Whether THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE is a classic of the thriller genre or of fiction period is an issue that is far above my pay grade and may not be wholly resolved until a time when I’m not here to know. All that I can tell you is that this is one of those rare novels in which you can feel the earth shift, softly and almost imperceptibly at first, then more noticeably and incessantly as you are reading it. By the end, everything around you feels just a bit different.

Author Lou Berney’s first two novels were more than impressive, but this one... I’m not sure I have the words. It’s a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew novel for grownups in places, a coming-of-middle-age novel in others, all leading to an ending that circles back on itself and is shot through with irony. And it’s all extremely readable from first page to last, with nary a threat that it will collapse under its own weight. It’s set in the present day, with occasional forays into the past, but someone picking it up in 50 years or so will immediately recognize the themes and emotions, and relate to them in the same way you will.

"[I]n addition to telling a great story, Berney is a mighty fine wordsmith whose name should be mentioned more often than it is during discussions of new bright lights in the literary world. THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE should resolve that shortcoming irrevocably."

THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE is about two tragedies occurring in 1986 in Oklahoma City, about a month apart from each other: a theater robbery that ended in the violent murders of six employees (a seventh survived), and the disappearance of 17-year-old Genevieve from the Oklahoma State Fair. These events echo into the here and now in two storylines. The first concerns a Las Vegas private investigator named Wyatt Rivers, a competent wise guy who is making a comfortable living doing employer investigations and the like. A quarter-century and a lifetime before, he was the theater employee who escaped the end fate that his fellow co-workers suffered.

When a friend and client requests that he do an investigation for him in Oklahoma City, Wyatt returns to his birthplace with great reluctance. The individuals responsible for killing his co-workers had been identified and killed in a police shootout some years before. Wyatt, however, remains haunted by his own survivor’s guilt as well as the circumstances that led up to the robbery. Ostensibly in Oklahoma City to investigate the harassment of a nightclub owner, Wyatt spends almost as much time returning to the scene of the long-ago crime and his former haunts, churning over the miracle of his own survival.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged woman named Julianna remains quietly obsessed with the disappearance of her older sister a quarter century before. Genevieve had left Julianna alone --- for just 15 minutes, she had promised --- at the Oklahoma State Fair and walked out of her life. Julianna has never stopped wondering what happened to her sister and hoping for an answer. A series of photographs on Facebook that seem to document the fateful night of Genevieve’s disappearance gives her renewed hope, as does the reappearance of a roughly attractive itinerant carnival worker who had gotten Genevieve’s attention that night and may have some information concerning her fate. The incident has left its indelible  mark on Julianna, so much so that closure will be almost an afterthought. Still, it is all she wants.

The stories of Julianna and Wyatt intersect three times --- twice before they get the answers they seek, and once... But that would be telling. Suffice it to say that those who welcome a real-world narrative will find so much to love here that they will never forget this book or its storylines.

The ending (all of them, actually) is poignant and unexpected, as with the best literature of any genre. The book itself is easy to read yet difficult to forget. You will want to highlight a passage here and there; in addition to telling a great story, Berney is a mighty fine wordsmith whose name should be mentioned more often than it is during discussions of new bright lights in the literary world. THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE should resolve that shortcoming irrevocably.