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Forever: A Novel

Forever: A Novel

List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $10.17
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wow!
Review: Talk about incredible book! It was so different from other books. I love how the author mixes history telling with personal stories. This book has inspired me to learn more about history. I KNOW I will pick up this book again!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Longer than forever
Review: This story is ok, but it is far, far too long. Easily, the first 200-250 pages could have been removed. It would have improved the flow.

One huge error though that shows Mr. Hamill's lack of knowledge of things outside central manhattan-Fort Tryon Park does not connect, in any way, to Inwood Hill park. One has to cross Dyckmann Street at some point. Always had to too. Opps!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A terrific read!
Review: Pete Hamill has become the master of the realistic fantasy/coming-of-age story. He did it in SNOW IN AUGUST, and now, with FOREVER, he takes it to new depths of narrative enhanced by a greater breadth of history. If you're Irish, or you love New York, or you just appreciate a good story well written, FOREVER is a terrific read.

As a native New Yorker who has explored the City's history since childhood and has studied much of it as an adult, I was entranced by Hamill's portrait of Manhattan throughout the centuries, as seen through the eyes of an immortal Irishman. Sure, there are echoes of HIGHLANDER here, and also of Arthurian myth and legend, but Hamill doesn't cram the analogies down your throat, and the comfortable reassurance of his narrative style and ear for voice and cadence makes you forget everything but the story (OK, I mixed a metaphor somewhere in there: sorry).

What I'm trying to say is that I couldn't put the book down. FOREVER enchanted me, and that is all you can ask of a book these days (and more than you usually get).

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Walking through literary sludge
Review: Dear Readers, Reading this book is like driving behind a person who uses their brakes sporadically and never keeps a consistant speed! Sometimes, Hamill's prose caused my imagination to take flight, only to be shot down into the quicksand of Hamill's seemingly liberal, stereotypical takes on the evil, greedy wealthy and the can-do-no-wrong minorities and poor white trash. I'm a poor white boy and don't need to be reminded of how miserable it can be. I just wanted Pete to entertain me and allow me to put myself in the center of one of man's prime fantasies; immortality! Cormac never seemed happy to have everlasting life either! There are grand moments in the book, but like sex that starts with vigor and ends in impotent embarrassment, the climax left me feeling cheated out of moments I could've spent having sex rather then reading! The ending was so "hollywood." Peace, Trevor

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Forever is marvelous
Review: Marvelous

Seldom do we have an opportunity to read something that is fresh, believable and holds our attention such as Pete Hamill's wonderful new work "Forever".

I believe it is one of the best books that I have read in the last fifteen years. Couldn't
put down and to me the true test of a good book, I was let down upon
reaching the final page realizing the story was over. I would have liked it to go on for another 600 pages.
It is difficult to write about "Forever" without giving away the plot. I read about 1 novel per week and also write fiction and political commentary." Being of Irish ancestry myself, "Forever" took me through a wonderful journey from Ireland to America. The trip was over the generations. Of good men and rouges, of deep seated hatred and injustice. As Americans we feel smug that we have the best system the most honorable leaders and ideals. The shocking truth is nothing of what many of us truly feel stands up to the test of time. Time is forever and our past indiscretions become more honorable as it passes. The protagonist Cormack O'Connor never looses his zeal for his quest and what a quest it is. He meets and interacts with some of the most famous Americans in the pivotal times that have passed now into forever. Through all of this he proceeds single minded based on a promise he has made and his honor. Rare attributes in today's method of spinning the truth. This is not a tale of King Pelinor, for Cormack O'Connor makes a difference, changes the course of history without compromise. I don't know what Pete Hamill is going to do for an encore. This Novel will be hard to top. If any book should
become a movie this is it. However movies usually ruin good books, a true
paradox. The problem with the visual rendering of a literary work is that we
all have in our mind the perception of the scenes and characters. Seldom
does a movies adaptation rise to meet these internal visualizations or
expectations.

I hope that Pete Hamill lives forever and continues to produce this kind of great work.
Personally I have never forgiven John Steinbeck for dieing on me and leaving me with nothing to read.

Mike Hickmott
Siesta Key, Florida

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Historical novel, beautifully paced
Review: The curse of historical novels is that they are either not sufficiently historic or not sufficiently novel.

Hammill steers the middle path excellently. He includes fascinating facts about New York City history and geography. At the same time he writes fiction within this historic context with characters, opinions, events that drive a terrific story all the way to an emotionally powerful conclusion.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Magically Luxury in a Novel.
Review: Peter Hamill has woven together densely rich descriptions of time, history, religion, Ireland, New York, war, racism and love in his book Forever. It is a luxuriously slow read, so vivid and beautiful, it makes you want to take your time as you journey along. And Hamill's concept of what it means to live forever--and the pain involved therein--is a unique look at the thing we all think we want most--immortaility. Suspend your disbelief, yes, but dive right into the magic! Forever is by far the best novel I have read this year.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Multicultural Revisionist Fantasy
Review: Pete Hamill's wonderfully detailed depiction of New York life is hindered by politically correct self-imposed censorship. His fable of Blacks uniting with Irish in pre-colonial New York is so contrived and counter to reality that only a hard core Leftist could swallow the propaganda. Carrying us into modern times where communists in the 1930's are portrayed as comrades-in-arms, the [weak] swash buckling which tries to romanticize the class warfare doesn't work in disguising the author's attack on Christianity and America. The only loyalty the immortal Cormac proclaims is New York, meaning of course Manhattan. This elitist attitude sets a disturbing tone for the book. It contradicts the suffering of the marginalized and oppressed with whom Mr. Hamill is trying to identify, and is underscored by his self-congratulatory epilogue. Admiring Mr. Hamill over the years, I am disappointed; I wish that a journalist turned novelist for once could write about real people, instead of about another journalist with the same axes to grind. Why can't the protagonist be a plumber... or a nurse? As far as characters are concerned, the dialogue was daytime soap opera predictable, reflecting the lusts of an aging urbanite. I caught myself rolling my eyeballs. Cormac impresses me as a victim, and the story a tome of low self-esteem projected onto his ethnic roots. Perhaps this is why it seems so implausible. Most Irish-Americans I know are completely the opposite and proud to be Americans. I think Mr. Hamill should stick to non-fiction, and perhaps visit Queens and The Bronx once in a while.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Wonderful story; ending seemed ... wrong.
Review: I think there's alot about this novel to love. I found it very compelling from the first chapters when we meet Cormac O'Connor as a 6-year-old boy who thinks he is someone else until he is 12-ish. An Irish Jew forced to live a secret life where his Celtic and Jewish lineage and teachings are hidden, Cormac and his family were rich characters to me. Also deeply written are Cormac's horse an dog, who play pivotal roles in some portions of the book. Cormac is defined by his Irish culture and commitments he's made to his heritage, family, and a former slave, Kongo, with whom he bonded on the voyage to New York in 1741. It is Kongo that gives him eternal life, so long as he stays on the island of Manhattan. Therefore, Cormac is also defined by the friends and bonds he makes during each stage of his life, roughly 50 years at a time. The first two or three stages are warm and rich with color and character. However, I feel that Cormac's character became quite flat in the later years, except for the years with Boss Tweed. There's a whole marriage that was barely a paragraph in the book, which made me go, "Huh? Wha'd I miss?" And the fact that birth control was never mentioned at all in 260 years is annoying, especially considering that one dalliance apparently results in a possible child, which is never followed-up on. Like a forgotten loophole. His fascination with female genetalia was a little loopy, but his involvements during that time were compelling. It was not until the end of the book that I lost it. Not giving away the ending, but it seemed very out of place. Knowing that the 9/11 stage was added after the book was originally completed, I get the distinct impression from the "hurry up and be done-ness" of it all that the ending was not well-placed; I thought it was a real cop-out and, in fact, confusing. There are alot of people there in the emerald light, and I'm not sure what became of them. Bottom line. It would have been 4 stars if it weren't for the ending, which I thought was el-stinko. If you liked this book, let me recommend "Replay" by Bob Grimwood. What an amazing book. Now there's an ending I didn't love, but I got it, I understood it, and the book was great for it. Go get that; buy it used if you have to. "Forever" was a great story, glad I read it, but the ending made me wanna get myself a hammer and beat up the book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good history, but the characters just didn't come alive
Review: This novel has a lot going for it. It's by Pete Hamill, a New York City columnist who understands the gritty realities of the city and whose writing is clear and to the point. It's therefore as much about the history of New York City as it is about the lead character. The plot is unique too. A young Irish man, Cormac O'Conner, comes to New York City in 1740 and is given eternal life - just as long as he doesn't leave the borough of Manhattan. Well, that's a book I can relate to. I live in Manhattan myself, and figure that even if I don't travel much, I do live in the best place in the world. And so I expected to embrace this book completely.

At 613 pages, this is a novel to sink into. I looked forward to picking it up again every time I had to put it down. There's a lot of action and colorful images and a true sense of New York City through the years. There's love and war and a quest for revenge. Obviously, the author did a lot of research. However, he tried just a little too hard to make Cormac politically correct at all times, fighting injustice, particularly against African Americans, throughout the book. And, just in case the reader forgets the fact that Cormac has eternal life, the author has him constantly reflecting on the history we have just seen him live through. This is all right up to a point, but it's unnecessarily repetitive and often bogs down the story.

The book is strongest at its beginning and ending sections. The beginning really gets into the life Cormac led in Ireland as well as his early years in New York. And the last section, which incorporates the recent 9/11 tragedy into the narrative, is full of tension, especially since I knew it was coming and kept wondering how the author would have the story play out. I did enjoy the book, but it was more from a point of view of "isn't this interesting" instead of getting deeply involved with a complex character. Also, even though Cormac talks about the fact that he cannot leave Manhattan Island, it's mostly talk. There is no plot development that seriously puts him on the brink of a bridge or tunnel or river landing with a decision about leaving Manhattan to make.

The book is an excellent review of New York City history as well as a narrative of both the Irish and the African American experience in this city. However, it lacks in making me really care about the characters. However, I did find myself drawn back again and again to the book and wanting to find out what happens next. I therefore do recommend it, especially for New York lovers with an interest in history.


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