Midnight Sun: A Novel (ISBN 0385497377)

Amazon.com Review:
Penzler Pick, September 2000: When the Alaska oil boom was in full swing in the late '60s and early '70s, everyone from college students to drifters found their way up north with dreams of working on the pipeline. The work was grueling, but it was a great way to get rich quick. The boom has ended, but the way of life lingers on for the few unable to give up the life of working for six months before heading south for the rest of the year. In Midnight Sun, Jack and his buddy, Burke, are two of the guys for whom Alaska still exerts a strong pull. When the book opens, they are building houses on an army base. Jack has worked hauling lumber and honing his carpentry skills to get to the point of what he calls "underwhelming mediocrity." On the weekends he and Burke drive north on roads owned by oil companies or the government and fish for salmon and grayling. Before Jack heads south to Texas, Burke has one more adventure to propose. An acquaintance of his, Duke, is seriously ill and would like to see his daughter Penny again. She was wooed away by a cult some years before, and Duke will pay Jack and Burke $10,000 to rescue her, but they must trek into the interior to bring her out. Jack reluctantly agrees, and the two men battle the Alaskan wilderness, quite unprepared for the harsh conditions and the wildlife they encounter along the way. When they finally reach the camp and locate Penny, they find that their troubles are just beginning. The group she is with is much more than a new millennium cult, and it will take all of Jack and Burke's mediocre skills to survive and bring Penny home. Elwood Reid has crafted an adventure thriller that explores a unique aspect of American life. He is a master at conveying a way of life in its death throes, the rootlessness of Jack and Burke, and the tawdriness of a boomtown gone flat. --Otto Penzler

Erratic:
This book starts out with great promise only to quickly lose its way. Main character Jack and his buddy Burke, out of work journeyman carpenters, agree to venture to the wildest parts of Alaska to fetch back a daughter from an isolated commune or cult for her dying father. Or so it seems. Soon enough, Jack can trust no one, and things get chilly. Winter's always looming in this book, and that's handled well by the author, as are the vivid scenery and sounds of a landscape bracing for the cold. However, for much of the novel the northern camp itself is simply way too big a plot device. So much time is spent in so small a place, it's impossible not to wonder at the obvious: Why can't these people figure out who to trust and who not to? Why is it so hard for Jack to do something, anything? Why isn't the cult leader more convincingly charming or downright nasty? Why can't Jack, just once, wise up that something's rotten in Alaska? Everything's just too slow, despite some genuinely nice writing. Nature (capital N) has its moments, but it's too clumsy overall to take its own place among the novel's odd playoff-sized roster of characters. Still, it's hard to shake the feeling this is Reid's first real stab at mystery writing, and a couple more tries to work out the kinks of plotting and the need for true suspense and he'll be skating down the river.

Midnight Darkness:
A riveting read... a cross between "Heart of Darkness" and John Fowles' "The Magus." It captures the feeling of full-time daylight in Alaska in Summer very well, which is a mindframe that is hard to explain if you've never experienced it. Mike Zinsley, author of The Rapture of the Deep

Lost in the Dark:
Elwood Reid once lived in Alaska or so says the blurb on the back of the cover. He now lives in New York. This is almost an automatic formula for a "getting away from boring Continental society to the wonderful, unexplored North" novel. And sure enough, Reid gives us a story that sounded better than it really was. Ignore the dialogue (particularly in the first half of the book) where the two main characters talk like incoherent 12 year olds who have just discovered the "F" word along with big brother's supply of Playboys and weed in the closet. If you make it past the semi-literate conversations, the story picks up. Our heroes -Jack (narrator) and buddy Burke - are drifters who take odd jobs, get drunk, bed anything with a skirt and talk like anarchists from Dumb & Dumber. One day Duke walks up and offers money if they will rescue daughter Penny from a cult deep in mid-Alaska. They head on up after flipping the bird to a former boss - real mature behaviour. The second half of the book takes place at the camp, a sort of cultish backwoods hippie place where folks live in squalor, work like dogs, screw likie rabbits and have a funny way of running into a ferocious bear when trying to leave. Oh, there is also gold being mined at the camp - an action that has nothing to do with the so-called "philosophy" of the place which seems to be Conquer Your Fears Through Work. The mystery deepens when several members including daughter Penny insist they want to stay. Our heroes get separated and then we discover that Burke is not who he seems and (shock!) has other than altruistic motives in making the journey. The action toward the end raced to a conclusion where all was semi-resolved. You know the end - Penny escapes with Jack who is wiser if not richer for his venture up North.

Can't get his facts straight:
As an Alaskan, I expect an author writing about Alaska to at least get the details correct. Reid has his protagonists travelling up the Dalton Highway, and then somehow ending up near Circle. A cursory glance at any map of Alaska would indicate that this makes no sense. The book is filled with many errors of this type. Well, at least as far a pg. 40, which is where I gave up on this awful tome.

Blithdale Romance in Alaska:
The economic boom of the oil rush brought Burke and Jack to Fairbanks Alaska. Ready to head home having grown sick of his construction job, Jack is conned into one last job by his friend Burke. The two of them will head into the Alaskan wilderness to bring back Penny at the wish of her dying father. Coming on the heals of The Blithedale Romance, I can't help but compare Midnight Sun to Hawthorne's tale of communal living gone wrong. The cult commune that Jack and Burke find makes Blithedale look like utopia. I see a Blithedale connection in the way Jack narrates his tale of finding Penny an his time living with her until the ultimate downfall of the commune (a common theme in books like this). He sums up his time after Penny in a way reminiscent of Cloverdale's parting thoughts on Priscilla: "It didn't matter because she'd rescued me and somehow I was going to have to live with the mystery." (Midnight Sun page 270). Cloverdale's confession ends the tragic romance with "...myself ... was in love ... with ... Priscilla." (Blithedale Romance page 445). Here though is where Jack and Miles differ as narrators: Jack never admits his feelings or emotions to himself or to his audience. He hints throughout at a connection beyond the $10,000 bounty for Penny but the closest he comes to admitting it is in that closing paragraph. Miles Cloverdale does finally come clean at the end of The Blithedale Romance. For the most part I enjoyed Elwood Reid's style of writing and his descriptions of the Alaskan frontier. His characterization falls a little flat and there were times when Jack's narrative seems to get suck on the mundane details where I found myself either skimming or skipping a few pages. Nonetheless, I do recommend Midnight Sun.