Loss is never easy, but when it’s unexpected, the wound cuts a little deeper. Thom Algonquin and his son, Jude are two men well acquainted with recent tragedy. Thom’s wife, Helen wasn’t sick when she died a year ago. She fell down the stairs. Thom had no time to prepare his heart for such sorrow. Small town athlete, Jude was going places. An unfortunate injury to his arm prompted him to come home to the shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota. 

It’s winter and the lake is frozen over. Thom drives a snowplow for the county. On his off time, he takes out a wall and a door of his house in the dead of winter so he can build a sunroom. Thom thinks he will enjoy it, and the sunroom would add value to the house. Thom claims he has itchy hands on doing tasks around the house. The motion and the focus of the project helps him from falling into despair. 

Rowing is all that Jude thought about growing up. But after the accident involving a refrigerator and a piece of shard glass, he can barely lift his arm over his head. Now he works in a restaurant washing dishes, a job that asks nothing of him. His old girlfriend Emily is a waitress there. She smokes cigarettes and invites him out for drinks with old friends, but he rarely goes. They still love each other, but Emily is getting tired of waiting around for him.      

Thom and Jude in their stalled lives have created an emotional prison for themselves. In a seemingly uncharacteristic move, Thom decides to stop construction on the sunroom and build a rowboat with the intention of rowing 350 miles across the lake. Thom builds the boat out of a tree in the yard.  

Hold Fast is a beautiful portrayal of the human proclivity to resist pain. Thom and Jude are constantly in motion. Their busyness keeps them from acknowledging their shared grief and reaching out to one another for support. Father and son love each other, but don’t know how to show it. Jude gives his father a book to read, hoping he would enjoy it. Thom thought the book was a waste of time. As his dad is getting older, Jude finds himself worrying about him, like a parent wondering if he remembered to wear his gloves. Thom is afraid of Jude really knowing him. In Jude, Thom still sees purity, redemption, and a chance at becoming a saint. Both men need something to break the distance between them.  

Blending poetry and prose, Spencer K.M. Brown tells the story through the points of view of Thom and Jude. There is a small amount of vulgar language, but it did not affect my enjoyment of the story. For parents: this is a book more for your adult/college aged child than a younger teen. Just over three hundred pages, I found Hold Fast to be a fast read. The characters drew me in, and I found myself wanting to know what happens to them. Do Jude and Emily make a go at a relationship? Is the sunroom ever completed? Will Thom actually get on the lake in his rowboat?

Catholicism hangs in the air as a reminder of Helen. Jude recalls how his father, a convert, studied Canon Law. His father loved how everything fit together almost like an engine, but didn’t see the point of being still in prayer. Since Helen’s death, Thom hasn’t been back to church. His tasks are like prayers. While working on the rowboat, Thom prayed the only prayer he knew by heart. “O, grant us one more hour to perform our art and perfect our lives.”