Hazelgrove holds a mirror to us, and
the reflection isn't all that pretty!
October 12, 2008 By Grady Harp (Los
Angeles, CA United States)
William Elliott Hazelgrove's ROCKET MAN is a brilliant piece
of writing, a work
that meticulously dissects contemporary life in America with
such a keen eye that the author is able to catch at least
passing glances at us all. Hazelgrove is a facile, witty,
enormously gifted wordsmith, a writer able to find the
extraordinary in even the most mundane, ordinary people and
places and build a story that, while following a large cast
of disparate characters and branches of storylines, manages
to pull all the pieces together into one all-encompassing
view of a single man and his life changes. This novel of
life in the suburbs rings true on every page, takes no
prisoners, and yet for this reader fails to encourage us to
identify with the goodness in anyone!
Dale Hammer is a writer of successful books - ten dry years
ago! His struggle to restore his place in the literary world
is fraught with a move into a larger house in the suburbs, a
move he cannot afford, and to cope with his lawyer wife who
makes taking care of household chores and raising children
seem like insurmountable tasks. Little things happen: he is
accused by irate neighbors of cutting down the tacky sign
that marks his sterile subdivision, his errant father moves
in with him (broke and between many wives, still under the
impression that he is the catch of the year), and must deal
with a community that dumps the role of Rocket Man
(organizer for the Scout troop annual show) in his unwilling
lap. His income, during this lapse/block in creative
writing, comes from a tacky apartment building he owns in
which dwell problem renters. His family descends on him and
he must cope with the circus that results. Dale bumps
headfirst into his life and the conditions that make it
almost inoperable and it the process he finds himself and
puts at least a temporary turnabout on continuing the marks
of influence from his own father that threaten to alter the
future of his own son. It is OK to step outside the box of
the American Dream!
Reading ROCKET MAN is entertaining, full of chuckles, and
flows with beautifully constructed prose from page one to
the end. Probably the joke is on us: how can we enjoy a
novel that paints such a dreary picture of where we have
come in our current society? But it is difficult to care
about any of these odd folks. Maybe what we see is really a
mirror...
Reviewer
Grady Harp
lizardiharp@earthlink.net
