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Title of Book: The Cure By Athol Dickson BACK COVER: What price would you pay for The Cure? Riley Keep, former man of God, former missionary, now haunts the streets, a ghost of who he used to be. Wife, daughter, and faith have all been lost in the aftermath of a single act of wickedness. Any chance at forgiveness seems a distant dream. Until he hears rumors… There’s a small town in Maine where miracles are happening. In a last bid for survival, Riley sets out and soon finds himself in Dublin, Maine, a coastal village nestled against the jagged shores of the cold Atlantic, a town he thought he’d never see again. This once-proud birthplace of mighty wooden ships, then idyllic seaside tourist destination and safe harbor for lobstermen, is now slowly suffocating beneath an avalanche of desperate people searching for help. But will they find their miracle? After all, sometimes the disease isn’t as dangerous as The Cure. REVIEWER’S COMMENTS: Riley Keep is a bum, a drunkard living from handout to handout, rarely sober, always lost. He has turned aside from the faith he once knew, from the family he loves, from his roots. He has one friend, another drunkard named Brice--they are a desperate pair. Brice is dying, his body wracked with the ills of years of abuse. In a last attempt to help his friend, Riley puts Brice on his back, and begins the journey toward Dublin, Maine, a place he once knew as home. But arriving in Dublin is shocking. Stores are boarded up, bums are on every corner. Only a small shelter run by Willa Newdale saves the 2 men. Sadly, in desperation for a drink, Brice kills himself by drinking the wrong thing, and Riley plunges farther into despair. He was too late to find the rumoured cure for his friend. Can he not do anything right? After a freezing night during which Riley should have died, he awakens instead with a note in his hand, and no more desire to drink. He’s been cured! Others hear of the cure and chaos ensues. What IS this cure, where did it come from, and how can Riley escape the nightmares of his past? Is there no redemption? Athol Dickson writes a tale of misery, of the darkest places of a man’s soul. His characters are real, their agony palpable. Dickson weaves intrigue into this story so cleverly that it is not until the last chapter that light is fully shed on the truth. And there is no miracle cure in the end, only that strength that man finds in clinging to The Truth. When we are weak, then we are strong. The Cure is a magnificently written tale of a walk on the dark side, and the hope that exists should one reach for it. It is not a fairy tale with a lovely ending, where characters are magically transformed. It is a story of agony, of the hard work of the soul in battling the forces of this world. But it is a story of hope, for “…in this world ye will have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16.33) |