I'm always a bit excited when I get a chance to read the latest from an author with Indiana connections. Such is the case with Angela Jackson-Brown, an Associate Professor in the creative writing program at Indiana University in Bloomington who also teaches in the graduate program at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Louisville's Spalding University.

I saw a reference to "Untethered" on a friend's social media page and knew I wanted to check it out. Just released this week by Harper Muse, "Untethered" introduces us to Katia Daniels, a longtime executive director of Troy, Alabama's Pike County Group Home for Negro Boys whose life has long been defined by the caregiver role for just about anyone and everyone around her. Our story is set in 1967, a couple of years after Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus bridge. In theory, things are improving in the U.S.

In theory.

Jackson-Brown packs an awful lot of story into the pages of "Untethered," immersing us in the lives of people we come to care about like the young boys under Katia's guidance including the likes of Chad, Pee-Wee, and others.

While Katia tries to hold things together at Pike County despite an increasingly resistant and defiant board of directors, her own life seems to be a chaotic tapestry of unmet longings, a lack of genuine connection, and enough family strife to break the strongest soul.

Still, she perseveres.

With "Untethered," Jackson-Brown paints a poignant and often painful tapestry of a personal life that seems to reflect the uncertainties and upheaval of the surrounding world. Her ear for dialogue is remarkable - I could hear these conversations in my mind as I read along and often found myself envisioning the words of Katie, Mama, Marcus, Chad, Leon, Seth, and a host of others. I'm not about to tell you who these people are - you'll have to find that out for yourself.

"Untethered" presents a woman at her crossroads, the world around her changing ever so quickly and the demands of it all seemingly either going to break Katia or set her free.

There are moments of stunning intimacy here followed by moments of genuine suspense and fear.
Jackson-Brown seamlessly weaves in the magic we sometimes find in the smallest things - like the pages of romance novels, it's nurse romance novels for me, and the soothing melodies of Nina Simone. Jackson-Brown understands that relationships don't come easy and even friendships are hard when the world around you has always been unsettled and unpredictable.

Katia is a remarkable woman who doesn't quite realize that about herself, a woman whose soulful love is deep yet a woman relentlessly torn between deep commitment and responsibilities and a heart that craves so much more.

Everything here comes to life vibrantly and with a socially aware honesty that feels truthful, often quite painful, and yet always brimming with a sliver of light not too far removed from that light you always see when you hold a kaleidoscope up to the light.

A wonderful weaving together of familial bonds, cultural awareness, and faithfulness to the times, "Untethered" finds a masterful author immersing us into a world of love, family, self-discovery, and transformation that you won't soon forget.

Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic