Jonah – a Review

Times were hard for everyone during the 1930’s depression. For Negroes, the fact that most did not respect them as people made it even harder for many of them. What they said was seldom believed, and most thought them useless.

Then Jonah, an unassuming, exceptionally polite Negro who seems to know just what is going to happen, appears. When Jonah shows up at the house of two widows and asks for some food, they feed him even though they don’t have much. He does a few odd jobs to repay them, and they end up offering him a job as their handyman. As a bonus, he is allowed sleep on their porch.

One of these women had lost her husband when he was hit by a car then shoved off the bridge into the water.  What the ladies don’t realize is that Jonah was a witness to this tragic event.  When he tells the women what he saw, they go to the police. The murder that is central to this story is now brought to light.

Once the guilty person finds out what he did was seen and discovers that the one who saw him is a Negro, he sets out to have the witness discredited. He figures this will be an easy thing to do since the witness happens to be black. Will justice be served?

The story itself is good.  A lot of the dialogue is written in the way that Negroes talked with their distinctive way of pronouncing words, but it was still easy to understand.  I’ve read books where the accent was so overdone that it was unreadable, but that isn’t the case with this book.  It only adds to the feeling of the time and era the book in which the story is set.

I realize that authors and editors are human.  Mistakes can be easily overlooked.  Unless there are too many mistakes to ignore, I hesitate to mention them.  But in this book, there are far too many to ignore.

The author (and editor?) has trouble with the proper use of dialogue tags, using commas with direct address, spelling, and homonyms.  Comma splices abound throughout the book  Some words are horribly misused. The exact years that events in the story took place also need to be made clear to avoid confusing the reader.

When going over the first draft of a story, the author needs to put to use the many resources offered free online to try and ensure sure words are spelled and used correctly.  Many resources are also available that will teach you how to avoid common grammar mistakes such as comma splices.

Aside from that, the author does have the talent to tell a great story.  It truly would be a shame for the errors left in the story to detract from its success.

I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. If you would like to buy your own copy, I have provided an Amazon link below.

Amazon link: Jonah

Favorite Sentence:
And being a Loyola graduate in law, with a minor in psychology, he was a silver tongued devil very capable of such a tightrope line of questioning.

About the Author:
Vince Lane has been writing most of his life. He first began seriously writing literary material around 1980.  At the time he was a musician, singer/songwriter, poet, and professional entertainer living and working in Los Angeles, California.  As a writer, he has always maintained an unabashed style, paying little if any attention to convention. Unlike many writers, he has never settled down into any particular genre having written sci-fi, horror, supernatural, literary, mystery, action adventure, justice, and experimental fiction in iambic pentameter.

Website: http://vincelanebooks.com/
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