A Town with Half the Lights on

A heart-warming story of a family returning to a small town in Kansas from New York City on a journey of redemption. The general plot of this story was simple yet endearing as we follow a small family as they each heal from the past and come together as one. The interesting use of emails, newspaper articles and journal entries as the format for the story provides outsiders views on the family and the town as a whole. Very interesting story!
Thank you netgalley and author for the honour of reading this book!

A Town with Half the Lights On just blew me away. This novel, written by author Page Getz, introduces us to "Goodnight, Kansas, where there are no strangers."

Mired deeply in money and career trouble, the Solvang family arrives in Midnight from Brooklyn, NY. Scarlet Solvang, wife to Sid and mother to Harlem, is back to her hometown after a 20-year break. Her family moves onto Scarlet's late father's (Pop's) once-booming Apalca farm; however, there are only 3 alpacas left. The rest of the town looks barren, too; Scarlet doesn't recognize much of what's left, saying, "Maybe I've found the opposite of New York."

"Emporia Road is the main drag through Goodnight. It's a dusty, forgotten street." Unfortunately, owners of the many businesses that once thrived in the town boarded up the storefront windows and left. Goodnight has fallen on hard times, primarily due to the absence of good jobs and stagnating wages at the town's major employer, Goodnight American Tire Company.

While the novel's first part focuses on the Solvang's arrival and their purchase of the May Day diner, there is so much more to the story. We soon learn that the Goodnight American Tire Company (GATC) is overflowing with corporate greed disease. GTAC is duplicitous, hiding its wrongdoings and decimating the economy and environment in Midnight.

The humor and characters in this book are fantastic. From the author's naming conventions, such as the "Sunset Home for Widows, Un-wived, and Under-wived men," to characters with no filter like Bailey, readers will be amused. Speaking of saucy, take-no-shit Bailey, waitress at the May Day Diner, has some of the best lines in the book. After waiting on with an uppity man from NYC wearing a pocket square (and it's paisley patterned, to boot), she remarks, "If I weren't on probation, I might've slapped him just for looking stupid, but [probabation offer] says I can't hit nobody until July."

Uniquely, the story moves along entirely through mixed media pieces. That is, there is no narrator. I found this format extremely engaging, and while I acknowledge that it must have been difficult for the author, I quite liked how straightforward it was. The story evolves through journal entries, physical middle-school notes, emails, The Goodnight Star newspaper/gossip rag, and more.

A Town with Half the Lights On discusses painful and controversial topics like income disparity, wage stagnation, union busting, bullying, pollution, cover-ups, corrupted officials, and more. We see characters who are different, like Disco, who wears glitter and scares people away (literally). In writing that, I'm reminded that all of the characters in this book (the good ones, anyhow) are overwhelmingly different. They are complex, non-perfect people with honest opinions and problems.

The main theme of this novel is a community rising above all odds and evils to achieve something magnificent. The characters are hard-working, determined, smart people, and their differences are what make the collective group great.

I absolutely adore this book, and there is so much more I could say about it. However, to avoid spoiling anything, I'll leave you to discover the story, town, and characters for yourself. This book deserves a solid 5-star rating!