Almost There: A Haunted Tale of Discovery

Terry D. Newberry. Birmingham: Psalm One Press, 2013. 259 pp. (Paperback).

Before you get the wrong idea — as I did — let me reassure you. This is not a book about ghosts and goblins or any kind of haunting. In fact, the author probably would have been better off leaving the word “haunted” out completely. Fortunately that was about the only thing I didn’t like about the book. 

OK, maybe there is an element of the supernatural in the story. “Almost There” tells the story of Dean, a young man who decides to ride his bike to a friend’s house a few miles away. It is cold and snowy, and Dean considers turning around and going back home but is spurred on by the message he receives from the people he encounters along the way. The message: “Don’t quit — you’re almost there.” 

The story is at least partly autobiographical, according to the author. “I was a boy fashioned in the furnace of alcoholism,” Newberry wrote. “Quitting was the pattern, quitting was the legacy, the gift bestowed … quitting was easy.” 

One day the author decided to try not quitting and his life was transformed. This book is the result.