The Jordan Tracks: Book Review

*disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publishers through Mind and Media in exchange for my services as a reviewer.

The Jordan Tracks By Steven W. Wise

I have a confession to make. Actually, I have two confessions. 

1. I judged a book by its cover.
2. I was wrong in my judgment about the book.

You see, I received the book “The Jordan Tracks” by Steven W. Wise in the mail. I had known nothing about the story line or the author. I look at the book cover and frankly it looked cheesy. It looked like a high school student had done the cover art. My attitude toward the book immediately turned sour.  I thought, “Oh no, what have I gotten myself into”.

But I knew I had committed and I had a job to do, so to be faithful, I decided to gut it out and started to make my way through the book. Once I started reading I could tell that I had misjudged the book and I was pulled into a compelling tale. There were a few points in the beginning of the story where the story did not quite flow smoothly and I even got confused as to the distinction of two of the main characters, but that was quickly cleared up.

If you boil the story down to its simplest plot, it is a story of people’s faith journey.  The story is set in a small town in Missouri and all of the characters on their faith journey were influenced by a young Christian soldier, Aaron Bates, who was killed in action in Vietnam in 1968.

The first character was Aaron’s father, Ernie Bates, who was raised in a very difficult household and actually killed his own alcoholic father while protecting his mother from a beating. Ernie has somehow managed to make it past that terrible event in his life and build a somewhat normal life until that fateful day when he found that his son had been killed.  Ernie had idolized Aaron and he was crushed when he heard the terrible news of his son’s death.

The second character was Gino, a friend from Vietnam
.  Gino was also raised in a difficult environment in
Chicago
.  Aaron had tried to have conversations about the things of significance but Gino was just not ready to have those conversations, Until after Aaron had died.

And finally there was the lovable, affable Fudd.  A simply man that worked at the turkey plant with Aaron’s father.  Fudd would admit to not being willing to have conversations about deeper issues.  He was just not interested in spiritual matters in life.  But Aaron’s death had changed things for him also.  That years of being influenced by Aaron and his Christian mother Christina planted seeds that were taking root.

Wise has a way of telling this story so that whatever issues of a spiritual nature would occur, I would find myself in tears.  I found the situations so real, deep and compelling that it appeared that I was experiencing them for real in person.  His Christian characters exuded the type of grace and love that you see so infrequently in real life but that when you do see it in a person you immediately know that it is genuine.  Barron’s father Ernie experienced the “pit of despond” that most of We’ll never experience in life, yet for the grace of god he somehow persevere. 

Wise gave me a view into the activities of the spiritual world that I have not seen since reading the Frank Peretti’s books This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness .  In my book that is very high praise.

In the end, some characters came to believe in Jesus and some you’re not sure where they’re at with their journey.  That seems to be pretty typical in life, we plant some seeds and we see some sprout. That is just the way of life.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I would recommend it for you also.

You can find more review here and here.