Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

The Agnostics (Michigan Literary Fiction Awards) Review

The Agnostics (Michigan Literary Fiction Awards)
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The Agnostics (Michigan Literary Fiction Awards) ReviewThis is literary fiction at its best. Vividly drawn characters, brilliant description and detail, a gripping, moving story told with a discerning eye and an open heart. The worn fabric of a family's life is ripped to shreds, then pieced together in a crazy quilt that promises to be more durable and, oddly, more comfortable. Rawlings' writing is exquisite; she truly deserves the Michigan Literary Fiction Award she won for this shattering, humorous, hopeful and memorable novel.The Agnostics (Michigan Literary Fiction Awards) Overview

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Getting There Review

Getting There
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Getting There ReviewIn the present, Luke Moore and his wife are driving their daughter to college for the first time. Along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker, and this reminds Luke of his youth some thirty years earlier. The story moves between past and present as Luke remembers both the events that turned his life upside down and his restless response as he struggled to find himself.
I was always searching for, and generally empty of, satisfaction.'
Hitchhiking between Florida and Michigan, Luke learned about himself, about the good and the bad in life more generally, and met some very interesting people each of who play some part in making him the man he becomes.
Driving his daughter to college, Luke reflects on the past and wonders how to prepare his daughter for the future. He is also just a little wary of the hitchhiker: something just isn't quite right.
Mr Boylan is an accomplished story teller, and I enjoyed his depiction of Luke's journeys both past and present. Luke meets some fascinating characters in his journey, and while he makes some questionable choices, he learns how to thrive in a world that has not always been kind to him and those he cares for. While both the journey and the destination matter in this novel, I found myself far more interested in the journey. There are a number of different messages in this novel for those who care to search for them but it is first and foremost an enjoyable read.
`Sometimes it is the little decisions that make all of the difference.'
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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Pieces of Eight Review

Pieces of Eight
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Pieces of Eight ReviewHave you ever just laughed so hard you hurt? This is the most heartwarming, memory invoking, hilarious book I've ever read. Seriously, I'm just over half-way through and I'm falling in love with the Maggio family, "each and every one of you". I was out on the patio last night laughing out loud while reading passages to my husband when my neighbor yelled over the fence, "You must be reading 'Pieces of Eight' again! Are you almost done? I can't wait to read it!" She's going to have to wait because I am savoring every chapter and e-mail share. These siblings have a deep and playful understanding of one another and can teach us all a thing or two about caring, having fun and laughing at ourselves.
I guarantee it will make you laugh and it will make you cry. You may even learn a new language ..."Maggio-speak". Even if you don't learn it you will remember a few one-liners. Did I say I loved this book? I did. Thanks, Maggios for taking us on your trip down memory lane. Boy, do you have good memories!
This review was a work in progress, I have now (sadly)finished the book but I may have to reread it just for the 'laugh' of it.Pieces of Eight Overview

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Savvy Review

Savvy
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Savvy ReviewThe Beaumonts are a unique family made up truly talented individuals. As each kid hits the age of thirteen, his or her inherent power comes to light. They call this talent "savvy," and it can be anything. When a Beaumont celebrates that fateful, lucky thirteen, everyone waits with baited breath to see what happens. No matter what, a savvy is one birthday gift you can't return.
They don't know exactly where it comes from, but they do know that it runs down Momma's side of the family. Daddy's a regular guy, happy with his family and content with his job. Meanwhile, Momma's relatives can do all sorts of wacky things. Great-Aunt Jules would step back twenty minutes in time every time she sneezed. Olive, a second cousin, has the ability to melt ice with her glare. Grandpa Bomba creates new places "whenever and wherever" he pleases, such as the stretch of land stuck between Kansas and Nebraska where he lives with his daughter and their family. (They call it Kansaska or Nebransas.) His wife caught radio waves in old glass jars, saving snippets of songs and stories that she could tune into anytime. Now that she's passed away, the family is extremely careful with these containers and treasures the sounds they emit upon a gentle loosening of their lids.
Then there's the immediately family. Momma's perfect, always - that's her savvy. Oldest child Rocket, aged seventeen, is the body electric, able to illuminate rooms during a blackout or teasingly zap a sibling whenever he feels like it. Weather shakes the next oldest boy, fourteen-year-old Fish, whose emotional hurricane can manifest into a real storm. The youngest kids, somber seven-year-old Samson and imaginative three-year-old Gypsy, are years away from getting their savvies, but when the story opens, middle child Mississippi is about to turn thirteen.
Affectionately called Mibs by her family, a nickname created by Gypsy in an attempt to pronounce her sister's name, our beloved narrator is appropriately awkward for her age and anxious for her birthday. She knows something's coming, something good.
Then something bad happens. The night before her birthday, Mibs' father is in a car accident and taken to a hospital. Momma and Rocket rush off to tend to him, leaving the other children in the care of Grandpa Bomba. Instead of having a happy birthday at home, Mibs finds herself at a gathering planned by the pastor's wife, Miss Rosemary. Mibs and her siblings, already worried about their father, now worry that Mibs' savvy will make itself known in public.
When the birthday girl discovers that a Bible salesman's bus came from the direction of the hospital where her father is resting, she impulsively sneaks on board. The stowaway count increases when Fish and Samson decide to get on the bus, as do the pastor's offspring, defiant Bobbi (who has a crush on Rocket) and gentle Will Junior (who has a crush on Mibs).
The salesman starts down the road, oblivious to his new cargo, and Mibs goes from excited to scared in the blink of an eye. They're heading in the opposite direction, away from the hospital rather than towards it! Her savvy, which had presented itself only a short while before, starts playing with her mind, but she tries to keep it a secret.
Mibs looks around and realizes that she's on an unplanned road trip to who-knows-where with two of her brothers, one of whom barely speaks, a meek salesman named Lester that she doesn't know, and the pastor's kids. As unpredictable and unprecedented as the trip may be, one thing's for certain: Mibs will never forget her thirteenth birthday.
Ingrid Law infuses her sweet family-oriented story with mischief, creating a special effect. Whether or not they have special powers, each character is easily distinguishable from the others, including the grown-ups. It's almost as if the kids from the Maggie Valley books by Kerry Madden (Gentle's Holler, etc) were given the powers of the X-Men. The fact that the Beaumonts gain their powers at the age of thirteen is a perfect nod to their coming-of-age, and this book is a treat for all ages.
Savvy is, from start to finish, a delightful journey. This rite of passage is highly recommended.Savvy Overview

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I Know This Much Is True Review

I Know This Much Is True
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I Know This Much Is True ReviewLately, so much contemporary American fiction is disappointing ("best sellers" with trite, hackneyed, formulaic plots and dead middles), so when a book like Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True comes along, I feel hopeful that others may be possible--probably not often of this caliber, though. I read this book in 12 days while traveling and devoured its 900 pages under beautiful blue skies as well as under 20 watt bulbs, and I loved every single minute and word of it. That was a year ago, and I have not read since then a novel that I can recommend as highly. Do not be scared away by the book's length (or the Oprah club sticker on the cover). I have heard so many people whine that it looks too long and thus they avoid it. What they don't realize is that its length is part of its magic; it reads so smoothly and never slumps. In truth, this is a brilliant multi-layered story and a masterpiece in every sense: its style is poetic and innovative, its characters three dimensional and very real, its imagery absolutely beautiful, and its metaphors perfectly subliminal. This book has been reviewed and reviewed and reviewed here, so if you want to know the plot, read others. I will offer that it has one of the most profound endings I have ever read. But take it from me, this book will not disappoint you. Moreover, it will do something for you that most cannot: it will give you wisdom and awaken your battered heart. I cannot wait to read anything else this wonderful man writes. How he does it, I wish I knew. I am just thankful that he does. Some superlatives are carelessly tossed around, but Wally Lamb IS one of the greatest American authors of all time. This work will stand the test of time.I Know This Much Is True Overview

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Memory of Trees: A Daughter's Story of a Family Farm Review

Memory of Trees: A Daughter's Story of a Family Farm
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Memory of Trees: A Daughter's Story of a Family Farm ReviewIt was a story that I and other people raised on a farm could relate to. Finally a story that tells about the struggles and rewards of the farm life.Memory of Trees: A Daughter's Story of a Family Farm Overview

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Crushed Review

Crushed
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Crushed ReviewI decided to purchase Crushed after reading and thoroughly enjoying Zipped and Crooked, other young adult novels by Laura and Tom McNeal. This husband and wife team always does a great job of writing from the perspective of average teenagers. In Crushed, the three main characters are Audrey, Wickham and Clyde. Audrey, an innocent and intelligent good girl falls for the smooth but mysterious new guy, Wickham. Blinded by her first love, she fails to notice that Clyde, Jemison High's resident oddball, has a crush on her too. Wanting to protect Audrey, Clyde follows his gut instinct and digs deep into the dark past of Wickham. In the mean time, an underground newspaper called The Yellow Paper circulates the school, ready to spill everyone's secrets with its witty and biting commentary on students and teachers.
Told from alternating viewpoints, McNeal and McNeal made it easy for me to really get to know the main characters. Audrey, who was naïve in the ways of love and friendship, gets a rude awakening when she is betrayed by people she loves the most and eventually comes out stronger on the other side. Her transformation is very believable and readers find themselves rooting for her even at her lowest moments. The only character of the novel that I found to be unrealistic was Audrey's best friend Lea. The development of Lea's personality, from shy and quiet, to reckless and rebellious was hurried. The surprising change was unexpected and happened to quickly to be believable. It also wasn't supported by clues in the text that might have explained why this transformation had occurred.
The intricate plot of Crushed is what really drives the novel. It starts off fast and keeps pace till the last chapter. The theme of the novel, that everyone has a secret, runs throughout and ties in with almost every single character's development. These secrets, some that The Yellow Paper decides to reveal, threaten to undo their seemingly perfect lives. Story lines that include a fatal car wreck, bankruptcy, and cancer, propel the novel past the average teen fair and give it a mature feel. By the end of the book, I was satisfied with the directions the authors decided to take the characters, and wasn't let down or disappointed.
The reason I enjoyed the book so much was because of how realistic it was. Gossip, rumors, cliques and crushes were all aspects of the novel that I could relate too. I love the fact that Crushed made me feel as if I could be there, at that same high school, walking amongst the characters. A believable suspense is also built up during the novel, which kept me reading until the end. This is mostly due to the wonderful writing style of the authors. McNeal and McNeal know how teenagers think and this fact comes through with their writing. The characters aren't your typical teenage stereotypes, and it helps seeing them from different points of view, a technique the writers have incorporated in all three of their novels. First love, physics reports and all of high schools other uncertainties are presented fully and truthfully.
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Left Neglected Review

Left Neglected
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Left Neglected ReviewBeautifully written, Genova takes us into the hurried and harried lives of a young family who seem to have it all or do they? Running in all directions,jobs, daycare, after school activites,you know the drill. Traveling in her car Sarah looks away from the road for one split second, shes doing the one thing that so many of us have become guilty of in this high tech over connected world we live in,texting while driving. In that split second of inattention Sarah's world change's forever.
The aftermath of the accident leaves Sarah with a traumatic brain injury know as left brain neglect. For the individual who suffers this devestating brain insult it is beyond all comprehension, because to Sarah the left side of her body ceases to exsist.
I found this book to be truly fascinating as Ms. Genova has the uncanny ability to get inside Sarah's head and describes this injury from her point of view, so that you truly understand what she is feeling. It's an amazing gift and I believe made this book a most rewarding read.
It is also a true cautionary story, one blink of an eye life can change forever and things can never be the same, we all get this, but this book reminds us quite vividly just how devestating the consquences can be.Left Neglected Overview

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Waiting for the Apocalypse: A Memoir of Faith and Family Review

Waiting for the Apocalypse: A Memoir of Faith and Family
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Waiting for the Apocalypse: A Memoir of Faith and Family ReviewNot being a fan of any sort of religion, I'm curious, fascinated and a bit envious of people who believe deeply in their faith. Reading about Veronica Chater's pious mom and dad, and their travels between California and Portugal with 6 children in the 1970's to find the proper Catholic Utopia, is like watching fuzzy homemade movies of that era; and then trying to put the puzzle pieces together for days after, knowing there is a piece missing. Perhaps that piece is sanity. But you will enjoy the emotionally bumpy ride and come to find compassion for the characters you have absolutely nothing in common with. For example, the mother who prays in traffic with a load of kids in the backseat of the car, "Hail Mary, full of grace-Tracey, take that thing out of Jennifer's mouth before she chokes-who are in heaven hallowed be-Ronnie, that's enough pushing, keep your hands to yourself-kingdom come thy will be done on earth . . . Nick get off the floor!" Or, the dad, who quits the highway patrol, sells everything and has a backyard work shed called "the Womb" where he keeps track of Communists advancing across the globe.
I'm about half way through the book and I can't put it down. Chater is a talent not to be missed. She's a beautiful storyteller that keeps you coming back wanting more. This is the perfect book for a book club.Waiting for the Apocalypse: A Memoir of Faith and Family Overview

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The Deadly Sister Review

The Deadly Sister
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The Deadly Sister ReviewRating: 4.5
The Deadly Sister was an exceptionally well-written thriller with an intensive plot. The detailed characteristics made it easy to distinguish traits between the sisters. Abby was a mature and caring sister. While, Maya was a drop-out, drug user who always stirred trouble. Throughout Abby's life she covered up for her sister mistakes with her quick witted actions. However, not all secrets could be hidden.
Now, Maya was faced with harsh accusations of being a murderer. Abby refused to believe her sister had anything to do with her tutor's death and started her own trail of research. The mystery and suspense brought a great balance to the story. Around the middle of the book, I started figuring out a few things. But, I was definitely not expecting how Eliot concluded the book! The ending was shockingly twisted and memorable. I really enjoyed the creativity and character development. Overall, this thriller had all the right elements for an interesting and excited read. I look forward to reading more works by Eliot since I enjoyed his writing style.The Deadly Sister Overview

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Leadership Rules: How to Become the Leader You Want to Be Review

Leadership Rules: How to Become the Leader You Want to Be
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Leadership Rules: How to Become the Leader You Want to Be ReviewShort, concise, and powerful. Widener's use of storytelling to nail down time tested leadership concepts helps the reader remember the impact of following the rules. It's short enough to read over a few hours and worth taking the time to do it. I hadn't heard of Widener before this book. After reading this, I'm interested in taking a look at his two bestsellers.
I recommend "Leadership Rules" because the rules are simple to remember and workable. They are translatable into any field (including family). The thing that really makes this book good is that these rules can be applied instantly. As the reader begins to apply these to their life, they will be a better leader by default. I'm excited to see the impact I have on others as I begin to implement these rules into my life and organizations.
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The Gift: A Novel Review

The Gift: A Novel
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The Gift: A Novel ReviewTHE GIFT by Richard Paul Evans
January 1, 2008

Amazon Rating: 4/5 stars
In Richard Paul Evans latest novel, a man witnesses a series of miracles performed by a young, terminally ill boy, and learns lessons in love and giving. Nathan Hurst doesn't realize what is missing in his life, but upon the start of this new relationship, Nathan makes some changes in his own life and also learns the lesson of forgiveness.
Nathan works for a retail store in which he is to prevent and catch employees who are stealing from the company, in particular, merchandise. During one of his business trips visiting one of the stores, he encounters a boy and his family while waiting at the airport on a very snowy night. This young boy is terminally ill, but Nathan discovers a gift that this young boy has. It's a type of gift that is kept secret, because once it is known, the boy's mother knows that the media will be on their backs, as will the rest of the world. For the sake of the boy's health, his mother tries her best to hide this special gift from the public.
Nathan gets involved with the woman and her two children by volunteering his hotel room for the night, as their flight has been cancelled due to the snowstorm. This act of kindness leads to one thing and another, and soon he has fallen in love with the woman, as he also learns lessons in unselfish love from the young boy.
THE GIFT is the type of book geared toward the holidays, a story filled with miracles. It's an emotional story, so be sure to have a box of Kleenex by your side! Readers who enjoy reading books by Mitch Albom will love THE GIFT.The Gift: A Novel Overview

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This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone Review

This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone
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This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone ReviewI was drawn into this book right away, and could hardly put it down once I started reading. The story takes place in a time that seems at once very recent and very far away indeed. The author was born in the late 60's into a family committed to a life that most would consider intense deprivation, although many aspired to it--the life of the homesteader, who would be beholden to none but him/herself. Her parents had heard the siren song of Helen and Scott Nearing and joined them in Maine, purchasing a plot of land upon which they planned to raise their family by the work of their own hands.
And what a lot of work it was! I was a teenager when the Colemans were setting out to be organic farmers, and I read books by J. I. Rodale and the Nearings, fantasizing about the rural life. In my dreams it was so much more carefree! In fact, it was backbreaking and unceasing labor for the parents, and loneliness for the children, especially the eldest, Melissa, who longed for a friend. Soon enough, there was a baby sister to share the adventures of roaming about the farm in (literally) naked innocence, with the freedom to graze on the ripe fruits and explore the woods. Too much freedom, in fact, which eventually led to tragedy and heartbreak.
The family's story is interwoven with the events going on in the world outside, although for Papa, nothing much mattered on the radio broadcasts except the weather report, as he threw himself into making organic crops, enough to feed his family and grow the farm. Mama had to see to storing food for the long winter months while caring for first one and then two daughters, tending the goats and chickens, and helping with all the other farm chores. As it turned out, the "simple" life was not as simple as it seemed.
It's a heartbreaking and brave memoir. Melissa Coleman tells her story with sympathy for all involved, but doesn't shirk the hard details of just what "living the good life" cost her family.This Life Is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone Overview

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How To Steal A Car Review

How To Steal A Car
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How To Steal A Car ReviewKelleigh Monahan is not your typical car thief. In fact, she is anything but a car thief. She shrouds herself in a mix of black and gray, and she would rather hide than talk to someone she doesn't know. She has her best friend, Jen, in which everything is shared, including their co-boyfriend Will. Kelleigh also has the typical lawyer father and a mother who goes all out on cooking and cleaning --- and, occasionally, drinking. What's even more atypical of a car thief is that Kelleigh isn't even old enough to drive. She just received her learner's permit and is forced to drive around with an adult in the passenger seat. But that one day at the mall will change everything.
As Kelleigh and Jen are sitting outside the shopping center eating ice cream, Kelleigh sees a man drop his keys and walk away without noticing. Kelleigh picks up the keys, thinking that she would return them, but something stops her. She never planned on taking his car, but by mere coincidence she finds out that he lives only a few blocks away. Surely he won't notice that his boring car, a Toyota or a Honda or something, is missing for a few minutes as she takes it around the block for a quick ride? While everything is returned as it was, Kelleigh walks away with a newfound addiction that she can't quite shake.
And if you can steal a car once, Kelleigh figures, you can steal a car twice. The second time is less of a joy ride and more of a revenge-motivated debacle. A little more effort is needed to duplicate keys and trick the owner, but, in the end, Kelleigh succeeds in her plan. How and why it ends up at the bottom of the local pond you will have to read to find out.
And if you can steal a car twice, you can certainly steal a car three times. When Jen calls in a panic, Kelleigh doesn't hesitate to borrow the neighbor's car (they were conveniently on vacation) and rescue her best friend. The whole police chase on the way home doesn't help matters, but Kelleigh manages to evade the cops and inform her parents about the declining nature of their neighborhood.
And if you can steal a car three times, why not start stealing cars for money? It's all been leading up to this: her parents' failing marriage, her strained friendship with Jen, and the uncertain future between her and Will. Some girls might act out by drinking, sleeping around, or doing drugs, but Kelleigh gets her thrills from stealing cars. Is she going too far? And what will it take to stop her before she hits the point of no return?
Most people think of car thieves as reckless, desperate, or down on their luck. Kelleigh, though, is an extremely relatable teenage girl with the same teenage problems that we all go through at some point, but she chooses to deal with them in her own unique way. The author's reasoning for why Kelleigh would steal cars not only makes sense, but he makes it seems so easy and practical that it may be a little dangerous for those already teetering on the edge. With HOW TO STEAL A CAR, National Book Award winner Pete Hautman has created another hilarious look at teenagers, and I know that I'm going to double-check where I put my car keys the next time I leave the mall.
--- Reviewed by Benjamin BocheHow To Steal A Car Overview

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Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef Review

Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
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Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef ReviewA memoir written by a chef is appealing because it promises to take us to a place few of us ever see, unless it's on the Food Network---that is, a restaurant kitchen. It promises to reveal all of the gritty, unlovely steps leading up to the moment when the beautiful plate emerges from the pass and into the hands of the waitstaff. In addition, after Anthony Bourdain led the way, such a memoir must also offer appetite-killers: dirty walk-ins, unsavory butchering scenes. And, like a religious testament, it also has those conversion moments, the moment when the chef discovers that she or he is destined to become an artist with food. Gabrielle Hamilton's memoir has all of these elements.
When Hamilton writes about food, she's entertaining, irreverent, and even spiritual. Her engaging account of her father's spring lamb roast (an edited version of this piece recently appeared in The New Yorker) establishes the origins of her love of food. Her account of her years working for catering companies will make you think hard before you pick up that next wedding hors d'oeuvre from the waiter's silver plate. And a chapter about cooking at a summer camp in the Berkshires is funny and deft in its handling of detail. I loved her wry depiction of the time she spent in a master's writing program, from the satirical descriptions of her fellow writers to her homage to Misty, a fellow cook and, for Hamilton, a kind of culinary muse.
This book aspires to be more than just a chef memoir, however, since the subtitle refers to "The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef." In particular, this is a book about family: about Hamilton's own family, painfully riven by divorce when she was still a child, and about her marriage and the birth of her two sons. With the exception of the opening chapters, these parts of the book are often difficult to read, mostly because they have almost none of the good qualities (sharp detail, humor, self-awareness) of the "chef" sections. Her relationship with her mother, the "spider" of a chapter about a long, miserable visit to Vermont, is so angry and painful that you want to avert your eyes. After such a rant, a reader comes not a whit closer to understanding this mother or why she behaves as she does. As for Hamilton's marriage to Michele, the man whose ancestral home in Italy is the setting for the last ("Butter') section of the book, this too is the subject of pages and pages of rage and disappointment. Yes, this unhappiness is somewhat mitigated by Hamilton's initial happiness in cooking and eating in Italy, as well as her pleasure in being part of Michele's extended family. In the end, however, the many pages devoted to descriptions of glorious Italian foodstuffs (think Frances Mayes, with cursing) turn into too much eggplant, the Italian family disappoints, and the marriage remains a source of sorrow.
There are many memoirs about unhappy families. How the writer shapes that material is key. The difference between "Blood, Bones, and Butter" and other memoirs about bad parents, like Tobias Woolf's "This Boy's Life" or Mary Karr's "The Liar's Club," is one of perspective. Even when Woolf is telling us about how his mother failed to protect him from his abusive stepfather or Karr is describing yet another chilling incident with her parents, we know the grown-up writers understand why their parents acted the way they did. This sort of perspective is not evident in Hamilton's memoir, perhaps because she has not yet gained it. In her book, the education of Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef, is presented as the most interesting of dishes, full of diverse and sometimes surprising ingredients---and so it is. (I was lucky to have the chance to eat, just once, in her restaurant, Prune, and she is truly a wonder in the kitchen.) However, her depiction here of her education as daughter, wife, and mother awaits a more finished account.
M. FeldmanBlood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef Overview

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American Boy Review

American Boy
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American Boy ReviewLarry Watson's AMERICAN BOY is an all-American, universal kind of story that will resonate with anyone who grew up in the American heartland of the 50s and 60s. The typical small town of those decades is portrayed perfectly - those downtown blocks that held hardware and grocery stores with the local lawyer and doctor upstairs over the drugstore. Even the latest Plymouth-Dodge innovation, that infamous and short-lived push-button transmission, is featured, the same one that was immortalized in songwriter Greg Brown's "Brand New '64 Dodge."
Matthew Garth is our unlikely hero, a fatherless 16-17 year-old in the 1962-63 school year, who has attached himself for the past several years to the Dunbars, a prominent family in Willow Falls, Minnesota, a small community of a couple thousand. Johnny Dunbar is his classmate and closest friend, but all that will change when an "older woman" enters the picture in the person of Louisa Lindahl. The head of the family, Dr. Dunbar, is a pillar of the local community, although there are early intimations of that pillar being made of salt, with feet of clay.
Like many small towns, Willow Falls is a study in contrasts and opposites. The falls is not really a falls; Frenchman's Forest is not really a forest, but a dark and secret place where the two then-younger boys first learned about the mechanics of sex from an ill-informed older boy, and which later serves as backdrop to more intimate experimentation. Because one of the things that makes AMERICAN BOY such a universal tale is its minutely descriptive attention to all those familiar rites of passage - smoking, drinking, reckless driving, and of course backseat groping with all the heavy breathing, passionate kisses, frenzied frustrations and furtive fumbling with zippers, clasps, breasts and thighs. There is even a very "Mrs Robinson" scene between Matthew and the local lawyer's wife, but it has its own variations making it both original and derivative all at the same time.
Matthew becomes obsessed with the not-so mysterious twenty-something Lydia, who, through a sequence of shocking events, takes up residence with the Dunbars, destroying and changing not just Matthew's friendship with Johnny, but the whole family dynamic.
Yes, this is a masterfully rendered story of a friendship and family torn assunder and innocence lost. An old tale to be sure, but Watson makes it all seem new and fresh, employing characters all too human and flawed.
As a coming-of-age story, countless comparisons could probably be made. I've already suggested The Graduate, but the ones I first thought of were Evan Hunter's Last Summer and Herman Raucher's Summer of '42, both books from 30-40 years ago, and, more recently, Donald Lystra's northern Michigan story, Season of Water and Ice.
AMERICAN BOY is, in the end, an old tale made new and fresh through the story-telling skills of a master hand at fiction. Larry Watson burst onto the book scene nearly twenty years ago with his first novel, MONTANA 1948., a shocking and beautiful book. His latest offering shows he is still at the top of his game. If you appreciate serious literary fiction, READ THIS BOOK!
- Tim Bazzett, author of the REED CITY BOY trilogyAmerican Boy Overview

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