Luke hasn’t heard from his father in several years and for that he is glad. He has a successful photography career, and new life. His childhood was tainted by his mother’s addiction to sleeping pills. His father kept waiting for his mom to conquer this addiction, but she took too many pills one day and didn’t wake up. This leads Luke’s father into a downward spiral with alcohol, which lead to a father and son estrangement that had lasted several years.
That was until Luke receives a call from a man in New Orleans, the city that has been recently devastated by hurricane Katrina. His father settled in the city, playing and writing music, and his friends are looking for his missing father in the wreckage. Though, Luke hesitates to become involved with his father, he heads down to New Orleans not expecting much of a reunion, but while there he might just find that his father found a second chance.
Recovering Charles takes place in New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. I was really impressed with the amount of detail the author used when describing the city and how it was affected in this disaster. Specific streets and sections of the city and all the logistics involved in recovering from such a massive wave of destruction seem to be portrayed accurately. Though, since I’ve never been to New Orleans I can’t say for sure. I found the beginning of the book to be a little slow since it recaps all of the news reports on television. It was my curiosity about a picture on the wall of his office that intrigued me. I wanted to know the story behind it so I kept reading, and I got a total surprise when I learned what the picture meant to Luke! The beginning of the book also has a lot of flashbacks to the past, while the back story and the characters portrayed were interesting, I still got annoyed because the story didn't move forward very quickly.
The book really is an inspiring look at how people help one another to survive in desperate circumstances. I ended up enjoying the story, and I love how it has the lyrics of the song that his dad wrote at the end. They fit so perfectly with the theme of the story, and apparently the song was recorded so you can listen to it on the book's website.
1 comment:
I have this one in my review pile. Thanks for the review, I'm looking forward more to it now.
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