SUMMER OF LOVE AND EVIL

A teenage boy’s life in 1960s rural Iowa.

Before he departs for college at Drake University in Des Moines in the fall of 1967, high school valedictorian Charles Weaver must endure one more long summer in the tiny (pop. 2,500) southern Iowa town of Lockwood. With the assistance of his father, a lawyer and member of the city council, he lands a job on the city street crew, patching potholes and spraying oil on unpaved streets to tamp down the dust. Charles’ romance with Frankie, who happens to be the daughter of his irascible boss, displays occasional sparks without ever truly catching fire. These relationships offer intriguing opportunities to investigate themes of economic and social class that Kinnamon doesn’t explore in depth. From the Fourth of July parade to the county fair to a Pentecostal service, he effectively evokes the atmosphere and daily rhythms of small-town life, though this skill isn’t matched by an ability to create either emotionally complex characters or compelling action. For an intelligent 18-year-old, Charlie seems curiously unreflective, and the closest the novel comes to a moment of real narrative tension is when he and his co-worker Jerry discover a charred body at the site of a fire that destroys a historic church. Unfortunately, the mystery surrounding that event is never fully developed. Save for the occasional allusion to the Vietnam War or the urban riots of that summer, Lockwood, a town whose center is decaying and whose surrounding farms are being acquired by corporate agricultural interests, also seems oddly divorced from the America of its time. Kinnamon’s treatment of his subject is earnest, but his palpable affection for Charlie and most of his other characters doesn’t translate into a memorable reading experience.

A sincere coming-of-age novel that fails to deliver on its promise.