Customer Reviews

Cycling

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Cycling stands as an inventive -- at times gripping -- ride, and is one of the few books that this reviewer has ever devoured in a single sitting.

Garrett's brand of literary realism offers crisp details -- the barking dogs lurching at a blur of bicycle spokes, the Mexican Coca Colas Hector Portillo sells in his midtown store, the levity and gravity found amidst friends wrangling 900 pounds of dry-weight concrete, and a defunct East Waco soul food café called Martha's -- through all this he allows his characters to find their skin within his photorealistic microcosm.

Throughout the narrative, the shifting weather patterns (important for any cyclist) punctuate the story's trajectory. Overheard songs conspire to comment on the character's emotions and actions like a transistored Greek chorus. The characters that interact with Cannon are birthed from a rich intersection of genteel Southern life, Western American culture, and a Baptist/Christian subculture that is so much a part of Waco. Even "bit characters" are presented in such a way that you believe each one has their own novel waiting to be excavated.

In the end, Cycling conveys an unmistakable (yet complex) grace, much like the final scenes Garrett's first novel, Free Bird.

If you enjoy a story with characters that are flawed but real, and who grow and change, then you'll enjoy Cycling. With humor and consideration for his characters, Greg Garrett makes this slice of fictional "real life" very believable. I wanted to know what was going to happen -- it's real storytelling.

Highly recommended!

This is a wonderful book!
If you ever attended Baylor University, lived in Central Texas, rode a bike, or were related to a tormented writer you should order this book now. Brad Cannon along with his friends, lovers, and colleagues weave together a story that is as satisfying as a Big O at Georges (a waco greasy spoon that serves a large cold beer). The Waco Chamber of Commerce should buy these books in bulk and give them away by the dozens - it paints a picture of a friendly college town that seems to be ignored in the media frenzy of Dennehy or Koresh.

Garrett has an unmistakable gift in telling real and powerful stories, I give it two thumbs up!

Garrett has an eye and an ear for authentic Texas. The story is told with great depth by a flawed but charming narrator, a man who unflinchingly shows us his heart, even when he doesn't understand its longings himself. A really wonderful book.

I am a cyclist. Not a serious cyclist, but a road cyclist nonetheless, and I can certainly understand how some cyclists may feel misled by the title. Yeah, he rides around on his bike a lot but his bicycling serves as a backdrop for the story and not a centerpiece and especially since the photo on the cover shows a silhouette of a person with a bike on his shoulder, one may think bicycling is more prominent and intrinsic to the story. It is not.

It is very well written. Not great, but the author has potential to be great. It is a slow read. At least for me. And the arc of the story is not great. More of a character study than a story. He does "cycle" through women. I think by the end of page 80 or so he has bedded more women than I have in my life. (which is not saying much) As said by a negative review above "Cycling through women?". Indeed.

This story contains some similarities to Michael Magnuson's "Heft On Wheels", depressed, university lecturer/teacher, sometime author, underachiever-type, many events pertaining to life in the faculty. I sometimes wondered whose book came out first and if the second author used the first as a template. Garrett's writing is far superior but much more depressing.

I would like to comment a bit about the story and you may avert your eyes if you don't want it spoiled: His family is killed in an accident while he is a child, as a teenager he is in love with a girl and while making out at lovers lane, she is apprehended and raped and murdered. He is plagued by the vision of the assailants vehicle in his dreams. My thought is that he victimizes/damages women's psyches in a fashion after the way his psyche has been damaged. The black car of his nightmares is him at the wheel perpetuating the "cycle" of the damage that has been wrought on him.

Perhaps a better title for this book would have been "Poor Choices". I found this book to be about someone who was quite depressed about life and went from one bad choice to another. There was very little about cycling in the book and the little that was led me to believe that the author doesn't know very much about cycling. I kept hoping that the character in the book was going to run into a true cyclist who was going to teach him about the sport(how to ride, how to dress, etc.) This however was not the case. Based purely on this book, I will not read another Greg Garrett novel.

After reading the first 56 pages of this book, I'm done.
It has extremely little to do with Bicycling, rather it's more about an aimless man who is having sex with multiple women and the book is mostly about how he cycles through them. I think that's why the title "cycling"

If youre looking for a book about cycling try The Race. It's worth reading again and again