cover image The Lost Sunshine

The Lost Sunshine

Clyde Bolton. Black Belt Press, $20 (192pp) ISBN 978-1-881320-06-7

Centering on a tragic relationship and on the racial confrontations that often characterized Southern life in the 1950s, this coming-of-age novel from Bolton (And Now I See) is a sweet and elegiac tale with plenty of dramatic momentum. Set in the fictional town of Hempstead, Ga., the story is told as a first-person flashback by Darrell Kent, a happily married newspaper columnist with a beautiful wife and an adult son. But there's a romantic shadow in Kent's past: redheaded Meg Moriarity, his high-school sweetheart and the true love of his life. Against a backdrop of suburban life in the small-town South, Bolton (himself a columnist for the Birmingham News) slowly reveals the growing affection between the two youngsters after Meg's family moves to Georgia from Kentucky. The hard-edged counterpart to their relationship is Kent's intriguing friendship with Ves Oldham, an independent, intelligent black man whose willingness to ignore the era's racial conventions results in frequent run-ins with the local rednecks. Bolton keeps the story hopping, using the ardor of the young lovers and Oldham's willingness to shelter a pair of abused students to force a series of confrontations. He also offers strong characterizations, bringing to life both major and secondary figures. A coming-of-age novel that skirts the cliches of the genre and works as regional fiction, this heartfelt tale is a rare and satisfying accomplishment. (Nov.)