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Summary: A Novel of Rare Power
Review: Ray Elliott's Wild Hands Toward the Sky is a marvelous novel of rememberance and reflection. Having grown up in the nearby post-war Southern Indiana towns of Patoka and Princeton, the novel's wonderful characters and narrative has a ring of truthfulness I have never before experienced in a literary work. There was not one word or experience with which I could not vividly identify. For those not familiar with the Midwest locale, the novel will still resonate with a truth and beauty rarely found in contemporary literature. John Walter, the young narrator, speaks to us all of the joy and pain of the maturation process. This novel deserves to be recognized as the work of a major talent. Alan K. Collins (retired) Oak Lawn Community High School Department of English, Oak Lawn, Illinois
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Summary: The Song of a Neglected People
Review: Ray Elliott's Wild Hands Toward the Sky is a powerful, naturalistic portrait of a people and land we don't often read about: the American Midwest not long after the close of World War II. As the people go about their lives (farming, hauling cattle, keeping house) the war's impact is always there in the background as they consider their own experiences or those of their relatives who died or survived the European and Pacific theatres. This is a charming coming-of-age novel from the viewpoint of a boy who closely observes the people and surroundings of a pivotal time of his life. We share his experiences, comic and tragic, we sweat in the heat and shiver in cold prairie snowstorms with him. Overall a fine novel of a neglected people, period and landscape.
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Summary: Memories of Growing Up in the 40's & 50's
Review: This book brought back memories of the central illinois farming community where I grew up in the 40's & 50's. Mr. Elliott truly conveys to the reader the depth of feelings John Walter has about the loss of his father & growing up after World War 2.
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Summary: Insightful author
Review: This book rings with a universal theme: Boyhood. Although set in the midwest with its bucolic surroundings, it can be take place in any part of the world. The author, a former Marine, writes with all cylinders firing. Nothing is spared as the boy searches for manhood. Clearly, a story that can happen to any young man, be it in Southern Illinois or upstate New York, or even in the paradise of Hawaii. A must read for anyone who appreciates honest, sincere and thought-evoking writing.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful author
Review: This book rings with a universal theme: Boyhood. Although set in the midwest with its bucolic surroundings, it can be take place in any part of the world. The author, a former Marine, writes with all cylinders firing. Nothing is spared as the boy searches for manhood. Clearly, a story that can happen to any young man, be it in Southern Illinois or upstate New York, or even in the paradise of Hawaii. A must read for anyone who appreciates honest, sincere and thought-evoking writing.
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Summary: Heartbreakingly believable
Review: This is a heartbreakingly believable story of a boy growing up in the aftermath of WWII. His Father was killed in the war and his young mother does her best to raise him in the home of her husband's brother in rural Illinois. Poignantly, war kills on the front lines and damages the families left at home. Ray Elliott beautifully captures the concept that war creates heroes and role models of ghost fathers to little boys who grow to want nothing more than to imitate these fathers that they never knew.
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Summary: Heartbreakingly believable
Review: This is a heartbreakingly believable story of a boy growing up in the aftermath of WWII. His Father was killed in the war and his young mother does her best to raise him in the home of her husband's brother in rural Illinois. Poignantly, war kills on the front lines and damages the families left at home. Ray Elliott beautifully captures the concept that war creates heroes and role models of ghost fathers to little boys who grow to want nothing more than to imitate these fathers that they never knew.
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Summary: So Real It Hurts
Review: What a joy to come upon a first-time author who has enough miles on his chassie to have something important to say. Ray Elliott creates a long-gone world in a small southern Illinois town just after WW II. His lead character is John Walter, a boy whose father has just recently been killed in the war. He is being raised by a mother and a band of working-class country men, all of whom play different parts of being his dad--Big and Sam and Big Al are as real as tobacco spit and truck crank cases. John Walter tries to figure out his place in this world and his place in a world without a father. We have forgotten the price of the nation's one "good war" of the century but in Ray Elliott's boy we relive it all too clearly. By turns sad and joyous, this book is beautifully rendered in breadth and close-up. It's not a "regional" novel but rather a window on life then and in that country place as well as on life anywhere and everywhere. It's hard to believe this is Elliott's first novel. I will watch for numbers three and four and more.
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Summary: The tree grows as the twig is bent
Review: Wild Hands Toward the Sky is a beautiful piece of work, both in form and substance. Elliot captures the poetry of rural Illinois -- simple and honest, like wash on the clothesline. Against the backdrop of hog farms, cornfields, and family cemeteries, John Walter craves the stories of the war from those who have come home, in an effort to know the father who didn't. He emulates the manhood he sees, marathon days of hard work, grabbing smokes off cigarette butts dropped by his elders, brawling, risk-taking, longing for the day when he, too, can be a marine, "standing proud and tall." John Walter's coming of age is the story of the Viet Nam generation, and how a "good" war led a generation to a "bad" war. As we battle to the close of yet another war, the novel takes on special significance -- the tree will grow as the twig is bent.
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Summary: A Serious Piece of Work
Review: ~John Walter~{!/~}s father died in World War II when he was two-year old. He was too little to understand it, yet old enough to feel the pain. His father~{!/~}s death is like a hole that every member in the family feels. His mother lived in memories ever since and rarely smiled. She died at age 36. His cousin Sam who was injured in the D-day invasion returned home forever changed. He ended up killing himself sticking a rifle in his mouth years after. In a sense, everyone in the family was~~ traumatized because of the War.This is a wonderful piece of work written by Ray Elliott who not only has a strong compassion for human sufferings but also has the excellent literary and journalistic skills to express himself well. The novel also depicts the beautiful rural life in southern Illinois in the 40s and 50s last century. You can almost smell the pristine air. A serene life that was about to disappear, as young Sedwick was longing to going to somewhere beyond Bellaire. I~~ had a chance to spend a weekend in the southern Illinois~{!/~} town where the novel was set, yet I didn~{!/~}t go for some reason. After reading the novel, I regretted a great deal missing the opportunity to visit the place. Should I have been there, I probably would be better able to picture the boy growing up in melancholy and pain with yearning for his father and longing for exploring the outside world.~
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