Set mostly in a small Southern town In America THE RETURNED by Jason Mott is a story involving both science fiction concepts and real human feelings. The main story is centered on one elderly couple in the town whose long dead little boy, Jacob, comes back mysteriously from the dead at the same time as similar such events are happening all over the world.
Interspersed with short stories from other experiences of this phenomenon around the world the story mostly chronicles the impact on the couple and the reactions of the living to the return of the dead. What would you do if your long dead son returned to you? How would the neighbours react? It also covers the question of what do the authorities do to deal with this incredible situation, with some disturbing insights on mob rule and authoritarian reaction, along with the wonder about what is happening here, where are the dead coming from and what did they experience while they were gone? These questions are all asked along with deeper ones of the human heart like how would we really feel about the situation, about our lives being disrupted by people whose faces we perhaps could barely remember.
Above all, perhaps, it addresses a wish many of us have had, for one last conversation with a departed loved one, and asks the final question; what would you really say?
THE RETURNED is an exceptional first novel and well worth reading.
"Jacob was time out of sync, time more perfect than it
had been. He was life the way it was supposed to be all
those years ago. That's what all the Returned were."
Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been
both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only
son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in
1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life
without him, their wounds tempered through the grace of
timeβ¦. Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their
doorstepβflesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child,
still eight years old. All over the world
people's loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows
how or why this is happening, whether it's a miracle or a
sign of the end. Not even Harold and Lucille can agree on
whether the boy is real or a wondrous imitation, but one
thing they know for sure: he's their son. As chaos erupts
around the globe, the newly reunited Hargrave family finds
itself at the center of a community on the brink of
collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a
conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what
it is to be human. With spare, elegant prose
and searing emotional depth, award-winning poet Jason Mott
explores timeless questions of faith and morality, love and
responsibility. A spellbinding and stunning debut, The
Returned is an unforgettable story that marks the
arrival of an important new voice in contemporary fiction.
No excerpt available.
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