When the Finch Rises

Book excerpt: “[A] deeply satisfying portrait of a troubled family [that] conjures up the mysteries of a mill town summer, vividly depicting the lights and shadows of ordinary events and horrors.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution It is the late 1960s in the small North Carolina mill town of Ellenton. Twelve-year-old Raybert Williams and his best friend Palmer Conroy live in cramped homes in a working-class neighborhood, but they use the vast outdoors as their personal playground. Yet hardships are never far away. Raybert’s father disappears for days at a time, only to come home broken and battered. Raybert’s mother is a loving woman who battles her own demons while struggling to keep it all together. Palmer’s family life offers no better refuge for the adventure-seeking boys. But Raybert and Palmer have each other. And in that glorious friendship, they are significantly blessed. They dream together of space flight and moonwalks. They construct a bike jump to rival Evel Knievel’s–and they’ll run it once they work up the courage. Knievel tempted fate and won, taking a leap over twenty buses on faith alone, soaring high and landing safely, even after many crashes and broken bones. Palmer and Raybert have their own plan that, once executed, will take them all the way to the ocean, landing them intact and together on the other side of freedom. Through the scrim of adolescence and poverty, Jack Riggs offers a glimpse of universal human foibles and singular moments of transcendence. Fiercely honest and beautifully narrated, When the Finch Rises flashes like the sharp rim of the eclipsed moon on the night when Raybert and Palmer’s fate is finally revealed. Praise for When the Finch Rises “A perfect evocation of time and place . . . Jack Riggs has crafted a gem of a novel here–hard and brilliant, it cuts to the bone.”—Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls “Jack Riggs has brought to life two of the most memorable characters I’ve met in a long while. . . . Like a contemporary Tom and Huck, this pair is graced with a keen wit and eye for humor, keeping the reader in that precarious position of not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Riggs’s ability to find and hold that balance is remarkable. When the Finch Rises is compelling and moving–a stunning debut.”—Jill McCorkle