It’s difficult to predict such things, but my gut feeling as I sit here in (very) early January is that THE SECRET WISDOM OF THE EARTH is going to be on a number of “Best of the Year” lists 12 months from now. From the first page, it brings to mind such timeless classics as TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, books about coming of age and good people doing bad things (and vice versa) and how (some) things are neither entirely right nor entirely wrong, but an uneasy mixture of both.

Christopher Scotton is not a writer by trade; rather, he runs a software company and is as far removed in his life from the Appalachian coal miners who populate the novel as one could imagine. Yet he gets the essence of those people, their joy and their problems, as well as any author you will ever read.

"Scotton labored over his book for over 15 years and has created a quiet masterpiece that I daresay will be read and remembered years from now. It’s not a race, but, as this impressive debut novel demonstrates, slow and steady wins it."

It’s not only the characterizations within that make THE SECRET WISDOM OF THE EARTH such a great book. The story, as with any of the best books written, strikes a fine and uneasy balance between the random pain that the universe, in its indifference, so unknowingly yet casually inflicts. Most of the novel is told in the voice and from the viewpoint of 14-year-old Kevin Gillooly during a fateful summer in 1985. Kevin had the misfortune of seeing Joshua, his three-year-old brother, die in a horrendous home accident. The death has ripped Kevin’s family asunder, leaving his mother, Annie, semi-catatonic, and Edward, his father, expressly blaming him for the incident. Edward moves Kevin and Annie from their tainted residence in Redhill, Indiana, back to Annie’s childhood home in Medgar, Kentucky, to stay with Kevin’s maternal grandfather.

“Pops” Peebles is a beloved and highly respected veterinarian, and is just the spiritual and emotional anchor that Kevin needs as he deals with the aftermath of his brother’s death. Medgar is a few hours and a world away from Redhill; as is noted early on, people at that time were not, as a rule, moving to Eastern Kentucky. The area, part of Appalachia, is experiencing the tail end of an economic downturn as the coal mines, which constituted such an important role in local job creation, played out. The Monongahela Mining Company, which has been pulling coal out of the local mountains for well over a half-century, is practicing a new and more efficient way of mining that unfortunately results in disaster for the scenery, which is a part of the appeal --- perhaps the only appeal --- of living in Medgar. Many appreciate that the operation means more jobs and continued work. Others, including Pops, are against further mining encroachment.

When the poorly kept but closely held secret of one of the foremost anti-mining principals is revealed, it threatens to rip the town asunder, and more so when the man is found brutally murdered behind his place of business. The only witness to the crime is Buzzy Fink, Kevin’s sole friend in the area. Buzzy is reticent to tell what he saw for reasons of his own, but his silence concerning the murder and one other incident will result in a dark price paid not only by him but also by Kevin and his family, which will be paid before the novel’s last words are told.

Those aspiring authors who have struggled with their unpublished works should take heart from THE SECRET WISDOM OF THE EARTH. Scotton labored over his book for over 15 years and has created a quiet masterpiece that I daresay will be read and remembered years from now. It’s not a race, but, as this impressive debut novel demonstrates, slow and steady wins it.