Signatures by Lucas Alves
Lucas Alves’s debut novel Signatures shines with depth of feeling, gorgeous writing and an allure of timelessness. Boiled down to its essence, this is the story of an old writer and a young writer — both wrestling their demons as they enter each other’s lives — and a magical eighteen-hands-high black Clydesdale named Signatures. The horse, once the star of every race it ran, is still gorgeous but now a stud out to pasture as the two men struggle with the pressure of being — or becoming — successful writers.
Landon Cassidy is more drawn to the bottle than to finishing his book but when his long-standing agent Dolores Stemper calls him on it, he takes action. It’s been nine months of him saying his third book is almost done, and his first two books have been hugely successful. What gives?
With a short teetering on the brink for an agent meeting, an abbreviated book tour and a lengthy one-night-stand, it is Cassidy who gives, or rather gives up. He puts his beloved mutt Maple in his ’65 Chevy truck and takes a road trip that goes nowhere good. Caught in a rough patch, he moves to an equine breeding farm owned by Harrison Granger, a writer himself with “a voice rough like sandpaper, deep with age.”
Writers Young & Ambitious, Successful & Reclusive
Granger has taken a liking to Cassidy after some chance meetings and brushes off his invite.
“No need to thank me, son. The world has a peculiar drollery about how it goes about weaving lives into one another. You and I are together once again, contrary to mathematical oddities. That requires not thanks or forgiveness but beauty. Let’s leave it at that.”
Currently separated from his fourth wife and thirty years sober, Granger is, as one of his workers puts it, “a worldly man without having seen much of it.” He cuts a polished figure in his Lucchese boots and camel suede bomber jacket, in sharp contrast to Cassidy’s long hair and messy duds but they share the same demons.
The two also share the writing passion and that is how they connect. Cassidy gets breathless when he lays his eyes on Granger’s writing space with its polished expansive desk and “1963 Olivetti Lettra 32 typewriter, the color of an Italian sun.”
Journey to Find the Truth Within Their Souls
But tension, internal and external is always there, certainly for Granger in trying to live up to his reputation and for Cassidy whose writing reputation is yet to be made. Several of Granger’s staff are would-be writers themselves, quick to judge Cassidy and reluctant to let him in.
Nonetheless, Cassidy and his dog Maple settle in for a long while. One of the several staff members teaches Cassidy how to tie knots and another how to tend the horses. The horses awe him, particularly Signatures and the stunning Evelyn Chambers, the horse trainer who rides him, fascinates him.
Granger schools him on the benefit of talking to horses. “They don’t judge you for what you’ve done … In that wholly unknown they understand. They forgive. Even if you never speak a word of it. They know the truth within your soul long before you ever did.”
With stunning prose, fluid dialogue and vibrant imagery Alves showcases the journey of a writer, or two, finding the truth within their souls. For those who write and for those who search for a read that includes stunning prose, fluid dialogue and vibrant imagery, Signatures offers a read that you will remember for a long time
About Lucas Alves:
Lucas Alves grew up in Houston, Texas. He studied film, theater and acting in San Francisco, CA, where he appeared in several productions. Aside from his passion for writing, he is a voracious reader and loves to travel the world with his family. He currently lives in Frederick, Maryland with his wife and daughter.
