Reviewed by Noemi Martin
Scorched (Holloway Press 2025) by Don Silver is set in 1974 in Lakeside, a little town near Philadelphia. The story revolves around fifteen-year-old Jonas Shore, who can be a little troublemaker when he needs to make some money. The novel teaches how letting go can bring peace instead of holding onto the past.
A freshman in high school, Jonas is one of the quiet kids, not the kind of boy who grabs everyone’s attention at first. In fact, most people would probably just brush him off and think nothing much of him.
Jonas’s father, Simon Shore, is the kind of a man who doesn’t care about his family, as he tosses out insults and abuses them emotionally. He “can insult and get away with it.” When he abruptly dies of a heart attack, Jonas doesn’t know what to feel.
Delia Shore, Jonas’s mother, is a kind woman, who protected Jonas from Simon’s abuse. With the death of her husband, she feels overwhelmed as she doesn’t know how to support herself and Jonas. For a while, everything is reasonably fine even though they are barely making it through the day, but then Jonas notices Delia’s coughing seems?worse. He begins to buy and sell drugs.
When he is caught, he is given two choices. He can either serve prison time or enter Lafayaette Academy, a school for fatherless boys. With his mother ill, he hates to leave, but Delia encourages her son to go since she can no longer support him. While he is gone, she?dies from cancer.
At Lafayette Academy, he’s introduced to his quintmates (roommates) Bones, Dresser, Dugie, and Richie. Bones was arrogant but over the years he grows out of it and helps others. Dresser is crazy, reckless, and gets?the group of guys in trouble. Dugie helps Jonas around when he first arrives and is the narcissist?of the group. Dugie tells him the rules and shows him round the academy. Lastly, Richie is mysterious, quiet, and the most “normal” of the boys. Having lost Delia, Jonas grieves for a long time before getting back on his feet, as he “remembers how, after his mother died, his quintmates, each with their strengths and secrets, faults and failings, their competition and rivalry, became his family.”?After being together for two years, the boys become close and know they have the other’s backs if there’s trouble. However, after the boys commit a horrible crime, they decide to go their separate ways.
Twenty years later, after having had no contact, Dugie reaches out to Jonas, wanting to take control of the company that Jonas built. By the end of this novel, Jonas sees the truth about Dugie. He also realizes that he’s “just like everybody else” and “he’s doing the best he can.” Most important, he learns how forgiveness can bring peace and calm.
About the Author:
Don Silver
Don Silver has been a musician, talent scout for a record company, record producer, business person, and consultant to CEOs. He has an MFA from Bennington College. His first novel, “Backward-Facing Man,” published by Ecco/HarperCollins, was hailed as “memorably offbeat” (New York Times) and “illuminating and entertaining” (Pittsburgh Tribune). Originally from Philadelphia, Don lives in Asheville, NC.
About the Reviewer:
Noemi Martin
Noemi Martin is a freshman at Reinhardt University majoring in nursing. She loves to help others and challenge herself and is planning to work as an ICU or NICU nurse. She loves music and plays the clarinet and will be in the university’s marching band in the upcoming. She is currently learning to crochet to so she can give plushies and blankets to patients at the hospital, as well as to donate.
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