Faraway is at times intense, at times sad, but always a page-turner. This is the story of how a young man is groomed for sex trafficking in the American heartland -- not the typical narrative of sex trafficking that the Church often hears.
But Faraway is more than a story of grief and suffering. It's also a celebration of friendship and salvation -- of Stevie and Squirrel -- who are agents of reconciliation, demonstrating yet again that God is always at work in the world, in those moments and places where darkness seem to have the most say.
So that's why I found Faraway so gripping that I couldn't put it down.
We're so accustomed to hearing of sex trafficking of young women. This is a book that corrects that bias, and highlights a layer to the Church's conversations and ministries with LGBT folks that often go unspoken.
Make no doubt about it, Kline holds nothing back in this memoir. It's filled with scenes that will make certain segments of the Church squirm. And rightly so. Because those scenes are graphic and disturbing. While Kline was used in a ways that changed his life forever, his retelling of that summer in the mid 70s is a story that provokes Christians to action and prayer. This story holds us in the Body of Christ accountable for the ways we are with and for the vulnerable and exploited. So ultimately, while Faraway is a page-turner, it's also not a book for the faint of heart. Those whose heart has been restored by Jesus Christ will shed tears of grief, too.
Faraway is a real gift for the Church, not just for the story it tells, but for the spiritual vision of vocation that it renews.
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I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, as part of the Speakeasy book review program, in exchange for my honest review here.