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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Like no other novel in existence.,
By
This review is from: Father Sky: A Novel (Hardcover)
Beware the spoilers.This is not "The Lords of Discipline". Not in tone, not in the skill of its writer. The only thing they have in common, that work and this one, is that both are beyond a doubt worth reading. This isn't "Rifles for Waitie" either, though it is closer to that. Both Harold Keith and Devery Freeman write with a kind of honest simplicity that somehow, added to their overall skill as writers, produces a great book. Pat Conroy, Devery Freeman, and Harold Keith all have one thing in common in regards to themselves and the books they wrote: their own reality provided a basis for their written fiction. The Norman Cousins, in reviewing "Father Sky", said, "Freeman makes a novel do what it is supposed to do-hold and entertain.". That is certainly so. 216 pages long, hardcover, and published in 1979 through William Morrow and Company, Inc, "Father Sky" is perhaps the most unique novel I've ever read. Having read such books as "Spandau Phoenix", "The Lords of Discipline", "Rifles for Waitie", and "Battle Royale", that is not the easiest thing for me to say. And it's even harder to say why. All I can say for certain is, there's no other book like it. For whatever reason, it's like no other novel I've ever heard of. The book is set at a New Jersey military school, Peddington Military Academy, known as "Old Pedd" by its cadets, staff, and alumni. A group of civilians are protesting outside the school, and one day a protester is shot during a scuffle that included the head of Peddington, Colonel Bache, "The Super". Anti-gun protesters like those outside the gates have a field day, and calls are made for Peddington to be disarmed. When a federal marshal and the local sheriff arrive to do this, they find the armory empty. The cadets have raided it and will not allow their arms to be taken. The situation gradually escalates, with local, then state, and finally federal elements becoming involved. Law enforcement and National Guard set up outside Peddington, and with lots of nervous people and loaded firearms, catastrophe seems closer than one would want to believe. In the midst of all this, one man has a unique position that nobody else does: he is a Peddington alumnus and has a son enrolled at the academy. He is trusted at Peddington. Yet he is accomplished and respected outside as well, allowing him the ability to move between one side and the other with a kind of freedom. His name is Harrison Auden, and his son is Charlie. This book doesn't just cover the siege of Peddington, and the increasingly tense game of chess played between the two sides. It covers discussion over what motivates both sides, and how the various figures think. The Governor of New Jersey, for example, struck me not as an unreasonable or warlike man, but as a career politician who is distinctly annoyed by having small teenage boys with uniforms and firearms tell him he's got to talk on their level. I can imagine a lot of people who would never, ever, even consider talking to teenage boys like they know anything. This man, governor of a state, is annoyed but at least holds back and doesn't send the Guard and state police charging in there to show the little punks who's boss. This, he and many others surely realise, would mean a lot of needless deaths. One thing I particularly enjoyed was the discussion over what it was like to live at Peddington. Harrison, speaking to a friend during the course of the crisis, says he was always scared, but knew he was safe. Peddington was warm, but outside it was cold. This tells a bit about how at least some of those who attend such schools feel about them. They are tough, there is little freedom, but one knows they are safe and above all, cared for. An element this book includes that "Taps" omits is provocations and transgressions from not just the cadets but the outside, the grown-ups, as well. The NRA turns away from Peddington, deciding that their battle to keep their arms is not one the NRA wants a part of. Trigger-happy rednecks and militia groups galore are clamoring to have their chance to shoot the cadets, and lazy cops occasionally give them a chance. Detective "Bully Boy" Reisling of the state police eventually admits to Auden that he is allowing such individuals through, shouting that somebody has to show the kids who is boss. Most of all, this book builds up to a climax in such a manner as no other I've read. Harrison searches for a man to whom both sides will listen, someone who can end this disaster in the making by simply making his presence known. He thinks he has found one- a four-star US Army officer, Pedd graduate General Frederick Vaughn Olmstead. The Fire-Eater. Father Sky. Harrison Auden's battle to reach this giant of a man is perhaps the greatest part of the book. He tries everything, contacting everyone in New Jersey and in Washington that he can think of. The National Guard commander, leaving his position as leader of the forces opposing Peddington, promises to try as well. But on the day that the Crackers take their assembly of school-owned and "borrowed" vehicles to obtain badly needed food from a local warehouse, no results have been obtained. Father Sky, it seems, cannot hear the desperate cry of a common man from his lofty perch. When the way is finally blocked by Detective Reisling of the New Jersey State Police, both sides must win yet neither is willing to lose. A showdown is inevitable- until an olive drab helicopter with four stars on its side appears. Out steps the man that Auden had been trying so hard to reach. This book's namesake, Father Sky. The general's thunderous voice reduces both adrenaline-pumped armies to quaking little boys, and when he bellows at both sides to lower their weapons he is not disobeyed. The siege of Peddington, just moments before it became a battle, is averted by perhaps the only man who had the power to stop it. The National Guard general, it seems, fulfilled his promise. In so doing, he averted a disaster that everybody was by then rushing towards. The aftermath is not easy, of course. The Crackers had "borrowed" a lot of property during the course of the siege, causing a lot of lawsuits once it was clear the chance of a battle was past. The new headmaster of Pedd takes the job on the condition that he be allowed to gradually lessen emphasis on military studies, ensuring a less militaristic Peddington in the future. But Peddington keeps its firearms, and as the Academy's incurred debts are settled everything more or less returns to normal. Mostly, I think, cooler heads have by the end prevailed and the overall feeling is gratitude that the siege is over. This is a fascinating but little-known book. It really isn't like any book out there, and it is beyond a doubt worth reading. Both advocates and opponents of military academies and militarism in general will find something worth reading and thinking about in the the course of reading "Father Sky". I know I did.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Attempted Satire in the Third Degree,
By
This review is from: Father Sky: A Novel (Hardcover)
Like most readers today, I sought out FATHER SKY after a viewing of the film TAPS (1981), for which Devery Freeman's thirty-year-old novel provided the premise. If you've seen TAPS, please believe me when I say that, for all the film's considerable weaknesses, it's more plausible and more believable than the novel. And considerably different.
Freeman, a longtime Hollywood screenwriter, takes a rather light-hearted approach to this story of a New Jersey military academy trying to maintain its traditions in the anti-military atmosphere of the post-Vietnam years. The story is told first-person by Harry Auden, an alumnus of Peddington Military Academy and father of Charley, a nine-year-old who's also enrolled there. Auden, roving reporter for a major newsmagazine, is visiting his son at the old school as the academic year comes to an end and demonstrators are using the academy to protest a variety of "liberal" issues, including nuclear proliferation, militarism, and gun ownership. When Walter Bache, the commandant of the academy, shoots a demonstrator, a series of events soars out of control and leads to armed confrontation between the "Crackers," the hard-core cadets of the school, and state authorities. Sensing a good story, Harry Auden insinuates himself in the thick of things, winding up as a go-between for the commander of the rebellious cadets, Quentin Moreland, and a variety of officials ranging from the local sheriff to the governor of the state, all of them with varying agendas and varying supplies of patience. (One might excuse Harry's lack of journalistic detachment, perhaps, because of Charley's presence and because of his own mixed emotions about Peddington. On the other hand, Harry refuses to remove his son from an increasingly dangerous situation, a move that strikes me as a little too detached, though he rationalizes that his son isn't entitled to treatment different from the other cadets.) However, Harry is not a dull boy - he spends some of his time in an intimate liaison with Grace Mellott, the mother of another cadet, and a lot of his time hitting on an earnest young demonstrator, Debby Creed, who turns out to have many close friends, most of them male. Although the story builds to a seemingly inevitable climax, Freeman meanders a bit in getting there. There are musings about "the military mentality," some half-baked psychiatric assessment of the rebellious cadets and their worship of Peddington, and a lot about firearms and America's gun fetish. "My last lingering foolish hope that humans could control guns had fled, driven out by the sickening resurgence of a knowledge I had earlier gained. The guns were in control of the people. They had a life of their own to fulfill, and that destiny was about to happen." (p.210). I can't imagine a writer so experienced as Freeman taking much of this seriously, so I have to write off FATHER SKY as a failed effort at satirizing the military mentality of the cadets and their mentors, as well as poking fun at the political left, `70s law-and-order types, and even at the media (Henry is hardly without flaw). It's neither particularly amusing nor insightful, and is further undercut by the incongruities of portraying a high-school level military academy in the United States as an isolated citadel of militarism and firearms fervor. (Freeman reportedly attended such schools in the 1920s.) Fairly conservative institutions, yes - but reactionary? Doubtful, except from the most "liberal" perspective. SPOILER AHEAD: If you've never seen TAPS, you might think FATHER SKY was better than I did. If you have seen the movie, you're likely to be disappointed that the character of Bache (played by George C. Scott in the film) is considerably different and doesn't carry nearly as much dramatic weight in the novel as in the cinematic version. Nor is Quentin Moreland ("Brian Moreland" in the film, and played by Timothy Hutton) the central character in the novel that he is transformed into on the screen. The film's roster of characterized cadets is largely missing from the novel, which portrays them as a group of mainly faceless little boys who are far more aggressive than in the film. The female characters and other academy staff are entirely missing from the movie, as is the novel's central narrator and observer, Harry Auden. It's a very different story than what's told on-screen. One might read FATHER SKY as an American novel of the 1970s and its discontents, but even for that purpose there are many better books around. The best I can say for FATHER SKY is that it's fairly short and that Freeman writes in a pretty straightforward style. But, in this case, he didn't quite know what he wanted to say with it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Father,
By Kwai Chang Finkleberger (West Hartford, CT United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Father Sky: A Novel (Hardcover)
When miltary school cadets sieze control of their academy, an alumni of the school, now a journalist, must find a way to defuse the situation.This book was the source for the movie "Taps" and its plot is defintely better than that of the movie.
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