The Bright Forever is about the abduction of a 9 year old girl and how the lives that swirled around her were affected. No. That might be an adequate logline, but it is inadequate to what I think the novel is really about. When I first picked up this novel for my book group, it was my brilliantly beautiful friend Jen’s choice. She is a curator of novels and the best kind of one. She loves it, she lives for stories and they grow well in her. While we aren’t in the same caravan for kind of tale, I appreciate her like all get out, so I knew I was in for something. First read, I dismissed it. For those who read and loved The Lovely Bones like I did, this seemed to be second harvest, grade B maple. Not suitable for table use, but okay for cooking. I thought TLB was definitive and ethereal, and good and right. It was an outstanding end to a story in the way that Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak is an outstanding beginning (that should’ve won the National Book Award, by the way, I’m just saying). But the thing about The Bright Forever is that it nagged on me. It wasn’t the story of the victim; it really belonged to the perpetrators. The novel hinges itself on disconnect. That’s the whole thing. And I had just written a blog post on community, which was, in part, inspired by this novel. Let me explain. The schoolteacher/tutor Henry Dees and vagabond (criminal) ne’er-do-well, Ray Wright forge an unlikely friendship, it explodes into something terrible and misshapen and violates every edge of good that we know to be true. Without one or the other, Katie Mackey, the 9 year old in question, would have still been alive and untouched and golden. She would’ve come back from riding her streamered bicycle from the library where she returned her books and faced the harassment of her older brother, Gilley, and the adoration of her father, Junior and the admiration/exasperation of her mother, Patsy.Instead, what we know or come to know is that her bike chain is off, she is offered a ride from a high Ray and an excited Henry Dees and that she never comes home. What we know is that Henry confesses his love and obsession with Katie to Ray and that Ray offers Henry a chance to fulfill his fantasies. (One of the most disturbing and graphic scenes for me in this novel involves Ray taking Katie’s bare foot in his hands and caressing its instep. Nauseating in its promise of violence and perversion.) What we also know is that Katie had a chance to live, because Ray was ready to let her go with Henry and Henry instead leaves the truck without her. A monumental act of cowardice that can be considered almost parallel in its apathy to the act committed (we believe) to Katie. All of this begins with a friendship, or a promise of one: “So that was how their friendship began, with this moment in the garage when they both admitted, without saying as much, that they were less than satisfied with the way their lives had turned out. They never said the words. They never said ‘lonely.’ They never said ‘afraid’…” (29). What strikes me about the novel then is that this is how loneliness is overcome. In a bond of obsessive desires and malevolent intent. Loneliness brings two men together who may otherwise not escalated to the kidnapping, rape and murder of a child. A lack of connection, the lack of being seen or recognized, brings an act of horror. Henry Dees goes on about his business and is unseen and unknown. People trust him because he fades into their collective background. They dismiss him because he appears benign. Ray Wright is trouble. People see him and feel they know his story. They fear him; the air smells like lies when he comes forward. In the novel then, it is the combination of the troubled seeing the invisible that sparks a catalyst of bad. And I couldn’t help but think of so many other times in our recent history that such combinations have happened. When disconnect becomes the norm, the need to be seen can overwhelm and become violent. Columbine—would Eric Harris have killed without the partnership of fellow outcast Dylan Klebold? Cheshire—would Steven Hayes have committed rape and murder without the encouragement of Joshua Komisarjevsky? What switch isn’t hit? What pain isn’t recognized and attended to that such escalation happens? Henry Dees is just a voyeur for a long time, in love with the Mackeys, in love with Katie that he takes tokens from them as he visits their home to tutor her, a rose petal, hair from her brush, saying “he wished with all his might that there were people in his life who could keep him from loving the world so much while at the same time feeling so far away from it” (47). He just wants to be seen, recognized, counted, made to matter. And the only one close to it is Ray with a bad back-story and an impossible itch that the reader doesn’t quite identify. In fact, if there is a gap in the novel it is that certain narrative threads aren’t developed. Ray is opaque, no real knowing for his predilections. I understand why—sometimes stories cannot contain everything that is set out. Sometimes narratives just end, but it would’ve been interesting to make Ray as dimensional as Henry. The Beautiful Forever isn’t like The Lovely Bones, because it talks around the victim rather than residing with her. And sometimes, as unpleasant as such a journey might seem, it’s a necessary one to take.
"If you want to listen, you’ll have to trust me. Or close the book; go back to your lives. I warn you: this is a story as hard to hear as it is for me to tell."I have very mixed feelings about this book. First and foremost, had this not been assigned for class, I would have taken the character up on his offer and closed the book. This kind of literary device seems amateurish, stemming only from a writer’s insecurity. And unfortunately, it occurred all throughout the book. While I understand it was assigned to the character as one of his traits, it doesn’t make it any less annoying, and I stand firm by my assumption that it was really the writer’s insecurities coming through the character.This book was fairly predictable. It’s about a little girl who goes missing one evening when she goes to return some library books. Martin writes small-town Indiana very well; I could relate, being from small-town Ohio, but at the same time, I wish there would have been a bit more psychology regarding the characters and how the town works.I absolutely loathed one of the characters, Clare. She is a widow who re-married and she is portrayed as being a victim. I understand that she feels like a victim, and that women like her exist, but my feminist heart wishes there would have been some hope for her.I think more fascinating than the story itself is the construction of the novel. One of the characters has chapters of his speech that are only one sentence long—and this is, apparently, the character whose voice he wrote his first draft in. Cutting his speech down to sentences is a complete turn-around, and I think it was beneficial for the book... and makes me wonder if someday I might have to do something as drastic in order to save one of my own novels.The past and present and future are all interwoven together, with one character talking from the future, and then glimpses into what happened the day the girl disappeared, with the present being represented as mystery (although the characters all know what is going to happen, you as a reader don’t).If you like contemporary fiction that has a fair conclusion and a fair amount of mystery, or like books that unfold gently, or are about little girls who go missing (apparently this is becoming a trend??), then this would be a good book for you.
What do You think about The Bright Forever (2006)?
what a disappointment! this book as well as the known world make me wonder what the hell's wrong with the pulitzer people. Martin's novel has the most common, boring prose i've seen in a while. i didnt care for or what happened to any of the characters and the dialogue-especially that of Raymond R. was pathetically annoying. every seedy slang phrase that a b-movie hick hustler would say was put into use- unconvincingly. i guess i dont feel so bad for Martin's lack of talent as i do the inexplicably poor taste of the pulitzer. i actually joined this web site just to say this: IT IS BAD.
—34ler
As I read this hard-to-put-down novel about the disappearance of a much loved little girl I kept wondering how such a harrowing and suspense filled story could also be told with such tenderness. The answer comes from Lee Martin himself in an essay he wrote about small towns. He says writers have the responsibility to tell their stories plainly and with respect for people and the stories they can’t easily tell about themselves. That’s exactly what he has done in this beautifully written novel, set in a small Indiana town in the 70’s and filled with small details that make the town itself come alive – especially for anyone who has ever spent much time in a rural Mid-western town. The traumatic story of nine-year old Katie Mackey’s disappearance one summer night is told from the perspective of multiple characters including the town itself and the people who knew and loved her, as well as the two men who quickly emerge as suspects in the crime that has been committed. Among other things the novel invites us to consider the consequences of small and seemingly insignificant choices and remarks (if only Katy’s brother wouldn’t have mentioned that she hadn’t taken her library books back that day, her dad wouldn’t have insisted that she do it that night – the night she disappeared.) What impressed me the most about this novel was how much the author cared about each one of the characters he was creating – not only the ones that were easy for us to like, but also the imperfect ones we were quick to judge and condemn. Martin’s people are flawed, needy, broken, cowardly, and unable to control their passions and obsessions. They were not very likable and yet there was something about them that reminded me of how important it is to remember the words of whoever it was (Philo of Alexandria?) who said “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a huge battle.” The people in this book were fighting huge battles – dealing with grief, guilt, addiction, obsession, insecurity, loneliness and fear. Martin has giving them voices for telling their terrible and heartbreaking stories in a way that invites us to consider the responsibility we all have to help bear one another’s burdens. If I were to find one word to sum up the underlying theme that runs through this tender yet terrifying novel it would be: compassion.
—Trisha
I did not know what I was getting myself into when I started this book. It was a random grab off of the library shelves. And I'm glad I read it, but just was not prepared for the heartache.(66) Deliberately and carefully choosing the life he would one day have. It would be a life of comfort and distinction.(88) If you can't solve a problem, then there's an easier problem you can't solve. Find it. (116) In the light of all the worlds misery, who was anyone to wish for an ounce more than they had? (126) All those people passing by him, and none of them knew what had happened.Isn't that just the way it goes when something extraordinary happens to you??(227) People like Clare and me, we've never been anything. Now our lives are too much for us. We don't know how to act.Clare broke my heart. She was so worried about people hating her, blaming her, etc. And she was the most innocent of the bunch.(266) "Did you ever tell him that? Tell him that you saw him, that you felt something about what it was to have his kind of life? ... He might have liked to have heard it."Thought provoking. Made me think through the people in my life who these characters reminded me of, and wonder, what can I do? What should I do?
—Ann Olson
