I really enjoyed this book. It took me a little bit to get into it but when I did I was hooked. I enjoyed the fantasy part of it and the mental illness part was ok too. It helps people see what living with a mental health issue is like. I would read more by this author. ( )

Review: Autumn In Carthage by Christopher Zenos. 11/22/2017

The story starts off slow but it didn’t take long to capture my interest. I thought it was well written, I enjoyed the characters once I figure out who was who and the story was entertaining. The death of some characters throughout the book, especially the ones you really liked was a bummer but the story must go on…There was mysterious time travel within the story and how mental illness can cast over lives, the redemptive power of love, and all the difficulties of choice.

The main character Nathan Price is a college professor looking forward to a year’s uninterrupted sabbatical, doing historical research when he received some data he requested from a museum in Salem, Massachusetts. While going over the papers he came across a reference concerning Jamie, his friend who has been missing for months. This new information made him decide to go to Carthage, Wisconsin to work on his book and look into the disappearance of his friend.

Carthage was a small quiet community and when Nathan got there he checked into the picturesque Inn the town offered. He was first welcomed by Gerry the innkeeper, chef, and bar tender. At some point during his meal Nathan mentioned to Gerry and Alanna who was one of the locals, the reason he choose Carthage for a visit. Right off Nathan felt a change in the welcoming atmosphere and as the story unfolds Nathan and the reader will gradually find out why… There are still more variety of personalities to be introduced, some profanity throughout, and a couple of explicit sex scenes to overcome but all and all the second half of the book was better….

Many readers mentioned something Zenos wrote that memorized them as it did me.

“Too much unvoiced misery, too many people lost and alone ~in marriages, relationships, nestled within their families ~well trained through threat of social rejection to keep pain carefully hidden.” ( )

Nathan Price is about to go on sabbatical from the University of Chicago when he receives a parcel of 17th century documents among which, impossibly, is a letter in the handwriting of his best friend, Jamie McKinnon, who had disappeared six months before. Equally impossibly the letter mentions the town of Carthage, Wisconsin, which didn't exist in the 17th century. Nathan sets out for Carthage to investigate. It's a town with secrets, but then again Nathan has secrets of his own.

Good plot and characters, but rather flat descriptions. The technobabble for the time travel left me a bit 'meh', but as the plot progressed the excitement really picked up and carried me along. ( )

Enjoyable and recommended... Loved it- this book made me wonder and kept me interested. ( )

Seems I'm reading a lot from the Twilight Zone lately. Autumn in Carthage follows a professor on sabbatical from the University of Chicago to small town Wisconsin, Carthage, to be specific. A grad student's research has turned up a letter from 17th Century Salem, Massachusetts, written in the extremely familiar handwriting of the professor's lost best friend. In the letter, the friend mentions Carthage, Wisconsin, a place unknown, of course, to the people of Salem at the time of the witch hunts. Once in Carthage, our hero becomes entwined in the town's civic life, and learns more than he bargained for, including the well-hidden secret the townsfolk keep from the rest of the world. Full of likeable people, even in their damaged state, the novel is quite a ride and the author, writing out of his own mental illness, engages the reader, encouraging us to suspend disbelief and accept that there may well be more out there than we can imagine. Well worth the time spent reading it, in my opinion. ( )