Beneath the Darkest Sky, by Jason Overstreet, historical thriller

Summary: In 1930s Europe, African-American Prescott Sweet and his family find themselves living in Moscow. While they are initially enthralled by the seeming racial equality of the Soviet society, they soon realize the reality: Stalin is brutal, the people are oppressed, and everyone is vulnerable. All four are arrested as counterrevolutionaries and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor. As Prescott battles for his freedom, he is driven to extreme measures to save those he loves.

Note: When I started this novel, I didn’t realize that it was a sequel. This led to a bit of confusion on my part but that soon subsided.

I know from experience how difficult it is to write a high-quality publishable novel, so I hate having to write “bad” reviews. I’ll start with the negative aspects of my review, just to get them over with!

What didn’t work for me: 

1. An ineffective dual timeline.

The opening chapters for the backstory weren’t very interesting. It leads to a lot of backstory info dumping, most of which feels unnecessary. For example, the scenes on the yacht, or the dinner time conversations between Prescott, Loretta, Bobby, and Doreen, don’t add much to the story. They also slow down the pace. The book started with a bang: lots of action, high tension, dramatic event. Why slow the pace with such trivial details? 

2. Info-dump dialogue.

Even for a book where the characters need to exchange a lot of information, the amount of historical detail filling their words is incredible. It comes across as unrealistic and results in some really stilted dialogue. A lot of the info could have been cut without sacrificing the plot or setting, and other pieces worked into the narrative.

3. The “happy family” dynamics among the Sweet family and their white friends.

Maybe I’m just cynical, but Bobby and Prescott’s relationship is too good to be true. I kept waiting for Bobby to double-cross Prescott or turn out to be a secret spy for the enemy. (Spoiler alert: he doesn’t. That’s good but rather boring.)

Also, the Sweet family gets along a little too well. Young James and Ginger, for example, don’t mind their parents’ open affection.

“They both smiled and nodded, overjoyed at seeing her being affectionate toward me. This sort of loving playfulness between Loretta and me always tickled them.”

Beneath the Darkest Sky, Jason Overstreet, pg. 102

Okay, this seems strange. If my kids get one whiff of PDA between me and my husband, they’re gagging and pretending to vomit. Even with the historical setting, James and Ginger don’t seem realistic as children. I would’ve liked to have seen them act more, well, childish.

What worked for me:

1. A strong & fast-paced beginning & end.

The story opens with the dramatic arrest of Prescott Sweet and his family. The ending has a swift pace, a few unexpected turns, and the promise of more to come in the Sweet family’s story. I noticed that once the dual timelines converged, the pace picked up and the story strengthened. I wish that the entire book had been this strong!

2. The historical details about the many Americans who died in the Soviet gulags.

During the Great Depression, thousands of Americans had immigrated to the Soviet Union in search of employment, including a sizable African-American community. Communist ideals of equality must have seemed appealing compared with the oppression of Jim Crow. By the time the realities of the Stalinist regime became apparent, it was too late to flee. Prescott and his family’s ordeal is moving.

3. Overstreet’s research into the time period.

While I complained earlier about the info dumping, he does show the time period accurately. There’s a wealth of knowledge here, including things that many Americans probably don’t know. The worries about Hitler’s rise to power. The absolute corruption of Stalin. The brutality of the gulags. The horrors of Jim Crow. The difference in how the Soviets view racism versus how the expatriate Lowell Fort-Whiteman views it:

“I wanted to tell Stalin that the poorest white man in the U.S. is treated far greater than said wealthy Negro. You don’t see any poor white men being lynched all over the South. (. . . ) I wanted to make Stalin understand that if he snapped his fingers and all at once, every American suddenly became of the same class, Negroes would still get lynched. But these Soviets just don’t get the complexity of our homeland.” –Lowell

Beneath the Darkest Sky, pg. 120

4. Prescott’s character.

I really liked how devoted he was to his family and how fiercely–and to what extreme measures–he fights for their freedom. Yes, he can be almost superhumanly strong and perfect, but I still liked him. He observes the people around him, and his observations are right on point:

  • Explaining to his white friends why it’s best for African-Americans to be a jack-of-all-trades:

And I try to be at least a master of a few. I think of that Negro of yesteryear . . . or of today. When he is constantly told by the powers that be that he is basically nobody and hasn’t the right to do anything . . . he spends a lifetime trying to prove that he is somebody, and that he can perhaps do everything.

Beneath the Darkest Sky, Jason Overstreet, pg. 34

  • Describing how hungry he and his companions are during the train ride to the gulag:

There is not a human being on this earth who, when faced with the overwhelming pain of hunger, doesn’t become selfish, wholly consumed with survival.

Beneath the Darkest Sky, Jason Overstreet, pg. 15

  • Describing the terrible efficiency of the Dalstroi, the commanders of the labor camps:

The Dalstroi heads weren’t ones to waste a thing, other than humans.

Beneath the Darkest Sky, pg. 143

It’s lines like these that made me keep reading the novel. Even though there were points where I cringed at the info-dump dialogue or the happy-family tedium, Prescott and his observations and determination made the book stronger than it would otherwise have been.

I truly hope that Jason Overstreet continues to write and hone his craft. He has a lot of potential as a writer. He has found a story that most Americans don’t know and tells it from an unusual perspective. I’ve read a fair amount of fiction about the Stalinist regime but I can’t think of another book that tells it from the point of view of an African-American expatriate.

This review of Beneath the Darkest Sky was originally published on Goodreads.