Award winning novelist Ray Blackston hit the ground running with his critically acclaimed first novel, the entertaining and quirky Flabbergasted. Now he offers readers eager for another dose of the misadventures of church singles the follow-up novel, A Delirious Summer.
A Delirious Summer picks up where we left Jay Jarvis, his girlfriend Allie, Allie’s best friend Darcy, Darcy’s closet boyfriend, Steve, as well as Maurice the janitor, Preacher Smoak, Ransom the surfer dude and all the other eccentric characters Jay stumbled upon in Flabbergasted.
Jay is just finishing up his Spanish language training so he can join Allie on the mission field. His teacher is Neil, who is – you guessed it — a single guy in need of a Christian girlfriend. Jay gives Neil the best advice he has to offer, “You really ought to visit Greenville during your furlough, Neil. For being the heart of the Bible Belt, it’s a city of surprising complexity.” He also informs Neil that the Greenville single women “represent a diversity of all that is female.”
Jay fixes Neil up with his old roommate Steve, offers Neil the use of his Blazer, and the two promise to update each other on their respective adventures.
The novel really gets rolling when Neil gets rolling – in short order he has gone out with all the girls Jay has mentioned, been fired by Jay’s old nemesis, Stanley, and developed a thing for Alexis, the one girl Jay said he could not recommend. The book follows Neil’s efforts to plug into the Geenville singles scene as well as Darcy and Steve’s on-again, off-again romance. Jay and Allie are not forgotten and become a pivotal point to the plot. And, of course, the story features a trip to the beach in Sherbet, Darcy’s lime green Cadillac.
But surprises await the reader as this beach trip is nothing like the first, ending as the carefree singles learn of a tragic turn of events that will change their lives forever.
Where Flabbergasted mapped the spiritual evolution of Jay Jarvis, A Delirious Summer is a coming of age novel for the entire singles group. Roles are reversed and hidden strengths are revealed as the least likely people are brought together in the least likely place to salvage a mission.
Full of poetry, philosophy and humor, A Delirious Summer is a delightful read. Ray Blackston continues to give his readers what they want, mixing reality with whimsy to assure us that if we are just willing to sacrifice our comfort zones and earthly treasure, God can reveal the hidden strengths in all of us.
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