A Voice for Independent Authors

“You can kill a book quicker by your silence than by a bad review.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri

REVIEWING TODAY: THE HOMESTEAD BY DOUGLASS HOOVER

There is no redemption to be found in The Homestead, a violent, dark, vengeance-centered Thriller by Douglass Hoover. There are no good guys. There are no heroes. Perhaps the final words spoken by the central character, Augustin Stark, best express the overriding message of this multi-layered story: “Nobody wins, boy.” Thus, it may be difficult for the reader uninitiated in the psychic scars of war to fully appreciate the creative choices made in plotting such an unresolved narrative. But this book is not about a satisfactory resolution, and certainly not about the good guys winning – remember, there are no good guys. If there is satisfaction to be had, it is in watching the unending turmoil and misplaced skills one faces upon returning “home” as diagnosed and characterized by the assertive, well-honed writing of this observant author.

The Homestead referred to in Douglass Hoover’s psychologically disturbed novel is a compound created by those who cannot find a place in “normal” society, a place for those who wish to live a simpler, more natural life, located in the isolated wilds of Alaska. At least that is the explanatory veneer. It may also simply be a place where broken people go, bad people hide, and weak people escape. It is not, however, what corrupt corporate raiders profess it to be: a hotbed of domestic terrorism. When these cowardly rats of corporate being suborn the FBI into pursuing misinformed aggressive action, there is hell to pay … all the way around. And while Hoover keeps the velocity (and anger) of his violent action high, in the end, “Nobody wins, boy.”