Shade of the Raintree: The Life and Death of Ross Lockridge, Jr. Author of Raintree County

Rating:
Summary: The Great American Novel
Review: The picture in this book of Larry Lockridge, its author when he was little more than a baby, seems to me to reflect the childlike wisdom that recognizes an impending epic tragedy and that it may dominate his life.

That tragedy was the death by his own hand of Larry's father, a man who was able to write a thousand plus page novel that is more of a lyric poem.

Yet, some reviewers lightly passed it over at the time, notably competing author Hamilton Basso, whose review probably revealed that he'd have cut his arm off to be able to achieve Lockridge's pinnacle of word-use that sweeps our minds away like a Pied Piper demanding we follow him.

I followed this Pied Piper gladly, into a nostalgic introduction to years and people now dead. My heart hurt over what was tragically gone never to return, the pathos of glowing images and old loves of appealing people that passed and will never return. At some places in Lockridge's monumental tribute to America, his words, unlike most - which someone described aptly as strange wild symbols of thought - in the hands of this genius, transcend words and, for me, almost bridged that gap, tugging me into a wonderful, tragi-comic trancelike dream world of America's heritage. Ross Lockridge, Larry's tragic and brilliant dad, undoubtedly fathered that elusive thing: - The Great American Novel.

I think his son's book reminds us it's time to take a second look and face the truth that we were granted a short stay among us of a literary angel, who bequeathed us a treasury of jewel-like words and images beyond price.

Ross's son also revealed to me in this loving remembrance, the sick mercenary process by which a demanding publishing world (that has only grown worse since) probably worked his father into a nervous breakdown from which he saw no escape, and to escape which he killed himself.

I had an entrancing several days reading Larry's remembrance of his father, which I could only do a stretch at a time as my time permitted. I kept wanting to rush back to this account of the life of a man who had been my literary hero since I first read him in Alaska when his book was first published.

From my perch in our patio on our isolated ranch, I occasionally looked up at the mountains and thought of Ross Lockridge and said: "Ross, what a hell of a shame you didn't live to write a saga of America's westward exodus." What a shame he simply didn't live to write whatever he pleased. Naturally, some jealous soul attributed Lockridge's suicide to doubts that he could repeat his first triumph. He had the Shakespearean touch and the bard repeated triumpth after triumph

Thank you Larry for a wonderful experience in meeting your Pa. And thanks again, Ross for the wonderful hours your granted me as I first read your book, and in the rereading from time to time.

When I have time I will add my review to those on Raintree County in these pages of Amazon's. Thank you too, Amazon for something wonderful. In any case, I want to record my discovery of the conundrum of the book, Raintree Country,a mysterious message in its maps that no one I have ever encountered had noticed.

Finally, I must say that the movie, like most, was the usual uncomprehending travesty. They had no more idea of what they had grandly muffed than a baby has of the consequence of throwing its bottle out of the crib.

Note that I live near Rodeo, NM. To roughly paraphrase Ross Lockridge in Raintree Country, "You will look for it on the map and it won't be there, for it is not the land of the perishable fact, but the land of the enduring fiction . . . ' and there the similarity stops. Glenn G. Boyer

Rating:
Summary: Too long
Review: Prof. Lockridge writes well enough, but the covers of his book are too far apart.

Rating:
Summary: This book made me cry with sadness and joy.
Review: This book is a biography of his father, Ross Lockridge, Jr. The book was so good I almost emailed the author a few years ago to tell him so, but i wussed out. I read Larry's book right after reading Raintree County, and cried, and I never cry! It was so sad what happened to his father, not to mention America, for the loss of one of its' greatest authors, in my humble opinion. I highly reccomend it, but only for people who have read Raintree County.. I heard about Raintree County in James Michener's autobiography, "The World is My Home." (Pass on my email address to Larry Lockridge so maybe we can communicate)