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Summary: A wonderful look into the past.
Review: I thought this book was a wonderful look into past and what things were like four or five decades ago. There was such a diverse cast of characters and the author made them all beliveable. He made the characters seem realistic without being overly done and we followed Abe from boyhood into manhood, his loves and his losses, and the guilt he must live with over mistakes he made. I thought this was a totally endearing book, and it held my attention until the end.
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Summary: Takes me back to a better time
Review: Larry Baker has shown what a thrill books can still delivery. The characters are still in my mind six months after I put the work down.
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Summary: You've never read anything like it
Review: Larry Baker's "The Flamingo Rising" provides a remarkably insightful look into a time period often characterized as "dull." His characters resonate with deft depictions of memorable individuals. You will identify with the eccentrics who populate this entertaining novel, and you will eagerly anticipate the publication of his second novel. If no other follows, it would still stand on its own much as "Catcher in the Rye" would have guaranteed Salinger his permanent place in American literature.
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Summary: What a charmer!
Review: Marvelous characterizations--and a drive-in theater to boot! It doesn't get much better than The Flamingo Rising. Hats off to you, Mr. Baker.
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Summary: A Reflective Voice
Review: Rita Mae Brown with a little more scope, Tom Robbins stopping before the exaggeration is bigger than life, John Irving's thoughtfulness--with a touch of early, fresh, lean John Updike. The prose on page 1 of The Flamingo Rising is strikingly good, and the story that starts there is unfailingly fascinating: funny, simple, metaphorical, true. These crazy Southern parents are much loved, fully human, and never mere caricature (I have crazy Southern parents: I know). The young man coming of age is also a Korean-adoptee narrator whose sense of himself and life is reflected both in the story's larger metaphors (e.g., Frank the dog, the giant image-tower, a graveyard by the sea, a house of images) and in a thoughtful narrative voice old enough to give one a sense of life and life's passing but true to its youth--also offering a cool but undistanced contrast between its simplicity and life's glorious exaggerations. I recommend this book for anyone interested in: a contemporary boy's coming of age; the problem of being one's parents' child; humor and profundity where unusual life shows you life at its heart; a very moving, very funny story; how to run a drive-in. And not least for the voice of the narrator. There are a couple of sermons underlying the thoughtfulness, but it's good to have folks like this in the pulpit. (The prose continues to be good) Thanks to Mr. Baker for a deeply moving and delightful work of art.
Rating:
Summary: A Reflective Voice
Review: Rita Mae Brown with a little more scope, Tom Robbins stopping before the exaggeration is bigger than life, John Irving's thoughtfulness--with a touch of early, fresh, lean John Updike. The prose on page 1 of The Flamingo Rising is strikingly good, and the story that starts there is unfailingly fascinating: funny, simple, metaphorical, true. These crazy Southern parents are much loved, fully human, and never mere caricature (I have crazy Southern parents: I know). The young man coming of age is also a Korean-adoptee narrator whose sense of himself and life is reflected both in the story's larger metaphors (e.g., Frank the dog, the giant image-tower, a graveyard by the sea, a house of images) and in a thoughtful narrative voice old enough to give one a sense of life and life's passing but true to its youth--also offering a cool but undistanced contrast between its simplicity and life's glorious exaggerations. I recommend this book for anyone interested in: a contemporary boy's coming of age; the problem of being one's parents' child; humor and profundity where unusual life shows you life at its heart; a very moving, very funny story; how to run a drive-in. And not least for the voice of the narrator. There are a couple of sermons underlying the thoughtfulness, but it's good to have folks like this in the pulpit. (The prose continues to be good) Thanks to Mr. Baker for a deeply moving and delightful work of art.
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Summary: The perfect beach (or ski-lodge) book!
Review: The Flamingo Rising appeared under the Christmas tree with my name on it, and when I picked it up to while away some dreary post-holiday afternoons I was most pleasantly surprised. The story is immediately engaging; as for its cast, I found myself imagining the later lives of a number of the characters, a full day after I had finished the book. (I always take this to be a good sign.) Every once in a while the very oddities of the book weighed it down, and my suspension of disbelief faltered; but these very oddities make the book charming, and provide very good entertainment indeed. A great gift, and many thanks to the giver!
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Summary: Sand, Sex and Vicious Wiener Dogs
Review: This book was a good read but not quite in the can't-put-it-down category. It's about a 1960's nuclear family who operate a massive drive-in theater along Florida's Atlantic coast south of Jacksonville. The cast of characters grows to include a Scatman Crothers-type black handyman (only he's very short) and a part terrier/part wiener dog (who becomes unforgiveably vicious). Most of the doings concern the interplay between the lurid but fun cinema and the staid but necessary funeral chapel next door, especially the Romeo-and-Juliet substory of the narrator and his girl. The prose style hit the right buttons: it was neither too colloquial nor too U-of-Iowa-Workshop, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, though, there was often some heavy-handed foreshadowing of events to come. Anticipating one tragic scene, we witness it through the eyes of a 16-year-old boy, the adult he has become, with symbolism, and with ironic detachment. In this sense the novel is over-engineered. Baker is too good at his craft; he's already experienced enough to go for an effect once and get it right. I look forward to his next book.
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Summary: Sand, Sex and Vicious Wiener Dogs
Review: This book was a good read but not quite in the can't-put-it-down category. It's about a 1960's nuclear family who operate a massive drive-in theater along Florida's Atlantic coast south of Jacksonville. The cast of characters grows to include a Scatman Crothers-type black handyman (only he's very short) and a part terrier/part wiener dog (who becomes unforgiveably vicious). Most of the doings concern the interplay between the lurid but fun cinema and the staid but necessary funeral chapel next door, especially the Romeo-and-Juliet substory of the narrator and his girl. The prose style hit the right buttons: it was neither too colloquial nor too U-of-Iowa-Workshop, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, though, there was often some heavy-handed foreshadowing of events to come. Anticipating one tragic scene, we witness it through the eyes of a 16-year-old boy, the adult he has become, with symbolism, and with ironic detachment. In this sense the novel is over-engineered. Baker is too good at his craft; he's already experienced enough to go for an effect once and get it right. I look forward to his next book.
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Summary: Terrific reading experience! Wonderful first time effort...
Review: This is a delightful book with vivid characters that you want to meet! In fact, this book is so original and fun to read, I had to keep looking at the picture of Larry Baker and wonder -- how does he come up with these people and situations? It's easy to try and compare Baker with John Irving...since both have Iowa City roots...but I'd compare this book more to "The Shipping News" -- you actually LIKE the characters and care about what happens to them. Yes, yes, yes -- give it a try! Let's encourage MORE first time authors like Larry Baker.
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