Title: Something’s Going On Here
Author: Ruth Cherry, Ph.D.
Publisher: Bookside Press
ISBN: 1990695671
Pages: 262
Genre: Fiction
Reviewed by: David Allen
Pacific Book Review
The sleepy town of Los Osos, California is not all that it seems. In fact, it is one of the central characters of this riveting novel – and with good reason.
Nick, a retired Penn State English professor, divorced, heads west with his aging dog Hildy to start life anew (turns out he’s got lots more baggage, but of the invisible dirty laundry kind.) As the story unfolds, Nick chats us through a series of increasingly bizarre encounters with town fixtures and luminaries, including his cousin Ellie and her loquacious friend Deb; the seemingly helpful but then increasingly reticent librarian Carolyn; the tough as nails barber Elizabeth; Maddy, the alcoholic one woman Greek chorus who ‘knows where the bodies are buried’; Al, an elderly crank who seems to get murdered at the outset; his schizophrenic grandson, Donny; and millionaire Chase Slate, who seems to be behind this Grand Guignol of flying body parts and disconnected lives.
Houses burn, a car explodes, lives are lost; poor intrepid Nick gets conked on the head not once but three times.
The town’s abiding mission is to survive. In order to do this, Los Osos carefully covets and nurtures secrets. Those who pry run the risk of losing all – especially if they are newcomers like Nick, who can’t seem to stop looking into things, even when it costs him his health, his dog, his car, maybe his sanity.
Sanity – and insanity – are running themes in this marvelous book. Nick, given to fits of obsessional thinking and compulsive behavior, dialogues with an absent wife – his familiar, his amanuensis. Dr. Cherry’s handling of the unburied past – which always comes back to bite, to haunt, to punish – is more than adroit.
Psychological insight and humor abound in this lovely book. In one aside, Nick describes how Edgar Allen Poe wrote about the hidden evil in things. At another point in the book, there is an extended (five page) discussion of a town sewage project: which is to say, unprocessed dirty deeds and failed relationships always come back to haunt. And protagonist Nick gets clocked three times by the shadowy wrong-doer(s): the three taps that traditionally open a stage play!
The story itself – and this is yet another master stroke – is just like the town, just like the characters. The book is not what it seems. Right up to the end, we believe that a whodunit, a conspiracy yarn, is spinning out. But Something’s Going On Here is that – and a whole lot more. The book is a telling portrait of what goes around, comes around. As one character tells it, ‘Life isn’t a straight line. It’s a circle.’
Readers of all ages and persuasions are in for a treat. This is a one-stop shop, a thriller that succeeds as a portrait of tragedy, survival, and redemption.
