Bibliography: Smith, Andrew. (September 2009). In the Path of Falling Objects. New York: Fewiel and Friends. ISBN: 9780312375584
Plot Summary: Jonah and Simon are on a road trip, but it isn’t a teenage lark. Abandoned by their mother, out of food and water, they pack the little precious possessions they own and set out across the New Mexico desert heading to Arizona and their prisoner father. When a car flies by and then slows, and the beautiful blond begs the driver to pick them up, Jonah knows it is a mistake to accept, but he and Simon climb in the back anyway. At least Jonah has a gun…
Critical Analysis: This book completely blew me away. It is a rare suspense/thriller in the young adult fiction category. And a good one at that. Smith does an excellent job of building suspense and tension. Telling the story from the different voices of the characters really adds to that feeling. This is used often in adult suspense novels, but I don’t think I’ve seen it much for young adults. It gives the reader different viewpoints of what is going on, and it also allows Smith to portion out information. He reveals and doesn’t reveal events and details depending on who is telling the story at the time.
The setting is very evocative. I can feel the heat, see the desert. Details about the 1970s are tightly woven with the events of the story–clothing styles, hippies, Vietnam. Even descriptions of diners and hotels are spot on. I can almost smell them. Add to that the tone which communicates a real desperation and longing, especially from Jonah. We get other characters’ points of view, but I think this is Jonah’s story, Jonah’s journey. The brothers are traveling to somewhere, but more because they don’t know what else to do, not because they know what to expect when they get there. In the end, the book is about the journey, the physical one and the emotional one the brothers experience.
I am reminded very much of the best western fiction that has and is being written. Not just westerns, like cowboys and horses, but that fiction that takes the ideals of the west and expands them, updates them, bends them into something new. (Of course, sitting here writing this review, I have drawn a blank on specific authors or books…)
Review Excerpts: “Smith’s Vietnam-era road trip tells the tense, violent and cathartic story of teenage brothers….There are moments of bleak, nasty violence, but they rarely appear gratuitous, instead underlining the despair Jonah and Simon feel, and offering something they must transcend.”–Publisher’s Weekly
“Abandoned by their mother, out of food and even water, 16-year-old Jonah and his brother, Simon, two years younger, embark on a brutal but mesmerizing road trip that steers an unswerving course toward tragedy…older teens will be riveted.”–Kirkus Reviews
“A relentless, bleak thriller that nails the claustrophobic sense of being totally out of control, and moving fast.” –Booklist
Reviewed from publisher provided advance copy. Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.
