Deadline

When we lived in China we took a train to Beijing from Kunming and back again.  At the time, Randy Alcorn's novel Safely Home (about Chinese Christians) added great food for thought as we covered many miles of Chinese terrain and I would highly recommend it. So, when I was ready for a novel to read Alcorn's name stood out on the library shelf and I choose Deadline.  Instead of having a write-up of the story line on the back cover, the space was used to say how good the book is (and how good his next book is too.)  That should have tipped me off, but I chose it anyway. For a first novel, it was not bad, I just did not connect well with the characters or their life choices and when the last page was read, I felt more like, "glad that is done" rather than "oh, I'm going to miss them all".  But, if you would like to read about a selfish 50-year old Vietnam Vet who is now a columnist, whose two best friends (one a radical Christian, the other a radical pagan) die in a car accident that was not an accident, than this book might be just for you. It is a detective story and does well to give all the pieces to solve the puzzles, bit by bit. As life is complex, so are the issues covered in this story and it did try to cover quite a few.  In my opinion, the main character, Jake, begins to have some healthy self-awareness on pages 282-283 and I will write what was written to give you an idea about the "hero".  Jake had never thought about Rory's family.  Rory was a one-dimensional fixture in his world like the holodeck images on Star Trek:The Next Generation, as when Jake left Lou's Diner, Rory didn't have a life.  He existed just to round out one little corner of Jake's world.  Open-minded as he liked to think of himself, Jake was beginning to realize he seldom saw any place or anything from someone else's point of view.  He was always the main character. The rest of the world had a supporting role or no role at all.  It struck him as a strange and selfish way to live.   But he goes on living that way for nearly 100 more pages.
The other dynamic to the story is the spiritual dimension that the dead (now fully alive) Christian friend brings interspersed throughout the chapters.  I found it ironic though that readers need to wait until the end of chapter 28 to get a glimpse of the life-after for the pagan friend.
Published in 1994, the story was written in present-day style. It consistently depicts awareness of life as it was lived and offers hope for a society in need.  According to pages of reader's responds to Deadline, many really loved this book, for me it fell a bit flat.

Deadline
by Randy Alcorn
426 pages, paperback
1994