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by Joel F Johnson
"Those were just the times." That's how Morris "Little" Nickerson has always chosen to describe the incongruities of his childhood in the segregated south.
But when a call from his older sister prompts Little, who is now in his seventies, to return to his hometown of LaSalle, Georgia, he finds himself having to reexamine the childhood he's kept encased in glass all these years.
As he tries to make sense of the events of one particularly eventful summer, Little tells of Reverend Robert McAllister, the father of his best friend, who speaks the high-flown language of social change but preaches to an all-white congregation; he relates his love for the Black family maid, who is like a second mother to him but is made to sit in the back of his family's car; he describes seeing familiar faces amongst the civil rights' marchers who descend on the LaSalle town square, though he has been told that their protests are the work of outside agitators. Returning to a town he hasn't seen in years, Little is forced to confront the ways in which his best friend, his father, and his fragile, often infirm, mother remain mysterious to him, and to admit that he cannot reconcile the nostalgia he feels for his naïve boyhood with the truth an old man can no longer deny.
"Johnson's debut novel...recalls coming of age in the segregated South...His eagle-eyed prose perfectly captures the mores and frailties of his characters and their community. An observant and immersive work about a society in flux." ―Kirkus Reviews
"Never by Joel F. Johnson is a character-driven work of historical fiction with such a realistic narrative voice that it feels like a memoir. The protagonist, a white man named Morris "Little" Nickerson, reflects on his childhood in 1960s Georgia amid the burgeoning civil rights movement. He thought of Bit, the Black woman employed as a maid during his childhood, as a beloved family member. But as he looks back on this time with a modern gaze, he sees how Bit was not treated as a full equal.
What works particularly well in this book is the moral complexity of its characters. Few are painted as purely good or bad. Little's mother is in many ways progressive on racial issues for the era. She boycotts the department store in town after it refuses to let Bit's daughter sit on Santa's lap—but she does so privately, not willing to make waves and take a stand for antiracism. Details specific to the period contribute to the novel's sense of realism. Reading it feels like being genuinely transported back in time. There's also an incredibly moving moment where Little attends Bit's church and sees her among her real friends. She's bubbly, affectionate, and at ease in a way she isn't among Little's family. Twelve-year-old Little begins to realize for the first time that her role in his family, so crucial from his perspective, is just a job for her. This is a quiet, slower novel that won't appeal to those seeking fast-paced thrills, but literary fiction fans will appreciate the depth of its character development." —BookBrowse
"In stunning prose, Johnson has written a powerful, deeply compassionate story about compelling characters struggling with complex issues that still determine lives today." ―Meredith Hall, author of Beneficence
"Joel Johnson's elegant prose conveys with aching precision the delicate nature of human frailty. You'll want to read every word, so settle in. Never is a book to savor." ―Catherine Armsden, author of Dream House
This information about Never was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
After growing up Columbus, Georgia, Joel F. Johnson graduated from Harvard and made stops in Alta, Utah, Boulder, and Manhattan, before settling in Concord, Massachusetts. His collection of poems, Where Inches Seem Miles, was selected by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best independent books of 2014. Never is his first novel.
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