Though always in the company of family, there’s a certain loneliness to Charlie Melvin, the centerpiece of the new novella The Volcano Keeper from Alabama author Bradley Sides.
As a boy, Charlie witnesses a volcano suddenly emerge behind his house on his family’s North Alabama land, and from then, he keeps watch over it in hopes of a promise fulfilled.
The Volcano Keeper is a rich story, often told in between its chapters and in lines unspoken, about what it means to maintain in spite of doubt, to wait in the face of life racing forward. As Charlie grows from boy to man, the specter of eruption looms. Life continues. People come and go. The volcano stays.
Told through vignettes, Sides offers Charlie’s story as a representation many Southern boys feel towards their grandfathers, and he does so with a painful, universal accuracy. Sides questions the afterlife, vows, and faith with tender stories and realism, designed to leave readers wondering of an ending that is sure to come. Sides conveys a tale of religion by striping away cant. He captures the good, the magic of Alabama when in times it can be hard to see.
Sides writes with a tenderness on the subject that serves to state though staying put and rooting to the ground that’s ever changing feels like a certain death, in The Volcano Keeper, it’s an act of love.
The novella The Volcano Keeper by Bradley Sides releases on Tuesday, October 20 from Regal House Publishing.
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