The Clearing is an unforgettable story that borders on music. The novel is well written, deeply sensitive and compassionate. The characters are likewise well drawn. They are real. They live, they breathe and they suffer for their love.
A quirk of fate brings Timothy Michael MacGowan to Plimoth Plantation on a single fateful day in the fall of 1988. There, in the recreated pilgrim village, he meets up with his past when he encounters the character of Fear Brewster. During the course of the next four days Timothy Michael rediscovers himself & comes to grips with what he had thought had been lost forever. McBride’s writing is about human beings whose emotional responses are more important than their rational ones. It is "Truth" based upon individual experience and imagination. The sensitivity and beauty of the author's story transcends time over several centuries. This wordsmith looks into the souls of his characters and encourages the reader to do the same. He makes one want to believe in a "force" greater than our own--that love and romance have no finality.