Published February 10, 2015 by Amy Einhorn Books
It was the summer everything changed.…My Sunshine Away unfolds in a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spicy crawfish, and passionate football fandom. But in the summer of 1989, when fifteen-year-old Lindy Simpson—free spirit, track star, and belle of the block—experiences a horrible crime late one evening near her home, it becomes apparent that this idyllic stretch of Southern suburbia has a dark side, too.
In My Sunshine Away, M.O. Walsh brilliantly juxtaposes the enchantment of a charmed childhood with the gripping story of a violent crime, unraveling families, and consuming adolescent love. Acutely wise and deeply honest, it is an astonishing and page-turning debut about the meaning of family, the power of memory, and our ability to forgive.
My Thoughts…
Most of the characters in this book are teenagers,
characters I can relate to as I am raising two of my own right now. While the crime against Lindy Simpson is the
main story, I felt a connection to the younger boy who is obsessed with
Lindy. There is no name ever given to
the young boy, yet I felt like I knew him.
He was truly obsessed with Lindy.
He knew her schedule, what she wore, how she sat, and who did the
unthinkable to her. It was frightening
and eye opening at how such innocence can turn into something so dangerous
without anyone giving it a second thought.
I enjoyed how the story was told from a male point of
view. This is rare in the books I
usually read. The setting of Baton
Rouge, Louisiana was interesting and eye opening when it was described how the
city flooded, how the people forced to leave New Orleans invaded it, and how
the children were left to play outside and entertain themselves. I could picture the streets, with the lights
on the porches, and the kids playing in the front yard with their bikes. The flooding made me smile, with the idea
of a neighbor driving his boat from house to house to check on his neighbors
and give them food.
The words in this book are from childhood memories. They are shared as a child would share them
and in the way a child would perceive what was happening. There was some jumping between timeframes,
but it flowed with the story perfectly.
I enjoyed that the memories were not taken from a child view and turned
into an adult view. The innocence and
fun of childhood was shown as was how tough circumstance sometimes appear
different to a child than to an adult in the same place.
This is a must read for 2015.
Book Links
Praise for MY SUNSHINE AWAY
"I really loved this book. I am in awe, swept up in the
quiet beauty of the prose, and in the wisdom and compassion of the narrator. I
can't praise it enough. My Sunshine Away is not a thriller;
it is not genre fiction; but it's realism at its finest, and it is a page
turner—a story made memorable in paragraph after paragraph by the brilliance of
its author, and by the scope of the questions he asks as to how we live this
life to the fullest as loving and moral beings. It’s about love, obsession, and
pain. Such a beautiful book. Such a remarkable book. I hope M.O. Walsh writes
many more wonderful books.”
—Anne Rice, #1 nationally bestselling author of Prince
Lestat
“Try and restrain yourself from flying through the pages of
this wonderful novel. Instead savor this lush Louisiana mystery that takes you
back to what life tasted like when you were still somewhat naïve to the ways of
the world. Not just Southern, but American in its vivid Baton Rouge colors and
scents, treetops and grasses, My Sunshine Away is
the story of how the events of our youth profoundly affect us as adults. The
last page is as satisfying as the first. A mystery you cannot wait to solve.”
—Kathryn Stockett, #1 New York Times bestselling
author of The Help
“This is literature of the highest order. Although the book
snaps with the tautness of a thriller––and Walsh keeps the reader
guessing until the end, as the best mystery writers do––My Sunshine Away also
asks essential questions, like how much responsibility we have to each
other, and whether we can we ever fully reassemble the pieces of broken
lives. And whileWalsh hints at answers, it’s his willingness to engage
such ideas that makes My Sunshine Away an
important work of fiction. We need more novelists with the guts and
clarity of M. O. Walsh.”
—Matthew Thomas, New York Times–bestselling
author of We Are Not Ourselves
“If you start this novel, you will not put it down. My Sunshine Away is
a riveting, suspenseful, page-turning mystery. It is also a wise, insightful,
and beautifully written novel. This is an extraordinary debut.”
—Jill McCorkle, New York Times–bestselling author of Life
After Life
“My Sunshine Away is that rarest find,
a page-turner you want to read slowly and a literary novel you can't look away from.
At times funny, at times spine-tinglingly suspenseful, and at times just
flat-out wise, this novel is also a meditation on memory, how it can destroy or
damn us but redeem us as well. It's a book to read and reread, one that
will only get better with time, like its writer. I'm already excited
about M. O. Walsh’s next book, whatever it is.”
—Tom Franklin, bestselling author of Crooked
Letter, Crooked Letter
“M.O. Walsh has written one of the best books I've
read in a long while. An outstanding examination of the way that the past and
the weight of our memories shape us, My Sunshine Away,
thanks to Walsh’s verve and total control over the narrative, feels
utterly original.”
—Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang
"MY SUNSHINE AWAY begins with a crime.
But the novel is so much more than a mystery; it’s half lament, half love
letter to youth and to possibility. On every page, we feel complicit, perhaps
even guilty. Guilty of what? For ever having been young ourselves. The magic of MY SUNSHINE AWAY is
in M. O. Walsh’s extraordinary ability to make us long for the heartache
of youth and its inevitable sins. This is an awe-inspiring debut."
—Hannah Pittard, author of Reunion and The
Fates Will Find Their Way
"If I were asked to list the qualities the ideal novel
would offer, I'd start by demanding beautiful sentences. I'd want the
opening to grab me and I'd want the ending to refuse to let go. I'd ask
for characters who consistently surprise by being somehow deeper and less
predictable than we could ever have guessed they'd be. I'd want Place to
be written with a capital P. I'd want a mystery at the heart of story,
and a mystery or two in every heart. And when I finished reading the
book, I'd want to be both wiser and sadder than when I started. M. O. Walsh's
magnificent novel MY SUNSHINE AWAY afforded me all these
pleasures and more. This is one of the best novels I've read in
ages."
—Steve Yarbrough, author of The Realm of Last
Chances.
“Q: When is it a thrill to feel gutted? A: When you start
reading the book you hold in your hands. M. O. Walsh’s MySunshine Away reminds
us that art can be wrenching and a delight, that pain—if examined through wit,
intimacy, and wisdom—can be a salve. This novel is great.”
—Darin Strauss, internationally bestselling author
of Half a Life
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