August 17, 2022
Switch: A Novel
Heather Vines
Aviva Publishing (2022)
ISBN: 978-1950241163
New Novel Explores When Life Makes Us Switch Directions
Heather Vines’ new novel Switch is about making difficult life choices, and sometimes making the wrong choices and then having to make those choices right.
The story opens on a train in Montana. We are introduced to Jack, a young man traveling home to visit his mother after several years absence. Jack made some mistakes in his youth and he has paid for them the hard way. He only half-understands how his visit home will be one of forgiveness, but also new possibilities.
Also on the train is Maggie and her young daughter, Phoebe. Like Jack, Maggie has made some mistakes in her past, but someone else’s mistakes have led her to this moment of running away from her present life to begin a new one.
Phoebe, being only five, hasn’t quite learned yet not to speak to strangers. Her efforts to be friendly with Jack lead to her and her mom sharing a table in the dining car with him and getting to know each other a bit. Jack is forthright about his past and what he has been through, but while he notices the bruise on Maggie’s wrist, he finds she is not as willing to share her own story.
Complications ensue when a young woman named Rebecca boards the train. Jack’s reaction to seeing her makes Maggie realize he knows her, and she senses that he wants to avoid her. Jack and Rebecca are from the same town, and Rebecca is also traveling home. Jack knows he needs to have a difficult conversation with Rebecca about something in the past that hurt them both. Finally he finds the courage to have that conversation, but little can Jack, Rebecca, or Maggie foresee how Rebecca’s reaction to that conversation will lead to life-changing consequences for all of them.
The novel’s title is a metaphor for the switches or changes we sometimes have to make in our lives. Maggie recalls traveling for the first time on a train when she was a girl. Staring out the window back then, she had asked her dad, “how come our train just veered to the right? It looks like we just left our track!” He replied:
“‘It’s called a railroad switch, Maggie. Did you see how the tracks split? The engineer pulls a lever, and the train moves from one track to the other, smoothly. Without notice. It’s how a train changes direction.’
“Fascinating, young Maggie had thought. Mature Maggie wondered, How can such a major change come from such a seemingly tiny action? Life was like that, she figured. Hers anyway. Everything goes along, goes along, goes along, and then suddenly, everything is completely, utterly different. Almost without effort. Here she was on a train, leaving her entire world behind. All of it, of course, except the best part—Phoebe.”
For Jack, the changes in life happened without his consciously choosing them. For Maggie, they happened by a conscious choice. Regardless those changes have happened and now they need to be made right. And when they are made right, as Jack realizes in the novel, “No matter where we go or what we do, we always find our way home.”
Beyond its metaphorical title, Switch is a novel adequately named because it switches directions a few times. Vines writes realistically about life, love, pain, forgiveness, and relationships, but she also has a few surprises for the reader. The story also contains a supporting cast of loveable characters, from a waitress in a diner to an old lady friend of Phoebe’s named Mrs. Dorothy. Readers will fall in love with the three main characters and find themselves wishing the best for them as they learn to clean up their messes and make better decisions. Perhaps it will even flip a switch in the reader to make some changes of their own.
For more information about Switch and Heather Vines, visit www.VinesLines.com.
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD and award-winning author of Narrow Lives and When Teddy Came to Town
