White Nights in Split Town City, the debut novel from Annie DeWitt, hits us as being both a coming-of-age story, but making sure that it’s one that is full of wisdom, advice and fantastic writing.
The novel follows the path of Jean, as she is raised in the rural side that rarely gets talked enough about in the world of New York City novels. Instead, we’re taught a life that we may not be a familiar life, a life different than ours, and a life that is fascinating. Through Jean we get to see her family, and how that functions, and the many way that they don’t function. It adds depth to how people from big cities may perceive less populated areas, and reflects a microcosm that doesn’t get nearly enough attention under the microscope than it deserves. The kind of area where your knees get bit in the grass, but the kind of area that you can run around and feel free.
Jean experiences the kind of events that define someone. But it is how Jean defines them that makes this a fascinating read. Whether it’s judgement of someone she loves and cares about, or just her becoming more aware of the life’s of those she surrounds herself with, and whether it is truly a significant thing to turn into an adult or something that just adults fall into significant event or something that people more fall into.
It’s the novels fantastic writing that helps it develop into something special. DeWitt has a superb talent
for describing the landscape and the way that the characters move through them. Each description is visual to the reader, becoming more and more real as the characters learn more about each other and themselves. This is the book that reminds us of that time that we have to leave childhood and enter the world and become out own person.
White Nights in Split Town City is another success for Tyrant Books. Whether it’s the sense of oddity that throws through the novel, a sense of the uncanny as things progress and never go in the direction we expect, just like life. It’s a mirror to certain elements of ourselves that we didn’t know were there. Something strange, something beautiful, something ugly. The something that rests in lounges with cigarette smoke and gets sunburn from playing in the yard for too long. This is what DeWitt has shared with us, and fans of literature should be grateful.
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.
