Book Review: The Dredge by Brendan Flaherty

Debut novelist Brendan Flaherty grew up outdoors Hartford, Connecticut and later attended Washington College. He earned an MFA from Boston College, the place he was the recipient of the Saul Bellow Prize. For a time, Flaherty lived in Hawaii, although he has lengthy since returned to his dwelling state, the place he makes his dwelling together with his spouse and kids. A few of these biographical highlights inform his first e-book, The Dredge.

The story opens in Honolulu, the place perpetual bachelor Cale Casey sells luxurious actual property, catches waves, and excels at clear relationships whereas avoiding true intimacy. Positive, he has a girlfriend—however her days are numbered as quickly as she begins speaking a few future collectively and asking pointed questions, equivalent to: “Who’re you?” (Translation: Who’re you actually?) As a result of answering that actually would imply divulging the childhood traumas he left behind in Connecticut, alongside together with his mom and brother and the reminiscence of his father. To his mind-set, the previous is finest left buried. Actually.

In the meantime, Cale’s youthful brother, Ambrose, nonetheless lives of their rural hometown of Macoun, now with a spouse, a toddler, and one other child on the way in which. The proprietor of a fledgling building firm, Ambrose can’t escape the emotional and monetary strains of his rising household—or his longstanding loyalty to the land. This weight grows extra oppressive with the information that Gibbs Pond—which connects the Casey property and neighboring terrain—goes to be dredged as a part of a improvement deal. Greater than the location of his and Cale’s boyhood play and mischief, it retains the key that might tether one sibling to the world and ship the opposite working.

Flaherty alternates views between the estranged brothers and a childhood acquaintance (and Cale’s first crush), contractor Lily Roy, who as soon as suffered abuse and abandonment by the hands of her male relations—and who has her personal secrets and techniques to suppress. Ordered to dredge Gibbs Pond, she invitations Ambrose in on the mission. However as determined as he’s for the additional earnings, he is aware of that doing so might have life-altering (and probably authorized) penalties. Along with juggling a number of viewpoints, the writer skillfully interweaves previous and current, slowly untangling an internet of unintended crimes and cover-ups (and the resultant misunderstandings and resentments) that tore two households aside and nonetheless threaten their livelihoods. 

Brendan Flaherty makes a good first impression with The Dredge. Extra of a gradual burner than a propulsive page-turner, the e-book quietly but insistently evokes an escalating sense of dread as long-ago secrets and techniques are unearthed, proving the purpose that regardless of how far, or how briskly, you run (or don’t), you may by no means actually escape your previous—or the individuals who share it. The story—which remembers easier, much less supervised instances and contrasts them with the complexities of contemporary life—is bolstered by characters who’re distant but distinctive, and whose roiling internal lives weaken their outer ones. If The Dredge is a sign of issues to return, Flaherty is an writer to maintain each eyes on.

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