cover image A Crack in Everything

A Crack in Everything

Daniel Marcus. Apodis (www.apodispublishing.com), $14.95 trade paper (230p) ISBN 978-0-9738047-5-1

Marcus (Burn Rate) delivers a touching and often melancholy contemporary fantasy that deftly avoids straying into over-sentimentality. While on a family vacation, alcoholic father Gene crashes his car and ends up in a coma. As he flashes back through his various misadventures, his wife and son both find themselves dealing with supernatural encounters. Maggie, a recovering alcoholic herself, has visions of hitting a dog her husband had killed years ago, while alcohol mysteriously appears in their rented trailer. Teen Gabe meets Otto, a man who looks like God but might just be a trickster spirit. The supernatural is present throughout, but Marcus focuses on the characters attempting to deal with real-world stressors like Gene's injuries and Gabe's hormones. Marcus's characters are believable and layered, avoiding the clich%C3%A9s that so often plague novels of addiction, and the emotional climax pays off nicely. (Sept.)