Mix a rebellious teen fleeing her fundamentalist Mormon community, a love-struck admirer, 1970s devil-may-care bravura and wide-open Western highways. Add Evel Knievel, and you get Daredevils. In Shawn Vestal's (Godforsaken Idaho) debut novel, Loretta leaps from a polygamous marriage into a road trip of risk, danger and joy, daring the reader to keep up.
At 15, Loretta's luck runs out when her father catches her sneaking in after a typical night "out there, into the worldly world, and then back home, to reverence and boredom." With her "soul in peril," her father marries her to Brother Dean Harder, who lives with his wife and children in Short Creek, Ariz. Loretta tolerates her fate, comforted by a secret romance with persistent Bradshaw, a fringe community member who works for Dean. In Idaho, meanwhile, Brother Harder's nephew Jason and his grandpa share a clandestine fascination with daredevil cyclist Evel Knievel. When the Harders move to Idaho, Jason meets Loretta. His crush on her edges out his already wavering spirituality, and their friendship paves the way for a joint escape.
Short interjected chapters of "Evel Knievel Addresses an Adoring Nation" follow Jason's hero and add a quirky mythic perspective to the coming-of-age tale, until eventually the characters' paths intersect. Or do they? Would Evel, the daredevil himself, cavort with the teens? Wild as they are, Loretta, Jason and Jason's half-Native American friend, Boyd, are delightful, sympathetic escapees, and Vestal's novel thrums with excitement and hope. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco