LOOKOUT

A debut novel chronicles the lives of a father and daughter in Montana.

Early on in Byl’s novel, artisan Josiah Kinzler explains the dangers of playing with matches to his daughter Cody, then 9. “Cody. Every fire starts small,” he says, in a phrase that reads like a statement of purpose for the rest of the book. The novel begins in 1985 and follows the Kinzler family—primarily Josiah and Cody but also Cody’s sister, Louisa, and their mother, Margaret—over the decades that follow. While the bulk of the book is told from an omniscient point of view, some chapters offer first-person accounts from different members of the cast, major and minor characters alike. This can be revealing—there’s a contrast between Cody as seen from a distance and the more informal, irreverent tone of her narration, for instance. Josiah remains an intriguing and enigmatic figure, haunted by his mother’s suicide and his own feelings of depression. Late in the book, when characters read a letter from him, his reference to “what’s broken in me” puts some of his previous actions in another context. But he also has moments of bliss throughout—as when he takes on as an apprentice a man named Freddy, who soon becomes something more. It’s here that the first-person sections truly click. “Many times I’ve stayed with my back to him longer than needed, to savor his footsteps closing the distance between us,” Freddy thinks—an elegant image that gives a sense of the intimacy they share. At times, though, the novel’s pacing doesn’t entirely click—but the sense of community, family, and buried secrets at its heart is almost tactile in its presence.

A deeply felt, unconventionally told family story.