"The Song" by Chris Fabry ~ Book Review

"When even the wisest of men is a fool for love, can true love persevere?""

 Jed King is a young singer songwriter who feels called to write music that points people to God. But he is living under the shadow of his famous father, David King who also was a singer songwriter who had made it big in the music world. Though his Dad seemed to have everything this world has to offer, fame, money, and prestige, he also had made huge mistakes and Jed still lives with the consequences of those in his own life. Not getting past a certain point in his career, his manager wants him to forget the God stuff in his songs, but Jed holds his ground. In a career slump, Jed agrees to sing at a wine festival that a vineyard hosts. There he meets Rose, the vineyard owners daughter and finds an instant connection with her. Smitten and inspired by her he sings an off the cuff song, made up while on the stage at the microphone. The song has an emotional impact with the crowd and and gets his career on the path to stardom he has been working for. But more than the fame he wants Rose and he must pass the approval of her strict Christian father. Rose feels she's found the man of her dreams and she is fully supportive of Jed's career when she marries him. But her highly held standards of family priority start to clash with the touring of Jed's band that is required especially when Rose conceives soon after being married. When Jed's manager pairs him up with an opening band who has a very worldy and beautiful lead singer, the same temptation and sins that caused his father to stumble and fall starts to visit the son. As "The Song" takes Jed to Europe both Rose and Jed will come face to face with failure, loss, deep pain and hurt and Rose must take a stand she never imagined she would have to take. But will the built up hurts and past be too much to overcome on both their parts or will love be enough to conquer it all?

 Chris Fabry is one of my favourite authors so when I saw this new book come out I snapped it up right away not realizing that it was a novelization of a movie. "The Song" was written by Kyle Idleman (author of "Not a Fan" and a pastor) and his team. They wanted to bring a modern adaptation of Solomon's life and story through Song of Songs and Ecclesiates to a wider audience. It started as the movie and church resources and now, has been made into a novel by Chris Fabry. I have to make the disclosure that I have not seen the movie so my review will be totally on what I read in the novel without any comparisons.

 While I'm not a huge fan of novelizations, this was a pretty good read.  Not quite in the flavour that I am used to with a novel from this author, I thought Chris Fabry did a fine job in keeping the novel flowing and moving without any moments of confusion on the part of me, the reader. I find that sometimes novelizations have gaping holes that unless you watched the movie, the reader is left scratching their head wondering how it jumped to that. I did not find that with this book. I thought he did a good job of bringing out the feelings and issues the characters were facing and feeling. The present day setting of the story was interesting and not stale. The very relatable temptations and failures made this a story for the every person throughout the ages. You don't have to have a music career to run into the temptations that Jed faced, you can have any job, career, or position. The writer of the movie wanted this novel "to provide wisdom on issues of committed love, true beauty and finding satisfaction in relationships" (from the foreword). The underlying message is one of being aware, of overcoming, hope, not giving up and giving God the broken pieces.

 I loved the little nuanced references and parallels to David and Solomon in the bible such as the father's name being David King (King David) and Jedediah being the son of the father's 2nd wife with whom he'd had the affair in parallel with the David of the bible. The fact that David King was a musican and singer as was King David in the bible, the name of the girl in the opening act at Jed's concerts was Shelby Bales, making reference to the "baals" or idols that some of Solomon allowed some of his wives to keep. There were more that the reader can pick up if they know the story from the bible but it is not imperative to know these to make the story understood.

 Though sometime's Rose and Jed's story was hard to read, I think I'd probably read this again at some point just to pick up more of the subtleties that this story contains.