...

There are three kinds of secrets.

The kind you tell no one... the kind you tell only your closest friend... and the ones that you don't even know yourself that you carry.

While working on my memoir recently, I had a revelation... breakthrough... epiphany, whatever you want to call it.  That revelation didn't scare me so much - I think deep down inside, beyond where even my demons could dredge it up, I was aware of it, even if it was just an indistinct shadow on my consciousness - as did the realization that there might be more.  There might be, in all likelihood were, other secrets... hiding deep inside the recesses of my mind.  Little bombs, tucked away, waiting to go off... waiting for that 'trigger' to be pushed.

Secrets I don't even know I have.

When Tina and I first met, I told her everything... everything I knew... everything that had happened... everything that I remembered.  I held nothing back.  She got me warts and all... a 'battle-scarred' mind and body that was a 'minefield’ which took months to navigate around; to find safe places to touch.

But we both knew that there were holes in my memory... dark spaces that had refused to give up their secrets.  The revelation I recently had, and one like it several months ago, are those holes finally giving up their secrets. 

Are there more?  

When you look out in your backyard and see a single mole hole, chances are better than good that there is more than one mole, right?

We all have secrets that we are aware of.  The emotions attached to those secrets are no surprise.  But what about the secrets we aren't yet aware we are carrying?

Should we be afraid of those?  

Should those scare us?

If not, then why do they remain hidden from even ourselves?

~*~

Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw
14 April 2013
(Writing under a large mushroom, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest)

VICKI ABELSON’S WRITING CHALLENGE 2 – WHAT SCARES YOU?: I AM MY PARENTS’ CHILD

In Vicki Ableson's second 30 Day Writing Challenge, we are supposed to write about what scares us.  This is going to be an interesting 30 days.  Dr. Kay is back on speed-dial.

~*~

Day 3 of Vicki's WC2...

~*~

I'm definitely my mother's daughter... it's a little spooky sometimes, how much of her is in me.  She taught me so many things, she gave me so much... her courage and strength... strong sense of duty to the family of man... empathy, compassion... respect for self and others... so much....

Yes, I'm my mother's daughter.  I take a tremendous amount of pride in that.  It also scares me.

Why?

My mother died of breast cancer and while that doesn't mean I will, it does tip the scales the wrong way.  I've already had one scare.

It's one of the things I, like far too many other women, carry.  We can't put it down or set it aside like a handbag that has fallen out of fashion.

We pray for wisdom and we pray for strength.... that the other things we carry will keep us and guide us... and that love, not fear, will rule our lives.

Not everything we carry is a burden... such as hope.

"Hope is like the sun, which as we journey towards it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us." ~ Samuel Smiles

~~****~~

Day 4 of Vicki's WC2 -

~*~

Still on that "What scares you" thing, are we?  Hmmm...

When I was little girl... about 4, I think... there was big storm and wind one night.  A big coffee tree grew outside my bedroom and the wind pushed the branches against my window, making scratching sounds.  It scared me... I thought something was trying to get in.  Papa came to my room and calmed me.  He showed me what was making the noise... his voice, strong yet gentle, so reassuring... and we stood at the window, watching the wind and limbs moving.  And, I wasn't scared anymore.

After that, whenever I would hear that sound, I knew what it was... it no longer scared me.  Although, later when my best friend Talia and I started having sleep-overs, we would 'fire up' our imaginations and try to 'scare' each other.  Haha!

It's not always the 'unknown' that scares us... and it's not always the 'known'... I think it has more to do with context and how past experiences have coloured our lives...

My heart still gives a little lurch whenever I see a black Jeep and for just a few seconds... a little touch of fear... until I can see the driver's face and see that it isn't him.

I know it isn't him... I watched him die.  I know my fear is irrational... fear often is.

It's also what keeps us alive.

~*~

Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw

12 April 2013

(Writing under a large mushroom, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest)

VICKI ABELSON’S WRITING CHALLENGE 2 – WHAT SCARES YOU?: LOSING MY FATHER

In Vicki Ableson's second 30 Day Writing Challenge, we are supposed to write about what scares us.  This is going to be an interesting 30 days.  I wonder if I need to put Dr. Kay back on speed-dial?

~*~

Write about what scares us?  What we are afraid of?  Well, that’s no fun.  How about we write about what makes us happy?  No?  Geez… I’d rather write about my sex life than what scares me.  Hey, I could do that!  Be a lot of CAPS and !!!!  I could write about this thing Tina that does… or maybe my first experience… with Amanda… out on the island?

No?  Gotta be what scares us, huh?  Well, all right then… *sighs*

So, what scares me?  Not a lot.  After the ordeal I went through and the aftermath… the aftershocks of which I feel to this day... the scars fade but never really go away… yeah, not a lot I am afraid of.  Afraid of drowning, but I keep swimming.  Not really afraid of spiders… the little fucks freak me out but I don’t really fear them.  Not afraid of dying… all part of the journey… no, I don’t fear my own mortality.

No, not really anything that does scare me…

“Nothing, Veronica? Really?”

Damn! I hate that voice!

Yeah, okay… okay… you want to know what scares me?

My father… the thought of losing him.  That scares the fuck out of me.  Most of the demons from my past are quiet now… as quiet as they are going to be… and I don’t lose a lot of sleep over them.  No, what wakes me in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, heart thudding in my chest, is the thought of losing my father… again.

I know… the rational part of me knows this… that children lose their parents.  That is just the order of things.  These mortal coils… these fragile cocoons that we occupy… are only good for so long.  They were designed for our time here in this plane of existence.

Time is a fire in which we all burn and eventually the heat of that fire burns through and we pass from this plane to the next.  Rationally, I know this... as a person gets older, their time passes and they draw closer to their end.  The people in our lives who are older will leave us one day.  We will mourn... we will miss them... we will continue our journey until one day, we too will leave loved ones behind.

Children outlive their parents.  It’s a rule and in the grand scale of things, there are few exceptions.

So, I know that one day Papa will be gone.  I have accepted that, at least as much as any child accepts that at some point in time, death is going to cross their path and take a loved one.

My father left my mother and me when I was ten.  It would be fifteen years before I saw him again.  Fifteen years... most of which was spent trying to accept that he was gone and that I would never see him again.  I got good at it.

And when I had finally given up all hope and my mother was now two years gone, my father came back into my life.

I don't think there was ever one single day, or even a single moment, when I hated my father for leaving.  Ten years old is too young to hate and by the time I was old enough to fully appreciate that emotion, the pain of his absence had faded.  I didn't hate him.  And, I had learned not to miss him.

Until he came back into my life.  Then I hated him.  The heat of my hate would have turned forests to ash.  But... the heat of my hate was too hot to sustain.

For the last three years, my father and I have worked on reconciliation.  We have, for the most part, put the past behind us.  And, we have a lot of time to make up for.

I can't lose him now... I can't!

But I know I will.

And that scares the fuck out of me.

So... that is what I will write about for the next 30 days.  The things that scare me.

And maybe at the end of those 30 days... I won't be as scared.

~*~

~*~

Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw

10 April 20132

(Writing under a large mushroom, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest)