Late Last Night Books: It Will Broaden Your Perspective on ... Family, Freedom, and Fear

Late Last Night Books, the popular book blog, published a rave review of Setting the Family Free.  Here are some snippets.

“Toward the end of Setting the Family Free by Eric D. Goodman, one of the main characters thinks about what has to be done to “end this bloody twenty hours, thereby closing the darkest ordeal of his life,” but he can’t bring himself to do it. The fact that he is so conflicted is indicative of the many opposing threads that Goodman weaves together to create suspense and compassion in this tale of the escape of dozens of exotic animals from a homemade zoo in Chillicothe, Ohio. It’s a compelling story told by a skillful, adventurous writer.”

The reviewer knows that perspective is something that interests me as a writer. “He also shows his penchant for unusual storytelling by including several chapters from the point of view of the animals who have escaped. The unexpected narrator isn’t new for Goodman—he told his novel Womb: A Novel in Utero from the point of view of an unborn fetus—and he excels at making the animals in this novel believable and sometimes sympathetic. Being immersed in the thoughts of a lion or a bear is fascinating.

“But people are the ones who make the novel most engaging, especially Sammy Johnson, the owner of the exotic-animal zoo.

Sally Whitney sums the book up as “a good story about some dangerous animals that got loose, the people who loved them, and the people who hunted them down. No doubt it will broaden your perspective on the meaning of family, freedom, and fear.

Read the full review at Late Last Night Books.

https://latelastnightbooks.com/2019/09/10/setting-the-family-free-a-guide-to-the-species/