Book Review: Fly Stone, Fly by Dust Kunkel
Book Review / by The Chrysalis BREW Project / 982 views
What if growing up meant choosing whether to crawl, rise, or burn everything behind you? This story asks that question—and invites readers to discover why the answer matters.
Book Title and Author
Fly Stone, Fly by Dust Kunkel
Genre, Sub-Genres, and Themes
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Genre: Dark Fantasy
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Sub-Genres: Western Gothic, Literary Fantasy, Folklore-Inspired Fiction, Coming-of-Age
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Themes: Identity, inheritance, revenge, transformation, memory, survival, moral agency, nature as witness
Review
Some novels feel like carefully constructed houses. Fly Stone, Fly feels more like a canyon: carved over time, beautiful, dangerous, and impossible to take in all at once. From its opening pages, the book announces that it will not hold the reader’s hand. Instead, it asks for trust, attention, and a willingness to sit with discomfort.
Clayton Bergmann’s voice is the engine of the story. It is conversational, poetic, bitter, funny, and deeply observant. The narration mirrors how memory actually works under stress—looping, interrupting itself, reaching for metaphor when plain speech fails. Cognitive science tells us that trauma fragments memory and heightens sensory recall; this novel reflects that reality not through exposition, but through form. Smells, textures, insects, and weather carry as much narrative weight as plot events.
The Idaho wilderness is not just a backdrop. Rivers, stoneflies, canyons, and mountains function as moral reference points. Environmental psychologists have long noted that prolonged isolation in natural settings reshapes perception and identity. Clayton’s worldview grows directly out of his landscape, and the book treats nature not as sentimental escape but as something indifferent, instructive, and occasionally merciful.
The story resists easy categorization. It borrows from folklore, Shakespearean tragedy, and Western revenge tales, yet never feels like imitation. Readers may recognize echoes of familiar myths, but the novel uses them the way oral traditions do: as tools to think with, not puzzles to solve. The supernatural elements are presented with restraint, leaving space for doubt and interpretation, which strengthens their impact.
What makes Fly Stone, Fly especially compelling is its refusal to simplify morality. Characters behave according to history, loyalty, fear, and love rather than neat ethical categories. Neuroscience reminds us that moral decision-making is deeply emotional before it is rational; the book honors that truth. Choices feel heavy because they are shaped by time, loss, and unfinished stories rather than abstract ideals.
This is a book for readers who appreciate language that takes risks and stories that do not rush to reassure. It is not for those seeking comfort reading, tidy lessons, or fast-paced escapism. It is for readers who admire craft, who notice sentence rhythm, who understand that growing up often involves grief as much as discovery.
Ultimately, Fly Stone, Fly is about becoming—not better, not purer, but more fully oneself. Like the stonefly it invokes, the novel suggests that transformation is painful, imperfect, and brief, yet still worth attempting. It leaves an impression that lingers, not because it explains everything, but because it trusts the reader to sit with unanswered questions.
Content Warning
This book contains intense violence, strong language, and emotionally heavy themes that may be distressing to some readers.
About the Author
Dust Kunkel grew up in Ghana as a TCK. Born to parents from Montana and Oregon, he returned to the Pacific Northwest at seventeen. He has taught literature, guided Idaho’s Salmon River, fostered teens, and led programs. He has published books, and his novel Fly Stone, Fly appeared in 2025.
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