In the desert outside El Paso stands an aging drive-in movie theater named after the unusual patch of rust-colored sand on which it was built: the Red Sands. Twenty years ago it was a state-of-the-art cinematic oasis; now, in the summer of 1982, it's a dilapidated relic, host mainly to B-list exploitation movies, Friday-night drunks, local trailer-trash, and a shady cast of employees. But during that same extraordinary summer the Red Sands Drive-In will undergo a brief renaissance, brought on partly by the efforts of three "square peg" high-school kids, and partly by the release of the popular movie E.T.-The Extra-Terrestrial. In the process they will come to know the drive-in's owner, whose past holds more than one terrible secret, and they'll be drawn into a feud between him and a rival businessman. What follows is more than any of them bargained for, including a showdown with a major high-school bully, an unofficial "exorcism" on the drive-in itself, a blossoming teenage romance or two and, just maybe, one teenager's learning to make peace with his mother's death.

ジェームズ・オキーフが描く本作は、映画という魔法が現実の傷を癒やす過程を鮮烈に刻んだ魂の再生譚です。１９８２年の酷暑、朽ちかけたドライブインシアターに集う孤独な若者たちが「Ｅ.Ｔ.」という光を通じて自己を再発見していく姿は、瑞々しくも痛切な美しさを湛えています。赤砂の砂漠が象徴する荒涼とした過去と、そこで繰り広げられる儀式は、彼らが内なる闇を乗り越えるための切実な文学的メタファーとして機能しています。 特筆すべきは、過酷な現実に映画への純真な祈りをぶつける構成の妙です。館主の暗い過去と少年の喪失感が共鳴し、スクリーンの光が夜を照らす瞬間、物語は単なる成長譚を超え、至高の救済へと昇華されます。不器用な者たちが絶望から立ち上がるその気高き勇気に、読者は激しく心を揺さぶられるに違いありません。