Thin Blue Smoke

I purchased this book several months ago because it was recommended as the Englewood Review's Top Novel of 2012. Despite loving the opening and my introduction to Worgul's characters I ended up putting it down for a while and only recently picked it up again. This is a novel set in Kansas City at a restaurant called 'Smoke Meat.' The owner, Laverne Williams, who operates a barbecue place for decades. This is the story of he, his family, employees and patrons.

All the main characters are broken people. Laverne and his wife Angela lost a son, their son's friend A.B. had a mother who drank, gambled and prostituted herself. The reverend Furgeson Glenn is a semi-famous Episcopal priest whose life is marked by alcoholism (another whiskey show more priest, Graham Greene anyone?). One of the patrons at the restaurant is a developer who 's family

Smoke pervades the novel. This is a barbecue, after all and Laverne is a purist when it comes to the tradition. However this is not the only smoke. The title of this novel comes from two occasions in the book where 'the thin blue smoke' of incense is wafts up from a censer. The first is at a funeral. The second is in the epilogue at a baptism. Christian spirituality shoots through Worgul's prose as his characters struggle with life, offer no easy answers but learn to cling in faith to God and one another.

This book is full of the stories of these people, spanning decades. When you first pick up the book, these tales feel a little more disconnected though the descriptions of Laverne's restaurant are compelling. As you keep reading, you are drawn into the community which inhabits 17th and Walnut in downtown Kansas. show less

Gentle, like a cross between Alexander McCall Smith and Garrison Keillor. Set around a barbecue restaurant in Kansas City (which I will always find hard to forgive for not being in Kansas) it tells episodes from the stories of its owners, workers, and regulars. It's a bit more religious than many people will like -- there are several whole sermons in here. But I enjoyed it in an unchallenging sort of way.