Title: Firefly Rain
Author: Richard Dansky
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast: Discoveries
Year Published: 2008

First Sentence: I remember a night when I was six years old the way some folks remember their first kiss.

Richard Dansky’s first original novel, Firefly Rain, is a wonderful tale that follows the tradition of the southern gothic ghost story. And yet it’s not just about ghosts. It’s about relationships, memory, and family. The plot, in brief, is fairly straight forward: A young man, Jacob Logan, has returned to the small town he grew up to collect his thoughts after living and thriving in business. Both his parents have died, but he still has the old family house to stay in. The trouble starts almost the moment he moves back into the house he grew up in. Elements of the supernatural, local legends and myths, and his own repressed memories all combine to weave a mystery that slowly becomes a life-or-death struggle for Logan to solve.

Though the plot is straightforward enough, what stands out most in Firefly Rain is Dansky’s absolutely magnificent pacing. The build he structures from the very first page is simply masterful, and it infects every element of his story. Even the dual love stories are constructed and entwined in such a way that, when they finally intersect, they build off each other rather than play against each other. As Dansky continues to weave his story elements together, the relationships between these elements is what creates the mounting feeling of fear. So while Firefly Rain isn’t really a horror novel, it is a thrilling and often times chilling read.

Another of Dansky’s strengths is his creation of setting and place. True to the southern gothic tradition, the various places that Firefly Rain is set in are as much a character Logan or Carl (the caretaker hired on to manage the family homestead in Logan’s absence). Logan’s house has a life all it’s own, as do various parts of his property and the little town of Maryfield itself. Through the relationships Logan develops with these places, they become an increasingly active and important part of the primary storyline, and the secondary storylines are totally dependent upon the various locations.

There are a few shortcomings to Firefly Rain however. Most importantly, it starts out amazingly slow. The first dozen pages creep along as introductions are made and all the basic elements are put into place. Though Dansky’s pacing is evident even this early, there was just barely enough going on to keep me interested. For the most part it’s all establishing information that Dansky builds upon and refers back to throughout the book. And yet there is a distinct lack of information about the immediate past of Logan. There is precious little backstory given, and the reader is left to build a character from scratch through his actions from the start of the novel on. Normally, this would be a wonderful choice, but without a solid foundation of the big city nature Logan has developed since he left his small hometown, it is difficult to see how much he changes, if at all, as the story progresses. This is particularly important when we get to the final scenes and the eventual obligatory confrontation between the townsfolk and Logan.

Which is one reason the ending fell terribly flat for me. It wasn’t just that I saw it coming a mile a way, which I did, or the loose ends Dansky left dangling, which he does. The primary storyline is, of course, completely resolved. But the secondary storylines are left dangling and feeling incomplete. Specifically, the final outcome of the major relationships, which Dansky crafted so wonderfully throughout the story, are left with no solid resolution because the reader was never really given a firm starting point for Logan’s character. Without that foundation, it’s difficult to see exactly how much Logan has changed over the course of the book. It’s almost as if Dansky were trying to leave himself an out for a possible sequel or prequel, building his own version of Castle Rock or Yoknapatawpha County.

Though it has its problems, Firefly Rain is a solid introductory novel, and, due to the pacing and structure, a really enjoyable read. It’s wonderfully crafted, and the characterizations, for the most part, are explored through charming and believable relationships. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more original Dansky titles in the future.