When I was asked to read a manuscript by a friend of a friend, I naturally had a few doubts. However, I knew and trusted the intermediary, and had met the author under quite pleasant circumstances. I’d give it a shot.

It became a delightful diversion, an experience somewhere between Huckleberry Finn and Booth Tarkington’s Penrod and Jasper, with my own personal experience as a Methodist preacher’s kid thrown in. Actually, any man who was ever an eleven-year-old boy (and that is most of us) can relate to or identify with Edwin J. Stamford, coming of age in a small Kansas town. His alter-ego, Snake Shadow, seems a perfectly logical entity under the circumstances. The plot is mildly irreverent, marginally bawdy and rebellious, but still not x-rated. There’s a chuckle on every page, and a guffaw on most.

Perhaps this volume’s greatest asset is the fact that the characters are real. Any reader will spot people he knows or has known, for better or for worse. He/She will find characters who are charming, nauseating, endearing, or downright gross. My sister may not like it much, which is probably a recommendation in itself.

But, enough; find an easy chair or a porch swing, get yourself a bottle of RC Cola, and prepare for a pleasant trip back to some good old days which we may have viewed with suspicion, even at the time.

Don Coldsmith
Award-winning author of the Spanish Bit Saga
and Long Journey Home