James Twyman - The Barn Dance - Somewhere between Heaven and Earth, there is a place where the magic never ends

review by Ro 'Guru' Bennett on show 11th Dec 2010.
This book has been compared to a book I reviewed a few weeks ago called ‘The Shack’ by William P Young. Both of them begin with a horrific murder.The Shack is s novel in which the father of the murdered girl is mystically led to the place where she was killed. There he meets God in the form of an African American woman and Jesus who help him come to terms with his loss and find forgiveness and unconditional love in the situation.

The Barn Dance is written as a novel but is based on the actual murder of James Twyman’s ex wife.

From the back of the book:
On November 27, 2005, two men broke into Linda Twyman’s apartment in Evanston, Illinois, and brutally ended her young life. Three and a half years later, guided by a series of visions and dreams, James Twyman was mystically drawn to a barn deep in the Nevada wilderness where Heaven and Earth collide and magic changes lives. If you’ve ever wondered if we really can communicate with our loved ones who have passed to the other side, this book is your answer. If you’ve ever thought that Heaven and Earth never meet, then this story will reveal a world you never imagined... a world where love never ends and life goes on forever. Once you pick up this amazing book, you won’t want to put it down and your life will never be the same.


The basic story line is this:
Driven by an inner compulsion, James revisits the scene of a near fatal skid he had on the trip back to Oregon with his daughter, after his wife's death. He thinks he sees a crashed car just like his, so goes down to the bottom of a canyon where he gets lost. He falls asleep, and enters into a series of experiences that span the tenuous border between reality and the dream state. Whether you believe that he actually crossed over into a parallel dimension, or was just having a lucid dream, James meets his murdered wife at a barn dance and proceeds to learn lessons about his life that his soul has not yet absorbed. It’s a fascinating account of love and life continuing after physical death.


I enjoyed the Barn Dance far more than The Shack. I found it an easy yet compelling read and I thought it was certainly better written. It had excellent reviews on the whole, but his books generally make claims which can’t be proved and therefore give rise to a certain amount of scepticism and controversy.


In the introduction to his book ‘Emissary of Light’ he writes: ‘What is reality, and when are we experiencing it? We have been conditioned to believe that only the things we touch with our are real. Even science has proven this to be misleading. Many people believe that there are ways of travelling without the body and that we can experience different realities simultaneously. When I was young I read stories about an Italian Franciscan named Padre Pio who was often seen on more than one place at the same time. Perhaps my experience of bi-location was similar to his, or perhaps the Emissaries really lived in a tiny crease between our normal experience of time and space, a gap I was able to visit. I do not understand what happened to me, but I do believe it was real.’


James F. Twyman is the bestselling author of ten books. As well as a writer, he is also internationally renowned as a ‘Peace Troubadour’, and been invited by countries such as Iraq, South Africa, Bosnia and Serbia to perform The Peace Concert – often while conflicts raged there. Author Residence: USA

Ro Bennett