Wild Isle Review:

WARNING! INEVITABLE SPOILERS BELOW!

*Note: this review is a promotional highlight focusing on the positive qualities of the book rather than a neutral critique.*

Welcome To The Day is a bit of literary fiction centered around the outing of inner turmoil suffered by a cast of characters who have, until now, hidden away their pains in shame. This closeting of emotions spans three generations, from the grandfather Raymond Chandler (the farmer, not the author), to his wayward daughter Cassie and her disgruntled teenage son, Joey. In a single day, fate conspires to unravel the knots that tangle their hearts, that constrain and strain their relationships.

In short, this novel is a modern drama about people indiscernible from a family you know in your neighborhood. Keven takes great pains to capture the struggle of ordinary, American life of those getting by in broken homes. Welcome To The Day doesn’t shy away from the small things, but instead lingers on them with a kind of minimalist flourish, exploring the emotional weight of little details like quirky character comments or behaviors. Hair isn’t just hair, and blue isn’t just another color, but each is a memory of something precious lost.

And yet, as the day plays on, and the plot twists at every turn it can, the reader discovers (along with the characters) who they are and who there family really is. They learn to accept hard truths about themselves and thereby learn to accept one another. The conflict comes full circle, and in a day, a new life is collected from the pieces of tragedy—I think that describes the story better than all the rest . . . and perhaps that’s the real meaning of Welcome To The Day.