The Lost and the Blind

By: Curtis Smith

Narrated by: Jake Coverdill

Mark Hayes has come up hard. Poverty. Chaos. Hunger. His mother is a junkie. His father is serving a life sentence. But as his senior year looms, Mark finds a bit of peace with his mother and her girlfriend in a farmhouse outside town. Here, he hopes to escape the upheaval that has dogged him since the day he was born, but as hard as he tries, he can't outrun his shadows.

He is lost, but no more so than many of his friends, no more so than the institutions he navigates, or his country as it spirals toward another bloody war. Mark doesn't know God, but as he stumbles through his long, violent night, he is guided by glimmers of kindness, the good souls who reach out to this life's lost sheep.

Delivered in prose both terse and lyrical, The Lost and the Blind presents a searing portrait of dopesick, small-town America, and a young man desperate to rise above.

©2023 Curtis Smith (P)2023 Curtis Smith

Hope is Viewed by the End

One might be put off by the beginning chapters, the exposition, of The Lost and the Blind: drug usage, breastfeeding interpreted, sexuality expressed, and family unraveled. Very dark, yet in the darkness of this raw tale by Curt Smith, is a dim light: Mark Hayes. Struggling to take on the adult role in his household due to his father’s imprisonment and his drug-addict mother’s choice to have a live-in female partner with a newborn, Mark is a teen whose life is daily, dysfunctional.
Because of their poverty, Mark finds legal ways to work and make money. When his mom asks for money, he has to consider whether or not it ‘s for drugs or food. Survival is what he knows until he makes a connection with a teacher/ coach who encourages Mark to run. The novel gets lighter as it nears its end as his rite of passage takes a turn toward hope. As a former high school English teacher, I found this novel as thought-provoking as Catcher in the Rye, yet, unlike Holden Caulfield, Mark Hayes finds support and accepts reality with courage. Mark’s indomitable spirit allows him to find hope and run free.