The literary gods are-smiling on Brian Keith Jackson. In his brilliant debut novel, The View From Here, published last year to much critical acclaim, he painted a convincing portrait of a poor black family's hardship in rural 1950s Mississippi. The pressure was on for lightening to strike twice for this New York-based author. Zap! In his sophomore effort, Walking Through Mirrors, Jackson uses a contemporary setting to deliver a touching and universal tale about daddy hunger.
Jeremy Bishop, a star photographer in Gotham City, reluctantly returns home to Elsewhere, Louisiana, to bury his estranged father. Jeremy is deeply hurt, angry and even jealous of his stepmother and his teenage siblings. Their close-knit relationship stabs at a very tender spot -- Jeremy's mother's death and the family ties his father shared -- without him. Despite his feelings, Jeremy finds southern comfort in the arms of the women who raised him, his revered Aunt Jess and the sweet Mama B.
Jackson is a wonderful storyteller, crafting what could've easily been a clich? story about a deadbeat dad into a lyrical account of a heartbroken father, who made numerous attempts to bond with a son who was determined to keep his distance. Beautifully narrated in both first and third person, Jeremy's painful, yet humbling journey is a scrapbook of memories. He unearths a few family secrets, lays old ghosts to rest and in the process discovers that when you "walk through mirrors" you see more than yourself in the reflection.
by Brain Keith Jackson, Pocket Books, October 1998, 258 pp., $23.00, ISBN 0-671-56893-0.
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