Rick Dewhurst is a writer who confounds me, to a great degree. I wasn’t sure what to do with his mystery, Bye Bye, Bertie, which I reviewed a while back, and now I’m not sure what to do with The Darkest Valley, a very different sort of book. Bye Bye, Bertie was a farce. The Darkest Valley is a tragedy. Neither is easily classified or compared with anything else I’ve read (or you either, in all likelihood).
Tom Pollard is a pastor in the island town of Cowichan, British Columbia. He’s barely hanging on in his ministry. The elders are on the point of kicking him out, and the street ministry center he fought to establish has borne little fruit, but has become a heavy burden with which he gets little help. His only success is Will Joseph, a young Cowichan Indian man. Will dreams of going away to Bible school, but lives in fear that his father, who follows the old ways, will have him kidnapped and brainwashed.
Meanwhile Tom’s wife Ruby is dying of cancer, dreaming of a miracle but worn down with pain, bitterness, and guilt. Tom and Ruby become friends with Jesse Thornton, editor of the local paper, who holds Christians generally in contempt but is avidly pursuing a young woman who attends Tom’s church.
The only thing I can really tell you about the course of the story is that it won’t go where you think it will. This book is true to life, not to Christian fiction conventions. I think that, in Flannery O’Conner fashion, God’s grace is at work in the shadows here, but to be frank the whole thing’s kind of depressing.
The writing isn’t bad, but Pastor Dewhurst needs to watch his homonyms (reigning/reining, tow/toe), and sometimes his sentences are poorly constructed. I’ve seen worse, but I’m pretty sure this author could do better. Also the book is told in alternating streams of consciousness, a technique that bores me after a while.
I recommend The Darkest Valley for Christians eager to struggle with very profound questions of faith. Not for casual entertainment.
I got my review copy free.