The Coalwood Way

Rating:
Summary: Pretty nearly perfect
Review: My husband, knowing how much I liked Rocket Boys, gave me this book for my birthday which happened to all on the same day he saw it available. Well, back to Coalwood. Thanks, Sonny. There's no better writer out there, far as I know. One of these days, Oprah's going to figure that out. I wrote a letter to her today. Anyway, if you want a book that captures your imagination, this one will do. Lots of people think Homer's (Sonny's) books are about rockets and that but they're not. They're about the most wonderful people he grew up with. He was a lucky guy and I think he knows that. That's why he shares with us his story and the storie of Coalwood. You have to read them to understand.

Rating:
Summary: The Coalwood Way is magic
Review: Today, I heard Homer speak to a group of Tech Prep educators in Charlotte. His talk moved many in the audience to tears and cheers. I hadn't read his book, just seen the movie, so I decided to give his new one a try. I am now a committed fan. He really knows how to tell a story, out loud, and in a book. He said Rocket Boys was being taught in a lot of English classes and some the teachers at the conference confirmed it. Now I know why. Coalwood Way is a moving tribute to a small town, to parents, to teachers, and to life.

Rating:
Summary: In a way, it's even better than Rocket Boys
Review: The Coalwood Way struck a resonant chord in me. "Way" has given me a lot to think about, about love, and parenting, and even religion. Homer is digging deep here. I'm going to read it again because the more I think about it, I believe there is real wisdom to be found here. It's a great read and I was enjoying it, thinking this is a wonderful story, but then something seemed to hit me right between the eyes, something profound. This is an unusual book. Something is going on here far more than a simple book about a little town. In a time when there's a lot of fear out there, I think we all need to understand the Coalwood way. It just might be the best way there is. I'm sorry I don't mean to preach. I'm not that religious but I'm really thinking now.

Rating:
Summary: This book is sooooo good!
Review: I loved October Sky so thought to try Homer's new one. It is sooooo good. I started laughing on the bus this morning reading it going into work and everybody looked at me. At lunch, I had to get the kleenex out. I couldn't put it down. I especially like that this is a very spiritual book. I learned a lot about life in it and God's plan. Solved my Christmas present problem, that's for sure.

Rating:
Summary: I didn't think he could do it!
Review: But he did. Now, thanks to Homer, I've lost another night's sleep. Just as with October Sky, as soon as I started reading The Coalwood Way, I couldn't put it down. But at least my Christmas list is solved. Not only is this a great book, I realized it's a Christmas story, too. I don't usually cry when I read a book but when Sonny (Homer) and Sherman find the little fawn in the wood, I have to tell you I got pretty teary. Congratulations, Homer. You've told another great story. You've got a fan for life.

Rating:
Summary: A satisfying 'sequel'
Review: While not as lyrical as "Rocket Boys," Homer Hickam still tells an engrossing tale in his new memoir, "The Coalwood Way." The same people we grew to love are here: Sonny, Elsie and Homer; the Rev. "Little" Richard; Quentin, Roy Lee and all the Coalwood boys. But instead of focusing on his rocketing exploits, Hickam delves into the psyche of a town that's changing in ways it doesn't even know. This is less a story about Homer Hickam than it is a story about Coalwood, West Virginia. As readers, we're richer for the experience.

With the clear eye of a scientist, Hickam focuses on two watershed events in the Christmas of 1959. One delves into the undercurrent of spite and envy that marred his beloved hometown. The other shows a proud man, Homer's father, feverishly working to save his town the only way he knows how -- in the mine. But even that battle has unintended consequences.

The book starts a little slowly and the ending seems a little contrived. But it must ring true, or Homer's mother surely would have called him on it. And these are minor flaws in an otherwise excellent story.

As someone who lives in West Virginia but didn't grow up here, I never will fully appreciate Homer Hickam's world. But as one who loves the Mountain State and wants to see it thrive, I thank Hickam for sharing Coalwood with the rest of us. Homer Hickam has a message for the Mountain State: Honor the legacy of coal, but let it go. Education and a refusal to quit will take you wherever you wish to go. If those of us he left behind work hard enough, we can make our dreams come true -- without leaving our West Virginia hills.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Book for Everybody
Review: "Rocket Boys" was indeed a great novel with a fantastic story. Its sequel is as well, although it is a decidedly different book, both in content and tone. I loved both and marvel anew at Mr. Hickam's ability as a writer to turn the mundane into glory.

The novel begins with a brief retrospective (although Hickam is clever to place it within the action so it doesn't seem as if he's bringing the reader up to date, especially the reader who hasn't read October Sky). All his main characters are firmly in place by the end of Chapter One. Where October Sky was really about Sonny's relationship to his father, The Coalwood Way is really his mother's book so keep an eye on Elsie! It is important to realize that The Coalwood Way actually takes place during the same timeframe as October Sky, actually before the science fairs. Readers who think they know the October Sky book because they've seen the movie are often confused by this if they start the series with The Coalwood Way. People, the movie is filled with errors about this story - Sonny (Homer) didn't win a scholarship! Sonny didn't quit school! Sonny didn't go to work in the mine! The true October Sky story is vastly richer than the good but essentially simple-minded story told in the movie.

In the Coalwood Way, we learn so much more about the Hickam family, its relationship to Coalwood, and the really harsh rules that govern the people who live there. Although she actually occupies only a small part of the story, probably the most fascinating character is Dreama, the girl from the rough town of Gary. All she wants to be is a Coalwood girl. I won't reveal what happens to her except to say her tragedy represents all the is wrong with Coalwood society although its aftermath represents all that is good.

To sum up, this is a grand book. For Jan Karon fans, this is the Mitford tale told true, and far, far richer than those books. Still, if you like Karon, you'll love Hickam!

Rating:
Summary: A thoroughly pleasing "equal"
Review: The Coalwood Way is a wonderfully written, engaging book. I am a bona fide Homer (Sonny) Hickam "groupie," I'll confess. I eagerly look forward to all his books but especially his memoirs about Coalwood. This book is simply wonderful entertainment written in such beautifully flowing prose that it's easy to forget you're reading a book. Instead, you find yourself lost in the magnificent little town of Coalwood and its colorful and engaging citizenry. If all you know of this story is the movie October Sky, forget it. The movie is a surface treatment of a magnificent and deep story of life and love in Coalwood in the 1950's and early 1960's. The movie was a Hollywood treatment that left out the better parts of Homer's books. Homer is called Sonny in these books and, of course, his dad is Homer (Senior). It's just one place the movie got it all wrong. There is a Christmas aspect to The Coalwood Way that is exciting and strangely satisfying (I'm Jewish). For one of the few times in my life, I was able to understand the Christmas spirit. Sonny Hickam taught me that in his delightful way. This book made me laugh and it made me cry. What else could possibly be wanted from a book than that? Highly, highly, highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Carry me back to West Virginia
Review: The first paragraph took me back to a movie about these same characters in the same setting. Sure enough, the jacket tells us "Coalwood" is from the author of "Rocket Boys"--the memoir on which the film "October Sky" was based.

But this is not a sequel so much as it is a second look; nor is it a memoir so much as a stream of reveries, loosely woven around the disparate themes of Appalachian poverty, small town society, union-management conflict, teenage romance, and intra-family relationships. The author says he vividly recalls the episodes he relates after all these 40 years, and that, as Quentin would say, is prodigious.

For all that, the book is fun to read in the same sense a Walt Disney movie is fun to watch. Both are G-rated and have happy endings, and both give us an escape. Moreover, the author and the characters,(except for the absurd Quentin), speak with a homey vocabulary.

Though the book is as densly populated as a Dickens novel, chararacter development is not this author's long suit. Indeed, we're left with the feeling of having merely brushed by most of the people we encounter. Take O'Dell, who charms the socks off the staid Mrs. Hickam with such ease that I felt sure we were about to meet an Appalachian Eddy Haskell. Alas, he just never fills out.

Then there are the nagging implausibles:
In describing a new rocket nozzle the narrator tells us "[it was] a shade too large, probably because of me (sic) trying to design with a fat lead pencil and a large scale ruler". Come on now. This is a rocket engineer talking; one who must be well versed in mechanical drawing, and who's bound to know that though drawings are made to scale (within media limits) it's the written dimensions which determine exactly how a part gets built.
As for the home-made theodolite the boys use calculate a rocket's apogee, we're told that they taught themselves how to do this after someone "gave them an old trigonometry book" (groan, groan). The author says he was studying calculus, for which, as any high schooler will tell you, trig is a pre-req, and calculating of the height of a flagpole from the length of it's shadow is one of the first trig exercises.
Nor does it make any sense at all to suppose that a boy who studied physics and calculus wouldn't even recognize a slide rule or drawing instruments.


I enjoyed the book for all that; of course I liked Davy Crocket and Old Yeller too.


Rating:
Summary: Entertaining memoir
Review: This is not to the same level of The Rocket Boys, which is a story much better told. However, The Coalwood Way is an interesting read, especially for those who truly liked The Rocket Boys.

For one thing, i was a bit disappointed about the author's foreword. He swears that even though the events in the book passed so long ago (1959), he remembers everything in tremendous detail. If he hadn't said that, i wouldn't have even thought about it. As a person with very bad memory, i don't believe him.

Some of the characters are described to a point that they almost seem caricatures. I couldn't help think of Martin on The Simpsons when reading about Quentin. Roy Lee reminded me of Elvis Presley in one of his cheesy movies.

The memoir almost redeemed itself in page 267 (chapter 27), when Sonny finally realizes what has been bugging him all along (here's something i wish i had done: jot down the items on Sonny's list as you read along). That discovery makes the book worthwhile. However, the memoir ends with the Christmas Pageant, and that image really ruined the moment for me.