The Returned by Jason Mott


"All our days are the same until one day when our world turns upside down. This is what happens in Arcadia. Harold and Lucille's son, Jacob, has returned. He hasn't returned from the store or from school. He has returned from the dead. Soon he will become one of the many people who will return from their graves and  go back home to their loved ones. These people will be called "The Returned."

Jacob died by drowning in 1966. His father was the last one to hold him. Now, he's alive again. Lucille, Jacob's mother, asks no questions. She's happy to see her son back home again. It doesn't matter that none of this makes sense. Jacob is home again. Therefore, how foolish not to continue on with life as if they had never lost him in the first place.

Jacob's father thinks differently. He can't swallow this wild event hook, line and sinker. To Harold, this is not his son. "It's "something else." Harold takes a more philosophical approach. Bringing up questions that I didn't dare try to sink my teeth into while reading "The Returned by Jason mott."  If Jacob and the others aren't the dead come out of their graves, what are they? Who are they? I preferred sticking with Lucille's belief to accept it all as a good blessing.

The novel is fascinating. Each chapter deals with an individual or family. I didn't expect so many people to return from their graves. There are so many "Returned" that the militia comes into town and barb wires the school like a jail so that the Returned can live there. Out of the way until it is thought out what to do about these strange people or non-people.

I constantly asked myself throughout the book how I would react to such circumstances. Doing this little exercise was a lot of fun. My one problem is that near the end the story seemed to repeat itself over and over. I felt the author was stalling for time. I began to know the sequence of events. Thank goodness for Lucille's flare up. Without it, we seemed to be stuck on returned and housed and repeat again and again.

I am anxious to read Jason Mott's next book. I can't imagine what he will share in his next novel which is already publishedhttp://jasonmottauthor.com/

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