Customer Reviews

First Tiger: George Harrar

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This is a stunner of a book. It happens to be a first novel, but doesn't read like one. The author treats his characters with generosity and understanding, revealing the the positive qualities that coexist with their obvious flaws and frailties. There's a chronically depressed father, who can't figure out how to make peace with life, but manages to impart wisdom and resilience to his children. There's a kid sister who could hold her own with Harper Lee's Scout. There's an uncle whose distant existence is reflected through the influence he has managed to have on a nephew he has never met.

The portrait of the teenage central character is particularly strong, capturing the weird mix of fatalism and perceived invincibility that is the adolescent mindset, as well as the good nature that can lurk beneath a stubbornly opaque surface and seemingly hell bent behavior.

There is a lot of darkness and sadness in these pages. Ultimately, however, the book leaves you feeling better about human nature in all its manifestations. These characters are going to stick in my head for a long time, and I'll be glad of their company.

This book goes down as easily and memorably as a Raymond Carver story. My wife and I both couldn't put it down. You're drawn into the lives of characters who can barely seem to hold it together. Upon first meeting them, you might be tempted to dismiss the father as a dreamy incompetent, his wife as a bitter and heartless woman, the son and protagonist Jake as a ne'er-do-well punk. But quickly you find your sympathy growing for all of them. "Dad" is a good-hearted would-be philosopher with intellectual gems to share. It becomes clear that his wife, Jake's stepmother, has sound reasons for her behavior and, beneath a harsh exterior, a sad heart of her own. Jake, despite specializing in reprehensible and even atrocious behavior, is highly appealing. How the author could have such a finely polished voice in his first novel is beyond me. Read it!

I picked up this novel after I read the author's wonderful story in the 1999 Year's Best and I loved it. The novel is beautifully written (although the author never lets pretty prose get in the way of storytelling) and the characters are well depicted and real. There is lots of conflict and yet there are no "villians"because that is often the way real life is. I think Jake's father is a particularly amazing character. He is a shell shocked Vietnam Vet and yet he is not the stereotype that we often see in fiction and film. He is a very sad and compassionate man. Ultimately, Jake learns that he is mentally tougher than his dad. In any case, enjoy the book. I think the author could definitely become a very important novelist of his generation - he'll probably have to cast his net a little wider to get there but I have no doubt that he will!

This is one of the best books I've ever read. I read it at a very busy time, but found myself prying loose a few minutes or an hour here and there so I could keep going. It's the story of a "trouble-maker" and the vividly-drawn people of his life. They are all very different from me but I felt inside them. The ending seemed inevitable when I got there, but I never saw it coming. Days later, I find myself thinking about this story as I move through my own world. I hope Harrar has more on the way.

You want a book to really take you somewhere? And move you so much that it changes you? Do you want to read a book that makes you want to shout this from a few rooftops because this can change the world?

That's what First Tiger did to me.

How many heads have we seen shaking; how many hands wrung; how many political platforms and how many new social agenda have all been predicated on the universal question asked throughout the ages--"Why do people do bad things?"

George Harrar's journey to the center not only mines a gem so rare its value is immeasurable, it--this exploration--does what Freud is still trying to do: Harrar's characters, among them teen-ager Jake; his lost father; Jake's friend, Frankie, make the understanding of human nature touchable, seeable, knowable; and ultimately, loveable, so that we embrace it in all of its polished--and raw--facets.

This novel is brash, crash, warm, loving, hateful, stripped, sentimental, scary, comforting; you don't read it--you experience it the way you do a dear friend who confides in you their story of their struggles and triumphs--you can't relate to everything firsthand, but surely, as their pathos unfold, you come to a deeper understanding of them and what it might feel like to be them.

Jake and his brethren in First Tiger should be a case study that the student of social work studies. In fact, First Tiger should be required reading for students of all disciplines from the teacher, the judge, doctor, pollice officer, CEO, line worker to the parent. Instead of head-wagging and hand-wringing we might all then bask in this archeological find for the ages, whether from our rooftops or desktops.

After enjoying several short stories by this author I was eager to read his debut novel, and was not disappointed. From the opening pages to the disturbing, though wholly satisfying conclusion, I remained riveted. Harrar's depiction, his keen insight into a world a bit off-kilter, is splendidly done. I hope First Tiger receives the recognition it deserves.

Harrar is a voice to watch. His ability to portray men as men as well as human will touch anyone.

I bought this book for the son of a friend of mine and he enjoyed it so much that I bought a second copy for myself. It's a wonderful book which really illustrates how a tragedy can impact and, to some extent, can destroy a family.

I highly recommend it.

A beautifully written, haunting story of a teenager on the edge. The author pulls no punches, letting 16-year-old Jake tell the story of his father, his mother and the tragedies that have marked his life with unflinching honesty.