Rating: 
Summary: Novalyne achieved her writing dreams
Review: Although this may be a "chick" reason, I read this book after seeing the movie "The Whole Wide World". The movie struck me strongly because my best friend recently committed suicide, and my relationship with him had many parallels between Novalyne and Bob. The book was not only enlightening into the mind of two geniuses, but also became a pillar of strength for me to see how an independent woman was able to fondly look back on a relationship with a doomed man.If I would have looked at the book from an unbiased, outside perspective (before viewing the movie), I would naievly have said that I didn't think I would be interested in it. I did not know who Robert E. Howard was before seeing the movie. Sure, I was familiar with Conan, but it had never peaked my interest, certainly not enough to read a novel based on the author's life. Having said that, I NOW would say that this novel can be read and appreciated by any type of person. While for obvious reasons it would be interesting to Robert E. Howard literature fans, I believe it also would be extremely comforting to those who have lost a close companion to suicide, as well as enlightening to those who are judgmental at times. True, the novel is mostly dialogue and thus may seem rather monotonous, but I beg to differ. I could not put this book down. It captured my interest and my heart immediately. In my opinion, Novalyne Price Ellis finally achieved her goal of becoming a successful writer. She certainly won me over. I applaud both her writing skills and her beautiful life story.
Rating:
Summary: Novalyne achieved her writing dreams
Review: Although this may be a "chick" reason, I read this book after seeing the movie "The Whole Wide World". The movie struck me strongly because my best friend recently committed suicide, and my relationship with him had many parallels between Novalyne and Bob. The book was not only enlightening into the mind of two geniuses, but also became a pillar of strength for me to see how an independent woman was able to fondly look back on a relationship with a doomed man. If I would have looked at the book from an unbiased, outside perspective (before viewing the movie), I would naievly have said that I didn't think I would be interested in it. I did not know who Robert E. Howard was before seeing the movie. Sure, I was familiar with Conan, but it had never peaked my interest, certainly not enough to read a novel based on the author's life. Having said that, I NOW would say that this novel can be read and appreciated by any type of person. While for obvious reasons it would be interesting to Robert E. Howard literature fans, I believe it also would be extremely comforting to those who have lost a close companion to suicide, as well as enlightening to those who are judgmental at times. True, the novel is mostly dialogue and thus may seem rather monotonous, but I beg to differ. I could not put this book down. It captured my interest and my heart immediately. In my opinion, Novalyne Price Ellis finally achieved her goal of becoming a successful writer. She certainly won me over. I applaud both her writing skills and her beautiful life story.
Rating:
Summary: Novalyne achieved her writing dreams
Review: Although this may be a "chick" reason, I read this book after seeing the movie "The Whole Wide World". The movie struck me strongly because my best friend recently committed suicide, and my relationship with him had many parallels between Novalyne and Bob. The book was not only enlightening into the mind of two geniuses, but also became a pillar of strength for me to see how an independent woman was able to fondly look back on a relationship with a doomed man. If I would have looked at the book from an unbiased, outside perspective (before viewing the movie), I would naievly have said that I didn't think I would be interested in it. I did not know who Robert E. Howard was before seeing the movie. Sure, I was familiar with Conan, but it had never peaked my interest, certainly not enough to read a novel based on the author's life. Having said that, I NOW would say that this novel can be read and appreciated by any type of person. While for obvious reasons it would be interesting to Robert E. Howard literature fans, I believe it also would be extremely comforting to those who have lost a close companion to suicide, as well as enlightening to those who are judgmental at times. True, the novel is mostly dialogue and thus may seem rather monotonous, but I beg to differ. I could not put this book down. It captured my interest and my heart immediately. In my opinion, Novalyne Price Ellis finally achieved her goal of becoming a successful writer. She certainly won me over. I applaud both her writing skills and her beautiful life story.
Rating:
Summary: R. E. Howard: A Portrait Of The Artist As A Real Man
Review: As a boy in a small New Mexico desert town, in a family that discouraged television watching, I discovered Conan and R. E. Howard, and was captured by his imagination. He could spin a yarn like no one else. This man was no illiterate barbarian writing drivel for the masses. He wasn't thinking about demographics, or target audiences, or sequels. I felt R. E. Howard wrote because he had no choice. Ms. Price made me aware that Conan's creator was a flesh and blood man who lived a tragic and short life. Read the book, even if you've never wandered on the Cimmerian borderlands.
Rating:
Summary: Mrs. Ellis captures it perfectly.
Review: I began reading R. E. Howard's stories about ten years ago when a very intelligent friend informed me that Howard had been one of the best writers, along with H.P Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, for Weird Tales magazine at its beginning. These stories swept me away into Howard's incredibly savage Hyborian age, with their action, devilish plotting and larger than life heros. I realized, before reading the introductions about Howard, that the man who had written these stories was larger than life himself. So when I saw the movie of his life, The Whole Wide World, in the grocery store, I rented it. At the end it credited Novalyne Price Ellis's memoir, One Who Walked Alone, as its inspiration. N. P. Ellis was Howard's girlfriend during the last four years of his life, the period when he was writing his Conan stories. Mrs. Ellis, a great high school speech teacher and drama coach at the time, kept diaries and observations of her time spent with R.E.H. and had them transcribed much later into the memoir. N.P.E. had wanted to become a selling writer for most of her life, and the memoir shows that she had a tremendous eye for detail, assessing what drove people, and the speech patterns of the time. This is a fabulous book told as dramatized encounters, arranged with perfectly-captured coversations she'd had with Howard and others, and carefully detailed scene development. I enjoyed the story so well that I actually went to Howard's house in Cross Plains, TX which they like to show as a museum. I spoke with many people there who knew about the Howards.
Rating:
Summary: Unforgetable
Review: I call this book "unforgetable" because this is what it is. First I saw the movie and then, just had to have the book. Since then, Novalyne Price and Robert E. Howard have become real live people, to me. Since I have read the book and saw the movie.....I have moved to Texas. I plan a trip to Cross Plains and Brownwood, to be there where everything took place. To read about these two people and their relationship with one another, has effected my life. I only wish they could still be here so I could meet and talk with them. I feel once a body reads this book, they will be "hooked" on the two people...Novalyne and Bob...and will always be seeking more about them and their lives. Barb Tripp
Rating:
Summary: Unforgetable
Review: I call this book "unforgetable" because this is what it is. First I saw the movie and then, just had to have the book. Since then, Novalyne Price and Robert E. Howard have become real live people, to me. Since I have read the book and saw the movie.....I have moved to Texas. I plan a trip to Cross Plains and Brownwood, to be there where everything took place. To read about these two people and their relationship with one another, has effected my life. I only wish they could still be here so I could meet and talk with them. I feel once a body reads this book, they will be "hooked" on the two people...Novalyne and Bob...and will always be seeking more about them and their lives. Barb Tripp
Rating:
Summary: A view into another world
Review: I loved this book! Although not too much actually happenes - the action is mostly Novalyne and Bob driving around talking - I was swept up by the story. It captures the texture and difficulty of West Texas perfectly. It is full of powerful ideas on the writing life. It is a bittersweet doomed love story. Be sure and see "The Whole Wide World" - an excellent film adaptation of this novel. The book and the movie complement each other, they are even better together than apart. Bill Chance
Rating:
Summary: A view into another world
Review: I loved this book! Although not too much actually happenes - the action is mostly Novalyne and Bob driving around talking - I was swept up by the story. It captures the texture and difficulty of West Texas perfectly. It is full of powerful ideas on the writing life. It is a bittersweet doomed love story. Be sure and see "The Whole Wide World" - an excellent film adaptation of this novel. The book and the movie complement each other, they are even better together than apart. Bill Chance
Rating:
Summary: A Heartbreaking Love Story
Review: Like a dandelion pushing through a crack in the sidewalk, love blooms in the most unlikely of places. One such love story took place on the hot and dusty fields of Cross Plains, Texas. Set in the Depression, this is a story about a man and a woman... one with dreams and hope for the future... the other doomed forever, out of fear for what the future might bring. Some love stories wither and die, like the dandelion in the sidewalk, only when the characters realize there is nothing left to sustain them. Forever separated in their story's final chapter, only one of them will walk off into the beautiful Texas sunset. This heartbreaking story, told by Novalyn Price-Ellis, describes the author's brief relationship with one of the greatest Pulp-Fiction writers of the time, Robert E. Howard. Their story is also retold in the film version called The Whole Wide World starring Renee Zellweger and Vincent D'Onofrio. For more information about the film, please visit the official Sony Pictures Classics website.
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