A Death on the Wolf G M Frazier 9781466254534 Books
Download As PDF : A Death on the Wolf G M Frazier 9781466254534 Books
WINNER of the Book Review's 2012 "Best Indie Books" contest for Literary Fiction.
UPDATED now with a Discussion Guide for readers and an Afterword by the author.
"The summer I turned sixteen I shot a man." With that simple declaration, Nelson Gody begins his story of the summer of 1969 and the events that would change his life forever.
Nelson lives with his widower father and his five-year-old sister on their small farm outside Bells Ferry, Mississippi. It's an idyllic world grounded in family and friendship, a world full of farm chores and lazy afternoons swimming in the Wolf River with Frankie, his best friend.
Things begin to change when Nelson opens his heart and falls in love with Mary Alice, the orphan from a children's home who is spending the summer next door. In the midst of dealing with the emotional rollercoaster of first love, Nelson learns the secret his best friend has been harboring (he's gay) and nearly trashes his life-long friendship with Frankie. Just when it seems the two boys have worked it all out, saving their friendship, a mysterious stranger who's been seen around town on an exotic motorcycle interjects himself into their world, and gives Frankie the chance to explore his burgeoning sexuality--with horrific consequences. Capped by the devastation of Hurricane Camille, no one escapes unscathed from those six weeks in the summer of '69.
Told with narrative drive that pulls you completely into the story, A Death on the Wolf is an uncompromising coming of age tale full of hard-hitting issues tackled head-on with courage; not only by the author, but by the characters he's created. "Real, gritty, heartwarming, with characters and a setting you can see, feel, and taste" ( Book Review), Nelson's unvarnished fictional memoir will introduce you to a time and place that is no more--and yet shows how courage, love, and friendship are timeless concepts in the face of life's trials and tribulations.
A Death on the Wolf G M Frazier 9781466254534 Books
I read A Death on the Wolf to fulfill the prompt of “A book set in the decade you were born” for the 2018 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge.This book started off strong: “The summer I turned sixteen I shot a man.” I felt that, for the most part, it stayed strong throughout.
This is a coming-of-age tale that stars Nelson Gody, a boy in rural Mississippi who turns 16 in the summer of 1969. The summer of 1969 has other events in store, including NASA’s moon walk and Hurricane Camille, which figure into the story.
While the era in which the book takes place is much slower paced than our current one, it is still turbulent in its own way.
As Nelson begins bridging the gap between boy and man, he’s faced with childhood friendships that may be outgrowing, and with falling in love for the first time.
I am so not a fan of insta-love, and it was slightly nauseating here. I struggled with how to word what bugged me about it, but then read in another book a phrase similar to “I’ve never met an adolescent male who was burgeoning with honorable hormones.” That pretty much sums it up. Yes, simpler times and different moral standards, but Nelson comes off a tad too chivalrous to be completely believable.
The struggle to maintain or forego his oldest friendship is a much more compelling part of the story. There were moments of growth there that felt much more real than any aspect of the love story. Had the novel focused more on this than the first love portion, it would have been a lot stronger tale, and closer to a 5-star read.
Another irritant was the confusion between “decent” and “descent.” Once might be a typo, but twice is either laziness or ignorance, and I don’t really care for either in my fiction (or the real world, for that matter), thank you very much.
Overall, it was still a good story, and if you don’t mind insta-love and sloppy editing, you might find it a much better book than I did.
4 out of 5 stars.
Product details
|
Tags : A Death on the Wolf [G. M. Frazier] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b> WINNER of the Kindle Book Review's 2012 Best Indie Books contest for Literary Fiction. UPDATED now with a Discussion Guide for readers and an </i></b><b> Afterword by the author.</i></b> The summer I turned sixteen I shot a man. With that simple declaration,G. M. Frazier,A Death on the Wolf,CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,146625453X,Coming of Age,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Coming of Age,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
People also read other books :
- Perfectly Incorrect Why The Common Core Is Psychologically And Cognitively Unsound eBook Terry Marselle
- The Quadity Jacob I Pfeiffer 9780692818305 Books
- The Search For My Inner "I" Joseph W Macy 9781483679297 Books
- The Quadity Jacob I Pfeiffer 9780692818305 Books
- Perfectly Incorrect Why The Common Core Is Psychologically And Cognitively Unsound eBook Terry Marselle
A Death on the Wolf G M Frazier 9781466254534 Books Reviews
\Was not expecting to encounter another story involving young men coming of age with issues of homosexuality. Nearly 16-year-old Nelson is coming to terms with the fact that his best friend Frankie loves him, in the Biblical sense that Jonathan loved David. Nelson, on the other hand, is coping with his first infatuation with the blind girl spending the summer with his Aunt next door. In the Mississippi of 1969 where the "N" word was still thrown around with impunity and hippie was a term of derision Nelson fears for his friend's safety. Nelson is blessed with enlightened parental guardians in a part of the world where this was unusual at the time.
The book captures the daily drudgery of the routine on a working farm without itself seeming boring. Owning your own wheels as a means of getting out and being independent is a priority. You depend on your neighbours in a rural setting of necessity, whether you like them or not. And then there's the issue of being responsible for a younger sibling. Given the details the writer goes into about appearance and clothing I had to check to determine that GM Frazier was a male, not a woman. By coincidence I find myself reading this novel at the same time that I'm watching Michael Burk's The Mudge Boy which in a similarly rural setting reverses the roles. Frazier handles his material in a much less awkward fashion, but then Duncan Mudge's father is anything but understanding.
The historical events worked into the storyline help ground it. If everyone had a dad like Nelson's the world would be a far better place. Throwing in Free Masonry and the Presbyterian Church helps broaden the background. The forty-year later epilogue was a nice touch.
I would rather have given this book two and a half stars if that were possible.
It's not easy to pinpoint what makes this book less than pleasing to an inveterate reader of literature. One problem is pacing.
Over and over, I would notice that the author was focusing on irrelevant details -- location of physical items, minor actions by the characters (getting into cars, walking here and there, putting on shoes) and would think, aha! This heightened awareness of the environment is preparing us for some sort of big event! Here comes the killer!
Almost every time, this was not the case. It was just an issue of style -- the relentless posting of details for no particular reason. At some point, I thought -- didn't the (annoying) Hemingway write like that sometimes? I looked up information on the author (Frazier) and learned that, lo, he says he was influenced by Hemingway (among others). Aha! But (though I have avoided Hemingway for years now) I think Hemingway's iterations of details were somewhat more purposeful and artful than those of this author.
I agree with those who found the material on Hurricane Camille to be a poor addition to the story. I read very quickly and very rarely skip anything in a book, but I skipped those weather reports. They did not build tension, only annoyance.
I recommend the book *Gap Creek* by Robert Morgan, if you want the Southern genre. Gap Creek is set in an earlier time, and in a grimly difficult life situation, but it is very well-written and moving.
I read A Death on the Wolf to fulfill the prompt of “A book set in the decade you were born” for the 2018 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge.
This book started off strong “The summer I turned sixteen I shot a man.” I felt that, for the most part, it stayed strong throughout.
This is a coming-of-age tale that stars Nelson Gody, a boy in rural Mississippi who turns 16 in the summer of 1969. The summer of 1969 has other events in store, including NASA’s moon walk and Hurricane Camille, which figure into the story.
While the era in which the book takes place is much slower paced than our current one, it is still turbulent in its own way.
As Nelson begins bridging the gap between boy and man, he’s faced with childhood friendships that may be outgrowing, and with falling in love for the first time.
I am so not a fan of insta-love, and it was slightly nauseating here. I struggled with how to word what bugged me about it, but then read in another book a phrase similar to “I’ve never met an adolescent male who was burgeoning with honorable hormones.” That pretty much sums it up. Yes, simpler times and different moral standards, but Nelson comes off a tad too chivalrous to be completely believable.
The struggle to maintain or forego his oldest friendship is a much more compelling part of the story. There were moments of growth there that felt much more real than any aspect of the love story. Had the novel focused more on this than the first love portion, it would have been a lot stronger tale, and closer to a 5-star read.
Another irritant was the confusion between “decent” and “descent.” Once might be a typo, but twice is either laziness or ignorance, and I don’t really care for either in my fiction (or the real world, for that matter), thank you very much.
Overall, it was still a good story, and if you don’t mind insta-love and sloppy editing, you might find it a much better book than I did.
4 out of 5 stars.
0 Response to "≫ Read Gratis A Death on the Wolf G M Frazier 9781466254534 Books"
Post a Comment