Book Review: Dogwood by Chris Fabry

In the hills of West Virginia lies a small town called Dogwood. Tragedy plucks the life out of people here, because everyone knows who are you are, and everyone knows what you've done. At least, they think they know. Will finally leaves prison to find that residents of his hometown don't welcome his return. But the thought of a future with Karin compels him to stay in Dogwood.

Karin, however, has married during the years Will spent in prison. She loves her husband and her children, but she cannot escape a desire for Will which she never put to rest. Her guilt keeps her from sleeping at night.

Told from five first-person points of view, Dogwood portrays both the beauties and the pitfalls of small-town life. With this backdrop, Fabry leads his readers to discover a heartrending love of one human being for another. Love isn't easy, and it doesn't come cheap.

The back cover of the novel reveals that Dogwood is the first novel Fabry has written for an adult audience. His previous works have targeted children and young adults. From reading the novel alone, I wouldn't have guessed Dogwood was his debut into the adult market. At the very least, Fabry has written a thought-provoking novel.

Though not a page-turner in the fashion of the popular suspense genre, Dogwood kept me eagerly reading in order to figure out how the various pieces of the puzzle fit together. Because Fabry doesn't tell the story in a strictly linear fashion, the story doesn't become wholly clear until the concluding chapters.

Fabry displays a wit I found surprising. For instance, in the middle of a heavy scene where Will visits his father's grave for the first time, we read this passage:

I stood before a headstone that said Walter E. Pfelt . . . .

"You didn't hear?" Carson said, dropping his head. "Of course you didn't. He passed a couple of months ago. No, just before Thanksgiving, I think it was. Just dropped dead at the A-Z and plowed into a big display of gherkins. I heard it was a real mess."

For as long as I could remember, Carson and I had pronounced the man's last name "Pee-felt" even though the P was supposed to be silent. We even said it to his face, and he never corrected us. He managed both our Little League teams, our jerseys emblazoned with the word Dodgers on the front and Mohr's Tire Farm on the back.

"He always had a flair for the dramatic," I said (139).

Yet the humor doesn't occupy the reader's focus. Fabry makes his theme clear. In a culture where marriages dissolve at astonishing rates, Dogwood's message is both important and needed. Love isn't easy, and it doesn't come cheap.

Title: Dogwood

Author: Chris Fabry

Publisher: Tyndale, Carol Stream

Copyright: 2008

Pages: 341

ISBN: 978-1-4143-1955-1

Genre: Christian fiction