Light from Distant Stars by Shawn Smucker

When Cohen Marah steps over the body of his dead father on a cold spring morning, he steps into a labyrinth of memory. In the week that follows, he must confront his traumatic past, a violent present, and the most frightening question of all-did he kill his father?

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About The Author

I think everyone’s looking for a place in the world – not a physical location as much as an emotional one. Just a tiny bit of space to set up shop, to exist.
Life hinted at where that space would be for me when I was a small boy and books picked me up and carried me away. If you came looking for me in the mid-80s you would have found me sitting on a large porch attached to a ramshackle farmhouse, reading about Narnia or the Shire, brushing away the flies, constantly saying, “Okay, mom, just one more chapter.”
But then, normal life, with all of its misleading promises and plastic desires, got in the way. I wandered. Geographically, I went to a hot city in Florida, an old village in England, and then back to Virginia. Emotionally, I traveled even further. Finally, after ten years of searching, I found stories again. Or maybe they found me.
Now I live in that place I was always trying to find. I wake up beside my beautiful wife, Maile. I make breakfast for my six children. I spend the rest of the day capturing stories, doing what Steinbeck called the impossible: trying to explain the inexplicable. Trying to transplant stories from my mind to yours.

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My Review

This is such a deep story, and filled with emotions, and aching for a child/man, and all the while wondering if he did kill his father?
It did take me a bit to get into this book, but I’m sure glad that I did, a read that soon had me page-turning.
The main character Cohen deals with the ultimate child abuse, his to some extent, but others that his heart cannot take, and we relive this with him.
A book that you need to take your time with, there is death and rebirth here, and salvation. A story that will give you chills, and keep you warm at the same time, and at the end, you know that life continues.

I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Revell, and was not required to give a positive review.