It was a strange story, especially on the surface. A boy and his ceramic zebra isn’t all that interesting, but the quest was just a metaphor for the quests that we all undertake that are far less tangible, less easily described. It was about how these quests seem to be virtually impossible, and the more we pursue them, the harder it seems to get to find what we’re looking for, until we forget what the quest exactly was to begin with. And, sometimes, we find that metaphorical zebra when we are least expecting it.

My mom was right, and I read it religiously, turning pages whenever I could. The book spoke to me, its prose flowing so fluidly, the narrative strong, the imagery vibrant and colorful. I would never forget the picture Kent painted of the protagonist standing at the edge of a Cape Cod sand dune, the dog-size zebra held on his shoulder, staring out at the cold Atlantic sea as the bright green dune grass played against his legs.

It was the first novel Kent wrote, and was his master’s thesis at the University of Maine. He had published a variety of short stories, which I found in the library, with the help of my mother. I fell in love with his writing. His short stories were quick sketches of life, powerful narrative compressing his sharp sense of imagery condensed into the space of fifteen to twenty pages. Some ventured into the surreal, some into a sophomoric vulgarity I would later come to realize was typical of writers in their college years.

When I was 17, Kent published what most people generally consider his masterpiece, and my all-time favorite work of fiction, Underestimated. It is a science-fictiony tale about a dystopian future, where a bloated, corrupt government is poised to collapse under its own weight and corruption. A small band of meek rebels find they must rise up and take over the government in order to save the country. Their plan goes well until they actually make their way into Washington DC. They find their way into the White House, and are quickly dispatched, though not before killing the Vice President. Their attack finally forces the rest of the country to investigate their elected officials, and thus, they succeed posthumously.

Most critics liked it, but some panned it for being an action novel. One, a habitual Kent-hater by the name of John Phiziny, called it “an exercise in the banal, a poorly conceived attempt to latch onto current popular themes that uses a lot of big words to say nothing.” All of those critics, though, they missed the true beauty of the prose: the human struggle that goes on inside the story. The rebels are made up of men and women, many of whom had never taken a stand about anything. And all were loyal Americans who knew that what they were doing was an act of treason and that the mission would more than likely lead to their deaths, in one way or another.