Range of Light by Scott Neuffer is a pretty good book, but it didn't grab me. While the writing was good, the story did not grow on me.

<i>Range of Light</i> is a work of literary fiction where the lives of three people collide on a mountain top in Yosemite park. The three protagonists are slightly dysfunctional and dealing with life issues that they try to escape on mountainside hike. <i>Range of Light</i> is the second novel by writer and musician Scott Neuffer.

Stamer is a successful financial businessman who has a hard time maintaining relationships and wants to escape from his working life. Dorle is a drunk who is escaping a family life that she just can’t hold together. Li is a Chinese dissident who is just trying to get back to his art. All three meet on a guided walk up a mountainside and inadvertently try to help each other move on.

Scott Neuffer does an excellent job developing each character to the point where the reader fully understands how and why each person arrives to the point they are today. Nueffer makes excellent use of flashbacks to give us all the details. He also uses a number of secondary characters like the ranger and a blatantly racist woman, and an oversexed couple to add a little to spice to the story.

Even with all of the above, somehow the story falls short. The language and the literary flow are excellent. In a way, the story reads like a poem. However, the plot is weak and the ending is too quick.

I give it a 3 on 5 because it is well written but not engaging enough. I want to thank NetGalley and BHC Press for providing me with a digital copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I seem to be the first person reviewing this book, so I’ll try to be kind and objective. And I say try, because neither of those are necessarily native to my reviewing processes. I actually selected this book because I liked the author’s name, yeah, sometimes it’s that random. But at any rate, here are the basics…in the summer of 2011 three strangers meet on a famous trail at Mount Yosemite. Main plot wise that’s pretty much it, actually, except for the ending, which is for later. But the story spins backwards, taking us through lives of each of the three individuals, explaining what brought them there that day other than the iconic nature in all its majestic beauty. Turns out one of them was an investment banker, who finally decided to change his ways after a lifelong pursuit of money, money, money, though he still has 2 million dollars in cash stashed away. Another was a lifelong drunk guilty or as she claims not guilty of vehicular manslaughter and definitely guilty of screwing up her own life and alienating her family. And last but not least is an outspoken Chinese artist, a victim of political prosecution and complicated family ties to the then regime. So those three. With an additional side character of the park ranger thrown in. The main narrator is the banker and his suddenly developed conscience. The drunk lady is also his love interest, a difficult to explain attraction, but there it is. And Li, is by far the most interesting and likeable character in the entire story. Because I’m not sure the other characters are…all that interesting or likeable. But then again, to author’s credit, they are very well developed. In fact, this is very much a character driven narrative and it does work on that level, it’s people at their messiest complicated best and worst, very realistic, very vivid. The author’s bio says he is also a musician and a poet and you can really tell that from the way the narrative unfolds, there’s a certain cadence and a rhythm to the language. So it’s definitely literary. But as a work of literature it lacks something, some sort of dynamism, a certain immediacy of engagement, it doesn’t quite draw you in like it ought to. It’s first rate character writing in a, well, not first rate novel. For me, it seems that it had a lot to do with not really enjoying most of the characters. And the ending. Now we come to the ending. So maybe don’t read past this sentence if you’re yet to read the novel. Ok? Ok. The ending disappointed at first…for one thing, it was startlingly sudden after so much of no action for so long, and then there was some of the WTF element. And then the epilogue just kind of pissed me off. Seriously, oh banker with a newly found social awareness, you’re just going to throw 2 million bucks away to make a flashy statement to yourself about yourself. Do you have any idea how much good can be accomplished with that kind of dough or how many people can be helped? You’ve wasted your entire life appeasing Mammon and now you’ve wasted a perfect opportunity to redeem yourself? And this was all done seemingly just because of how poetic all that cash looked floating down the water. Nicely done. Grand. What a way to self improve, banker dude. Your character has come far. And also, must one heroicize a drunk of virtually no redeeming qualities due to one random selfless act just for a sort of proper lachrymose closing act? Did one leap prove to be adequately redemptive for a squandered life? Second chances, second acts seem to be a theme, but it just isn’t delivered quite right the morality seems to be all off. So anyway, kid of a mixed bag really. Some nice language, the book read pretty quickly, but not sure it offered all that much for the time. Reader’s mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley.