A TIme and an Occupation

continued

Of course, working out on the fringe of what’s legal brings them into contact with some less savory types. Although there’s a lovely cameo appearance by a young man who may indeed be Hugh Hefner, other characters are not quite so pleasant. Just as Wink is developing into a photographer of note, they are forced to leave Chicago. They end up here, in Ann Arbor, drawn as much by the presence of Argus as by any sense of college-town insular safety: “The bright masonry of the Argus Camera Company headquarters suddenly appeared before them as if plunked down amid the elms and maples.” They begin a new life.

Steve Amick, who reads from his new novel at Nicola’s Books on Tuesday, March 10, has done a memorable job creating a time, a place, and an occupation while succeeding at making his readers care deeply about the good people involved in it all. Nothing but a Smile is a serious novel that leaves its readers with a sense that they have remembered, fondly, a time they probably never knew.   

[Originally published in March, 2009.]