The Lost and The Blind by Curtis Smith

The Lost and the Blind is a fittingly simple title for Curtis Smith’s new novel, a linguistic differentiation between those who are lost—the forgotten and downtrodden, those without place in society, family, or direction—and the blind, those who refuse to see what doesn’t appeal to them or what they can’t accept. There is, of course, room here for one to be both, as most of us undoubtedly are. The lost and the blind are forever bound together, intertwined and interconnected, like it or not, in a complex and ever-spinning web.

The writing itself is far from simple. Smith’s use of language is gentle, feeling its way tentatively through the story in a precise reflection of his narrator’s experience. As we first meet our characters, Mark says: “I stand eating a turkey leg in the kitchen doorway. My mother and Amy brush past, each carrying what calls them and trailing the scents of cigarettes and rain” (1). Mark is wise beyond his years but not hardened by his harsh experiences. Smith’s emphasis is on Mark’s character, his experiences and his thoughts and feelings about the day to day, the mundane and the horrific. Yet Mark’s experiences are often stunningly different from the reader’s, like his harrowing experience of entering the grocery store: “Doors slide open. This place is always a shock. The brightness and music. The scrubbed floors. The aisles’ plenty a hall of mirrors, my hunger both a mirage and reflected a hundred-fold” (109). Smith doesn’t dwell upon or over-emphasize Mark’s suffering, instead bringing life to Mark’s present, to relationships and the inevitable forward momentum of days and weeks, months and years, with only brief references to the terrible past that Mark would prefer remain past.

Empathy is a devastatingly important kind of sight in this world that Smith creates. Mark is someone who is rarely seen but who often sees more clearly than even he knows. The old man, physcially devoid of sight, sees Mark’s humanity and strength. He also sees the nuances and the implications of the unnamed war that hovers in the background of Mark’s story with greater clarity than most: “A young man should serve his country,” the old man says, “But it’s men with skin in the game who should do the dying” (121). The old man stands in contrast to the figurative blindness of others, those who ignore the distant war with its complex violence and wide-reaching tragedy, and to those who are unable to or refuse to see themselves or each other clearly on a more personal level, like Amy and her parents.

Curtis Smith writes with a subtle energy, exquisite pacing, and the kind of depth that is hard to come by in modern fiction. Often the simplest concepts are the most elusive, and Smith both reveals this paradox and bursts through it to ask: What is lost when we allow ourselves to become blind to the humanity of others, to our interconnectedness? The impact is a reverberation, from the day to day experiences of a small-town junkie’s kid to the widespread destruction of a multi-continent war.

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Rebecca Biggio holds her Ph.D. in English from West Virginia University. She has taught writing and literature at the university level, volunteered as a Mentor for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, and now homeschools her two children. She currently lives at Fort Knox, KY.