Book Review: The Small Hours

Reviewed by Jaylynn Korrell

A meaningful search for purpose, direction, and the true feeling of home

After the sudden death of his best friend and his wife revealing she wants to separate, Micheal Virtue is hit with grief like he’s never felt before.

With little to give him hope, he turns to the past. Spain 20 years ago, where he met a surprising woman and investigated the disappearance of his Uncle Robert during the Spanish Civil War. He left that trip without the answers he was looking for, and it nagged at him for years.

Just when things are at their bleakest, he meets his deceased friend’s former lover Delia, a true curveball of a woman with an insatiable appetite for sex and chaos. She and Micheal, a psychologist who fell into monogamous life quite comfortably, couldn’t be more different. Their pairing is an unlikely one, but it adds a colorful element to Micheal’s story, especially since Delia is navigating a life on the run.

As the stakes for both of them increase, they embark on an epic journey back to Andalusia, Spain to try to settle things once and for all. Weaving in and out from the late 1980s to the late 1930s, we’re taken on an adventure through the history of one boy’s unexpected introduction to war and one man’s desperate search for answers and purpose.

The Small Hours handles the topic of war delicately while not sparing readers the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Multiple strong storylines are weaving their way through this novel, but the brightest of them could be the story of Michael’s Uncle Robert, who joins the war of his own free will and is joined by his best friend Max. Both young and naive, they want to have purpose in life and fight for something they believe in, so they travel from Washington with no real plans other than to join the good fight. Author Edward Averett captures the innocence of youth during the Spanish Civil War in a way that honors their bravery while highlighting the ways that war often spares no one. It is a bleak reality that brings real emotion to the story.

While Robert and Max willingly leave America to join this war, The Small Hours simultaneously puts emphasis on those who had no choice but to be part of the fighting.

Maria del Carmen carries this storyline best. A girl of just 12 at the beginning of the war, she was faced with tough decisions and unspeakable cruelty in the 1930s. Now in the year 1989, she is having to recollect those memories in ways she has pushed down for decades as Micheal unearths emotions that have long been buried. Her and the rest of her community walk around almost like ghosts, carrying the weight of the past and Micheal has no idea what they’ve survived. The Small Hours is a powerful story about persevering thorough unspeakable tragedy and holding onto humanity when there is nothing left to hold onto.

However, descriptions of sexual encounters can distract from the otherwise wholesome story. Featured most in the first portion of the book, these asides feel out of place and don’t always feel necessary. Most of them involve Delia, a tough character to get behind.

The Small Hours remains a gripping historical narrative despite this. I loved being tossed between a scene smack dab in the middle of a battle from the war and then to the same spot decades later. I also enjoyed the family lines that run through the book, as we get to witness generations of different families throughout the course of history.

The characters, like Eugenio, a guard in the town of La Jolla, use history as part of their storylines; his passion for revenge surrounding his murdered grandfather drives his passion. He walks around the town as a dark shadow, reminding everyone of the shadows that came before him, and he adds a real thrill that will keep you nervous about the fate of the people who cross his path.

Spain is the star of this novel; it’s both the glue holding the story together and the magnet that draws people in. As some are forced to stay there forever and others choose to, it’s strangely beautiful that a place can hold so much weight for so many different people. For a book with so much emotion and despair, I finished it with a wholesome feeling and a strong curiosity to read more stories like it.

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