My Amazon and Goodreads review of Chicken Dinner News by Jeff Billington (Rating 5) – To Flee or Not To Flee? Chicken Dinner News by Jeff Billington is a small tale that poses questions as big and existential as Hamlet’s “To be or not to be?” What makes a life meaningful? How do we contribute to progress while honoring the past? What does it mean to love not just one person but an entire place? After the death of a grandfather he barely knew, Californian Ryan Shipley finds himself the owner of a newspaper in a dying Missouri town, farmland just outside the town, and half the stately old buildings — all decaying — in the town itself. Taking a leave from his job as a copy editor, Ryan heads to White Oak City to sell it all, leave the family history behind, and return to his “real” life in Los Angeles. Instead he finds himself torn between escaping and staying, enamored by the town’s charms (albeit irritated by its prejudices), awed by images of its erstwhile grandeur, and boosted by his own abilities to write, edit, and raise the level of the paper, heretofore a vehicle for reporting news about community events, such as chicken dinners (hence the title). Throw in a romance, a legacy to live up to, and people hoping Ryan will be their savior, and you have the struggle at the heart of this heartfelt novel. Billington persuades readers to slow down and linger in an evocative setting with characters who defy stereotypes. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Billington’s talent for crafting mini-dramas that illuminate meta-issues. Chicken Dinner News invites readers to assess the value of their own communities, regardless of size, and establish their place in it.
Taking big steps to help a small town survive
Why writers read: “There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.” – Walt Disney
