MWSA Review

In Moss, author Joe Pace relates the story of Oscar Kendall, a prep school literature teacher and son of world-famous, critically-acclaimed writer Isaiah Moss. Oscar struggles with his own writing, compares himself to his father, and gives up on both his writing and relationships with predictable frequency. He prefers to live life with no one expecting anything from him.

Oscar freely admits he hates his father, and Isaiah, through his letters over the years, tells Oscar he never loved him and doesn’t care to know him. Yet when Isaiah dies, he bequeaths his New Hampshire lakeside writing cabin and everything in it to Oscar.

During the summer he spends at the cabin, Oscar finds an unfinished manuscript of his father’s and anguishes about what to do with it. After reading it, he concludes it is Isaiah Moss’s best work in a lifetime of extraordinary writing. Oscar’s dilemma is whether to pass it off as his own to launch his own writing career or relegate it to his father’s legacy.

While at the cabin, Oscar meets the colorful neighbors at the lake and learns their sometimes-tragic stories. He drinks his father’s liquor and, trying to find his own muse, starts to write using his father’s typewriter. Throughout the summer he learns some of his father’s secrets. Learns more about the man he said he hated. Learns more about the neighbors, more about himself. As the new school year begins and Oscar returns to the classroom, he finally realizes the extent of the gift his father gave him.

Mr. Pace’s prose flows beautifully, and his delicious descriptions of people and places create images that will stay in the reader’s mind for a long time. He draws on both literature and mythology for spot-on metaphors, and leaves the reader wanting more.

This book is written for a literate reader, and it does not disappoint. It is a book to read more than once—not only for the story, but also for the beauty of the way it is written.

Review by Patricia Walkow (February 2023)

Author's Synopsis

Isaiah Moss was one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. His illegitimate son Oscar Kendall wasn't. Living in Isaiah's inescapable shadow, Oscar has become an inveterate quitter who hides his own literary work from the world rather than suffer the pain of failure or rejection.

When Isaiah suddenly dies, Oscar inherits the old man's lakefront writing cabin in New Hampshire. There he finds his father's typewriter, a full liquor cabinet, and an unpublished manuscript of such genius that it could launch Oscar's career if he claims it as his own.

As Oscar wrestles with his own twisted inspirations, he meets the women in Isaiah's life and begins to learn the depths of his father's secrets...and the costs that come with unresolved trauma and romantic delusion.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Literary Fiction

Number of Pages: 234

Word Count: 76,414