winner of the prestigious MPIBA Reading the West Award for Debut Fiction, and a recipient of the Spur Award for Best Historical Novel from the Western Writers of America.
Wade applied the Page 69 Test to his third novel, Beasts of the Earth, and reported the following:
Beasts of the Earth occurs in two timelines-- one in Texas in the 1980s, and the other in Louisiana in the 1960s. Page 69 falls in the Louisiana timeline and describes the first moment that young Michael Fischer's father, Munday, arrives home from his stint in the state prison. There is little action-- or even description-- on the page, and yet Munday's arrival is something that irrevocably upends Michael's life. It is one of the defining moments in the novel's chain.Visit James Wade's website.
On first glance, it would appear the test "failed," as the page is void of much of the novel's stylized prose or plot-based content. However, there are repetitive thematic elements that cycle through the text and a few of them pop up on this page. The first is Michael waking from a dream. Both Michael and Harlen (the lead character in the Texas timeline) oscillate between dreams and reality, often finding the latter a much darker place to dwell. Additionally, Munday's reappearance in Michael's life is part of the continual rotation of evil that haunts him, despite his own attempts to walk a righteous path.
It is my non-expert and unsolicited opinion that any page of any work ought to contain some element of the novel's soul-- the tone, the theme, the essence, etc. While page 69 of Beasts of the Earth would certainly not be the page I would choose to promote, it does offer enough of a glimpse at the novel's heartbeat that it passes my own test of relevance.
Q&A with James Wade.
--Marshal Zeringue
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