Lightning Strikes for Richmond Author

The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors by Michele Young-Stone.

The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors is the debut of Richmond author Michele Young-Stone. This novel, which will be published in April, has been praised by critics. It’s a fresh and creative novel story that does include people struck by lightning, along with many, many other things.

Michele Young-Stone is scheduled to visit the Hopewell Library on July 29, 2010, at 7:00 p.m. to lead a discussion of her debut novel as part of our Adult Summer Reading Program.

The story focuses on two young people, a girl named Becca and a boy named Buckley. Their stories tend to alternate, as we follow them from childhood to adulthood. Both boy and girl are the products of troubled families. Don’t expect this to end up as a romance, because Young-Stone does not want to fit into that box.

Young Buckley, deprived of his mother by terribly bad luck, writes a handbook about lightning. This lightning also serves as a metaphor for the rotten things that happen to people in life, through no fault of their own. There is plenty of suffering in this story, though it never really turns into soap opera. Mostly, we see lonely people just trying to hold onto something real in a random and cruel world. Speaking of cruelty, there are some truly selfish characters here, people who are really hard to like. But there are other characters that we grow to love. For this reader, one of the least likable characters was one that stuck in my mind. It’s challenging for a writer to make a bad person interesting, but this author achieves that goal.

This novel ends up being a complex battle of good and evil, as well as a journey of understanding and growth. In that regard, it resembled the kind of “coming of age” novels that were written in the nineteenth century. Author Young-Stone’s ambitions for her story seem to bear fruit. She is willing to explore the dark side of modern life in America, especially the ways in which we sometimes fail our children and make their life journeys harder than they need to be. But her storytelling does include forgiveness, reconciliation, friendship, and love.

Michele lives in Richmond with her family. She is finishing up her second novel and planning her third. In case you wondered, yes, she was once struck by lightning. Beginning in April we will have several copies of The Handbook for Lightning Strike survivors available for those who wish to read it ahead of Ms. Young-Stone’s visit.