..Book Reviews..

The plot takes its time getting going (though the mom's dying note is quite a hook), but when it finally starts moving it holds your attention. While not entirely cliche, the writing does flirt with it from time to time, dropping in predictable characters and situations.

Faith in God is central to the story, but for the most part Cramer keeps from beating you over the head with it. Jeremy is a bit too much of the clean-living stock Christian character, berating his fellow employees for their language, bristling at the task of buying beer and falling for a girl who happens to like the same Christian rock music. But to the story's credit there is no typical CBA conversion scene (it's more of a slow transformation over time). Faith is inherent to the story, showing up in casual conversation just like it does in real life. Occasionally the symbolism is a bit heavy handed, but it usually takes a back seat to the story.

Bad Ground is not bad. A lot of things were done right but a few things could have been better.

I think overall I enjoyed reading it, I appreciated how well-crafted it was, but a few tired cliches seemed to weigh it down. The goody-goody Christian trying to work with the foul-mouth miners is so tired. The badly scarred character with a nickname of Snake? The man who interprets the church service into sign language for 17 years seemingly for no reason, only to one day realize the congregation's token mentally-disabled member has understood all this time? And worst of all, the pretty girl who just so happened to like the same Christian rock band? Sigh. The rest of the story worked well, but these minor moments could have been pushed a little farther to stretch the story and avoid what's been done before.

More:

Faith*In*Fiction interviews Dale Cramer
Chris Well interviews Dale Cramer