The Ballad of Pinewood Lake [Mass Market Paperback]

Jory Sherman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 2002

Writing pseudo-journalistic stories about a war he’d never seen was filling Johnnie Paul’s pockets, but breaking his heart. He had dreams, and to fulfill those dreams he had to leave behind the city where he worked, and go to a place where he could write fiction, fiction from the heart. Life in Pinewood Lake gave Johnnie the chance to deal with his ill wife and become close to his young son. But all too soon Johnnie learns that the country does not change the person. Confronting the dark currents of the human mind, Johnnie comes to recognize his own inability to distinguish between the ideal and reality. And how in one tragic moment, that ideal can be destroyed.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Best known for his epic westerns, Sherman (Grass Kingdom) takes a radical detour from his usual trail of rustlers and ranchers in his 10th novel. Set in the mountains of Southern California in the 1990s, this gloomy story follows a young family's downward spiral of alcoholism and self-destruction. Johnnie Paul is a pulp writer who flees the Los Angeles rat race, seeking sanctuary on the shores of Pinewood Lake in the mountains northeast of the city. Johnnie is a hack: he writes bad poetry and fabricates "true" stories for men's adventure magazines. He dreams of writing a great novel, but deep inside he knows he won't. His wife, Angela, is an alcoholic whose first husband was killed in a skydiving accident. The couple and their young son, Colin, think they are safe in the mountains, but the demons that drove them there can't be outrun. The idyllic image of Pinewood Lake is, in fact, a brittle facade: the folks there are petty, jealous, usually drunk and always dysfunctional--not an ideal environment for a family already on the edge. Sherman's portrayal of Johnnie and Angela is poignant, and Johnnie's narration starkly reveals the pain and torture of alcoholism and doomed love. No matter how much they both pretend to believe in the future, life does get worse, and tragedy finally pushes them over the edge. Sherman's characters and his powerful delivery grip the reader in an uncomfortable clinch until the final page. Despite a heavy-handed prose style, literarily this is Sherman's most ambitious novel to date.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Pulp novelist Johnny Paul has left the dissonant clamor of Los Angeles to bask in the pastoral loveliness of Pinewood Lake with his wife, Angela, and her son, Colin. But some demons are immune to distance. Johnny can't slow the pace of Angela's drinking or convince her to release the pain associated with the death of her first husband. Eventually, even the calm lake waters can't keep Johnny from slipping into the murky waters of depression. Then he learns that Angela's husband didn't really die in a sky diving accident, and a local citizen did not die of natural causes. The ugly truth of these incidents conflicts with Johnny's vision of a beautiful world in which even the villains in his novels have an underlying decency. Johnny sees the world as he wants to, not as it is, and the fall he eventually takes is a hard one. Sherman, an award-winning author of westerns, steps outside his typical genre to offer a compelling fable about the dangers of rose-colored glasses. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; 1st edition (December 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812588797
• ISBN-13: 978-0812588798
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,320,412 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

You can find my biography on www.jorysherman.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pleased by this selection, February 1, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ballad of Pinewood Lake (Hardcover)

Ballad of Pinewood Lake is a novel that doesn't fit easily into a genre, but I'm going to call it a love story with a style of its own. It is a well written story that gave me a glimpse into a very different world than the one where I live, never-the-less there are parallels to be found in the sturggles of Johnny and Angela, and they are parallels that run alongside all of our lives pushing us to explore the multiplicity surrounding us.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astory as touching as it is tragic ..., January 15, 2001

By 

ReadWest.com (The World Wide Web) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ballad of Pinewood Lake (Hardcover)

They dreamed of a different life. A life not supported by concrete pillars, decorated by crowds of people, and the sounds of automobile motors and smell of exhaust. Pinewood Lake seemed to have the answers, where writer Johnny Paul could find peace in his work, and where together with his alcoholic wife, Angela, and their toddler son, Colin, they could start anew. THE BALLAD OF PINEWOOD LAKE is a story of a family and how they confront a personal crisis, and also, quite possibly, how they hide from it. Seemingly content with their new surroundings of the lake, with the harmony of tall pines and wildlife, they intertwine with the people of Pinewood Lake, who unexpectedly go against the grain of the Paul's desired change. They too, like the Pauls, have come to a place to bury their past, with the assistance of alcohol, only to find that their problems are still very much alive and indiscreet as ever. But in Pinewood Lake they remain, to follow the seasons and brave the social life, dreaming, and trying not to lose it all in the dark pits of their worst fears. Jory Sherman, notable for a vivid and stylistic prose, comparable only to classics such as Joyce, Fitzgerald or Hemmingway, triumphs again with a story as touching as it is tragic. Undoubtedly a book for all times, and quite possibly Sherman's best work yet.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ballad of Pinewood, February 2, 2001

By 

Robert Lewis (Crestline, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ballad of Pinewood Lake (Hardcover)

The Author is able to capture your full attention and is able to make a book into a real life story as with Johnny and Angela. Written with the heart. A story that will bring out all your feelings and even a heartbreaker. I look forward to his next ballad.