How All This Started : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Not so enthusiastic
Review: I couldn't get over the fact that the whole premise for this book is wrong. Abilene was only nine years old when she decided to make Austin a baseball star. I won't pretend to be an expert in childhood (although I was nine once upon a time), but bipolar disorder and all, Abilene was awfully young to be so determined. Think about it: a nine-year-old tomboy girl is showing her four-year old brother to throw baseballs. Why is there no room for anything else, like climbing trees, skateboarding, bicycling? How can a nine-year old have such tremendous focus on her own? The book does not address the different levels of maturity that kids have considering that age difference, plus the innate gap that exists between male and female children. I couldn't bring in any amount of willing suspension of disbelief to get over this.

I could have understood the story better if Abilene's compulsion to train Austin had happened after her experience with her high-school team (she gets rejected, and her brother gets to potentially vindicate her humiliation, plus she gets to live vicariously through him). But the five-year difference is not enough to make Abilene behave like a pushy mother.

Austin has bratty moments, like any teenager. However, the disdain he feels towards his parents is compounded by his desire to please Abilene, who truly despises them. One of the most interesting moments in the book for me is when Austin comes to terms with who his parents are, and stops seeing them as pathetic individuals. At that moment he steps into maturity (although he had already breached his way into it when he realized that Abilene was not invincible).

Something I liked is that the key dramatic moment in the story (the guns episode) did not go where I thought it was going. I appreciate it when a writer keeps me on my toes. Still, my shortcomings as a reader kept me from giving this novel a higher score.

Rating:
Summary: you won't be disappointed
Review: This is probably one of the more memorable stories I have read in the past few years. I was introduced to Fromm's writing through Nightswimming, and have gotten my hands on everything else he has written since then. His stories are compelling, his writing style is easy, and the characters have a great deal of depth and breadth to them. All of my friends who have read this book have been blown away by it, unable to put it down, consistently moved at the end.

Rating:
Summary: Scary and Wonderful
Review: Watching the relationship between Austin and Abilene is a little like looking down from a high tower watching two cars race toward a deadly collision. You desperately want to prevent the collision, but the movement of the cars is too beautiful, too graceful, and you don't dare intervene.

The beauty and grace are supplied by Pete Fromm, whose novel is filled with insights and surprises from the first page. What makes it the more remarkable is that the story is told by Austin, a high school sophomore in middle-of-nowhere, Texas, whose world view has been shaped entirely by his bipolar older sister, Abilene.

This is a fine novel on so many levels. It's a love story, a tragic love story set in the vast emptiness of West Texas, where everything is simple except for the people. It's a sports story, with an ambitious coach (Abilene) with an ax to grind jealously guarding her young phenom (Austin) out of love, hope and desperation, all of which are as twisted as a mesquite trunk. It's a story of a family whose love is under a blistering attack by mental illness, obsession and misunderstanding.

Most importantly, it's written with compassion, empathy and a delicacy of language that makes us hope that Fromm will keep producing for a long, long time. Put him in the ranks of Annie Proulx and Larry McMurtry. Come again, soon, Pete.