“You are born with a mother and a father, always in a place. The place is part of you, as inescapable as a fingerprint. Where are you from? In your heart, you know the truth. You are from the place you were born. I am from a town in Nebraska once known as Miagrammesto Station. I have never truly lived anywhere else. I never will.”

These words kick off Steven Mayfield’s DELPHIC ORACLE, U.S.A. with an intriguing, personable bang. Narrated by Father Peter Goodfellow – as noted, a resident of what was once called Miagrammesto Station but renamed Delphic Oracle – the story reads like a Midwestern American 100 Years of Solitude. It bridges the gap from its beginnings in 1919 to 2008, moving between the two time periods and telling two stories simultaneously that are, in the end, all one tale. In essence, it begins and ends with Maggie Westinghouse and July Pennybaker.

July, a charming, nomadic conman with a Yale education, finds himself in Miagrammesto Station while on the run from the mob, and immediately falls in love with Maggie, a confident, beautiful spitfire 10 years his junior. Maggie, to her great chagrin, falls for him, too, adding to the list of reasons she’s subject to town gossip. Those reasons include her independent nature, her having a single mother, and that she seems to be a reincarnation of one of the Oracles at Delphi. Her subsequent habit of falling into trances and giving prophecies, though, is secondary to the fact that she’s also the only person who makes July want to leave his old life behind.

Peter is a distant relative of Maggie’s, as are many of the residents of Delphic Oracle, something the author punctuates by including a family tree between chapters. It proves to be a helpful reference as the story progresses, and puts a fine point on the transformative nature of Maggie and July’s relationship. Thanks to them, Delphic Oracle isn’t Small Town America where nothing happens; instead, it’s where everything seems to be happening all the time. DELPHIC ORACLE, U.S.A.’s punchy, whimsical style belies just how intricate these ongoings are.

This style works so well thanks to the nature of the story. It’s heartwarming, but never saccharine; sharp, but ponderous; wryly funny and, beyond that, a lot of fun. And it’s full of love for its characters, no matter how incorrigible they are (and many of them are, albeit delightfully so). That sense of love is the key to the story: it sees people as individuals, and at the same time knows they are part of something bigger than themselves. It’s the kind of love that changes July, and in turn, everyone in Delphic Oracle, even when they don’t see it happening. It makes DELPHIC ORACLE, the place and the story alike, curious and refreshing – a world where one moment can remind you of how essential everything truly is. It’s a story about stories, and one that highlights how people can redeem one another, and are responsible for keeping each others’ stories alive, in the end.

DELPHIC ORACLE, U.S.A. by Steven Mayfield is a unique, fun, and engaging story that paints the picture of a town transformed by a star-crossed relationship 100 years in the past, drawing the reader into its ongoings with an incredible sense of fluidity and empathy.

~Jennifer Weatherly for IndieReader