“The past wasn’t all a lie, and the future isn’t all hopeless,” he went on. “That’s the way people on that island feel now, like they’re in one camp or the other. Either everything was bad or everything will be bad, right?”
It’s pretty rare for me to embrace a book whose message I’m not sure I like. But such is the power of Michael Koryta’s An Honest Man. (I reviewed another book called An Honest Man the other day. This was the result of a confusion on my part, when I was attempting to buy this one.) It’s a beautiful book that will linger with the reader.
Israel Pike went to prison some years back for killing his own father in a fit of rage. Now he’s paroled and back in his home, the moribund community of Salvation Point Island off the Maine coast. He has almost no friends there, not even his uncle, the assistant sheriff, who in fact hates him and is trying to find an excuse to send him back to prison.
One morning Israel sees a yacht drifting offshore, and rows out to check on it. Inside he finds the bodies of seven men, all shot to death. Naturally, Israel’s uncle points to him as the most likely suspect, but he can’t pin it on him.
But there are things Israel isn’t telling the police. He has secrets, and he knows more than he’s telling. But then, the whole community is hiding its own wicked secrets.
Meanwhile, a young boy named Lyman Rankin is living on a smaller, nearby island with his alcoholic, abusive father. When Lyman discovers a wounded young woman hiding in an abandoned house nearby, he puts himself at risk to help her and keep her secret. A bond develops between the two, even as his father grows increasingly suspicious and brutal.
An Honest Man is not only an exciting and well-constructed thriller. It’s also a heartbreakingly beautiful story about truth and beauty. It moved me deeply.
It also troubled me. One theme of this story seemed to be that lying is not only permissible, but admirable, in the right situation. (I’d like to hear the author debate Jordan Peterson, who says lies invariably come back to bite you.)
On the other hand, another theme seems to be that big, widespread, agreed-upon lies are wicked and must be brought to light.
In any case, An Honest Man was an amazing book to read. I give it the highest recommendation. Cautions for all you’d expect.