Dark, twisted humor punctuates a weirdly gratifying story.
Just one run away from hanging up his trucker hat, Jimmy has some pivotal life lessons to work out and decisions to make on a haul for Walmart. With 15 years under his belt as a truck driver, Jimmy has never deviated from his course, whether on the road or in his personal life. But this final quick run turns into an overlong delay with life-altering consequences. A series of bizarre events force Jimmy into the maws of an innocuously named small town with a big personality, Eden, Missouri. While the name may conjure divine, lush images, Eden is no paradise. Closer to the opposite is more like it. Here, in this “twisted hell hole”, Jimmy will see and do things he’s never even dreamed of. Besides his rig getting mangled and his dog getting killed, Jimmy will befriend a town full of characters more akin to a traveling circus than a midwestern hamlet, suffer from his own brand of love at first sight, and pick up a troublesome drinking problem. An erratic pace and the stubborn illogic of the scenarios is deliberately disorienting, giving readers a true taste of the ‘Hotel California’ Jimmy has checked into.
Have you ever been on a long road trip, one that took you through some less-than-ideal towns along the route, and had to make a middle of the night stop that had you looking over your shoulder and behind every car in the lot? If so, you’ll immediately get the foreboding, ominous atmosphere shrouding the pages of The Fall of Faith. Yet, even in this baleful ambiance, the author works beauty into tragedy with his lyrical prose and thought-provoking themes. Readers can’t help but appreciate the efficiency of Berney’s writing style, as no conversation is wasted, no interaction without purpose. Jimmy is a relatably flawed character, a man who deals with heavy losses in unhealthy ways, yet tries to do the right thing even in the worst of circumstances. With an abundance of over-the-top situations and life-or-death moments, the scenes get graphic, but not in a predictable way. Really, nothing in this startling novel will feel predictable or familiar as readers join Jimmy on his uncharted journey toward either redemption or destruction. And though the story is unsettling like no other, the ending provides a modicum of relief and comfort. Dark, twisted humor punctuates a weirdly gratifying story with brilliant dialogue, unforgettable characters, and several consequential themes in The Fall of Faith.
