Book Summary and Reviews of Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson

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Cloggie Downunder

A tale full of hope and heart and humour.
“Their father had never been a bad parent. He had always been attentive, loving and patient. He had only become a bad parent when he disappeared, when he ceased to be a part of their life.”

Run For The Hills is the fifth novel by award-winning American author, Kevin Wilson. When Reuben (Rube) Hill turns up at the successful organic Tennessee farm that she runs with her mother, claiming to be her older half-brother, Madeline (Mad) Hill struggles to see the father she knew, who left when she was ten, in the man Rube describes. Could the Boston insurance salesman and novelist who left Rube and his mom over three decades earlier possibly be the same man as the Tennessee farmer who claimed to be from Maine? And yet, and yet….

As if that’s not shocking enough, Rube tells her that Charles (Chuck) Hill went on to abandon at least two more partners with offspring. He’s following his father’s trail across America, intending meet the other half-siblings before he confronts the old man himself, now, according the investigator he hired, living in California. Will Mad come with him?

Mad’s mother encourages her to go, to connect with this new half-brother, and to get some answers about her father. Soon enough, they are driving, in Rube’s rented PT Cruiser, towards the next-in-line sibling in Oklahoma. Will they get to meet more of their half-siblings? Will those offspring of Charles Hill want to join their quest-of-sorts? Will they find their dad? How will it all turn out?

As she learns from her siblings, along the way, about the differences and similarities their father displayed in each iteration, what he did for each child, Mad muses that “Maybe every single moment of loving someone you helped make was connected to this low-level terror that hurt your heart,” and wonders “Is this why their father left them?” But is the truth perhaps less altruistic…?

What an original premise on which to build a story! Wilson gives each of the siblings a narrative voice, some to a greater degree, revealing four characters with depth and appeal with whom only the hardest of hearts won’t feel empathy. The dialogue is delightful, often laugh-out-loud (and occasionally, darkly) funny, and the ultimate resolution is realistic. The cover by Alan Fears is perfect. A tale full of hope and heart and humour.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Text Publishing.

ABeman

Kooky family road trip in a PT Cruiser
The gist, a foursome of half-siblings pile into a PT Cruiser on a road trip to find the father that abandoned each of them sequentially. They all thought they were only children until oldest brother Rueben pulls up to oldest sister Madeline's organic farm in Coalfield, Tennessee (the setting for Wilson's last novel, Now Is Not the Time to Panic).

Mad's mother convinces Mad to join Rube on his quest and they pick up their hoops-playing, college-aged sister Pep at OU (Boomer Sooners!) and their 10-year-old brother Tom in Salt Lake City before beelining to California, which Rube's PI has identified as the current home of their father, Charles Hill. Run for the Hills, get it? It's fun and clever like all of Wilson's novels, but this one feels a little safer, a little less weird. I love Ron Charles's take in the Washington Post: "Wilson writes that a quest 'is by nature fraught with peril,' but this antiseptic quest feels more fraught with Purell." Snap.

It's still a great read, especially if you are a Kevin Wilson fan. Thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for an opportunity to read and share my opinion of this book.

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