Then Came Darkness, by D. H. Schleicher

historical suspense/thriller

Summary of Then Came Darkness: Summer 1936. Upstate New York. The country is in the middle of the Great Depression, and the Kydd family is suffering along with their neighbors. Evelyn Kydd is used to her ne’er-do-well/alcoholic/chronic liar husband Samuel’s long, unexplained absences. As she battles her epilepsy and the bank that wants to seize their farm, she relies on her oldest son, Edison, for support. He, along with younger siblings Sally and Tyrus, are self-reliant youngsters.

Unknown to them, Samuel has encountered his former rival/partner-in-crime, Joshua Bloomfield. A violent man, Joshua holds a grudge against Samuel for (he thinks) swindling him out of a fortune and stealing his former lover, Evelyn. Samuel becomes a new victim of Joshua’s violent streak, but not the last. Chance in the form of a young woman, Myra, gives him information about where the Kydd family–and the possible fortune–are hidden away. He’s determined to wreak revenge and get what he justly deserves.

When tragedy strikes, will Evelyn and her children be able to save themselves from Joshua’s vengeance?

This is a good, enthralling read. There are some weak points, but its strengths make up for that.

What I liked:

Deep characterizations 

Schleicher delves deep inside his characters. He’s not afraid to have unlikable but realistic people in his story. All the characters have a certain darkness that tinges their actions.

Joshua, of course, is the darkest of them all.

Evelyn is another dark, well-developed character. Prone to epileptic fits, she requires constant need of medical attention and watches her ambitions erode from her medical issues and her ne’er-do-well husband. Schleicher does a good job picking apart her complicated emotions when she sees her teenage son fall in love with the much-older Myra. He does an equally good job showing the reasons for her infidelity while neither condemning nor excusing her behavior.

But even the vile characters have good aspects. Joshua has a small (as in, minuscule!) moment of quasi-redemption at the end. It’s a bit strange to see him spare someone’s life. But he does. (Though he also beats his victim unconscious for good measure.)

The portrayal of children 

I’ve observed that most fiction writers aiming for an adult target audience do not know how to handle children in a story. The kids are too:

  1. good (only showing up when it’s convenient for the adults),
  2. precocious (using language and reacting like people much older than themselves, geniuses, prodigies, etc.), or
  3. irritating (too cutesy, too funny, providing comic relief).

Usually the kids seem like an afterthought: not fully developed and only used to increase the stakes in the adult conflict. Even writers who HAVE children/teens don’t necessarily portray them accurately. (I struggle with this issue myself.)

Schleicher excels at portraying children. His child characters are just as developed as his adult ones. They have strong points and weak points, fears and goals and desires, just like the adult characters. And their goals are sometimes at odds with the adults’ goals. They can even do horrible, evil things.

Gasp!

Shocking, I know. But how many times have you read a book where the kid represents Innocence and Light and is the Undeserving Victim of XYZ Horrible Crime?

All the children (Sally, Tyrus, and Tyrus’ young friend, Mostlee) have their dark sides: lying, keeping secrets that shouldn’t be secrets, issues with authority. Common problems with this age group, really. But the things they lie about, the secrets they keep, are weighty problems that no child should have to deal with. They also observe the adults around them but don’t understand their observations. They don’t know how much they know!

This dichotomy of world-weary wisdom and childish innocence makes them believable as children and as characters.

Tyrus is my favorite. He’s a “child full of secrets” who has to handle things no child should have to handle. He has a big heart. But as his sister Sally worries,

“that her little brother’s heart was so big, there was a danger of darkness taking refuge inside of it, and then his heart would turn black and devour everything” (pg. 58).

What’s true for Tyrus seems true for most of the characters in this book: there’s the potential for darkness to overtake the good inside them.

The atmosphere 

There’s a great sense of dread threading its way throughout the novel. It’s as if some horrible, nameless darkness, represented by Joshua, is coming and catching up to all of them. There is violence but Schleicher wisely uses a matter-of-fact tone and understated words to describe murder. Thankfully, certain things–sexual violence, for example–are left off the page.

What didn’t work for me:

The order of the chapters in the first section. 

The first few chapters worked their way backward in time. March 1936, then a few days earlier, then 6 months earlier. Then even further back in time, when Evelyn and Joshua met; you could say that the story’s conflict began then.

It’s an interesting way of beginning a novel, but I’m not entirely certain if it works. Sometimes (as is the case throughout the novel), it becomes difficult to tell when an event is taking place because it is told in a flashback during a scene with no significant action, or, as in the beginning, it’s told out of chronological order. My personal preference would be for the action of the first chapter to occur, then the rest of the flashbacks be told in chronological order. As I said, this is a personal preference!

Myra 

I liked Myra’s character. She seemed vain, weary, intelligent, and conflicted about her relationship with Edison. But she disappears too quickly from the story. After her initial POV chapter in the opening section, she never reappears. I half-expected her to show up at the end. I wanted more of her!

The strong points of this novel outweigh the weak points. It’s a good novel, well worth reading.

Bonus tips for writers:

If you include children in your story, be accurate.

Make certain they are present for more than “a way to increase the stakes” of the conflict. Make them vital in the plot. Heck, make them full-fledged characters and show their flaws, strengths, fears, goals, desires, and, for crying out loud, make them act their age. Not every kid is a prodigy. While some kids do act older than their age, be careful with the prodigy/mature character trait: it’s been done a lot.

  • If you don’t have kids, try to observe kids/teens in their “natural habitats,” take notes, and get teens/older kids (if possible) to beta read.
  • If you do have kids, don’t assume that you are an expert and don’t need this, too. You’re a different generation. You may not “get” it.

I know that not all adult books are appropriate for teens/older kids. In those cases, try college students–who are closer in age and much more likely to understand the younger generations than you, 25+year-old author–and/or teachers. (End of rant.)

Find out more about D. H. Schleicher at his website and blog, or follow him on Twitter (@schleicherspin) like all the cool people (um, me) do.

Note: I received a review copy from the author. I was not required to write a good review.