5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Read, June 22, 2011
This review is from: HARRY & IVORY (Kindle Edition)
Harry And Ivory' is too real to be all fiction but then they do say the best fiction is really someone else's fact, just the names changed a tad. John's writing style is as real as it gets. It is like sitting down across from him on a porch in the Florida back blocks, sipping cold beer and listening to him tell you the story himself. It is fun, funny, poignant, moving and in places, upsetting, or perhaps unsettling is more apt. It is, in other words, real.
This is a story of white and black, male and female, country and city, the contrasts we face in life are reflected by those in the text. It shows the duality of the human condition, the what we should do versus what we want to do, what we want to do compared to what we need to do. It's about choices.
It is not easy to suspend one's own values and accept the protagonist Harry without judging him. He smokes dope, heck he grows it, sells it, even let's his kids sell it at high school. He drinks beer even as he drives 600 miles from his home in the Florida panhandle to his job in Miami. He packs a Walther P-38 9mm, buys his 12 year old son a Colt .45 revolver and has frank discussions with his 16 year old daughter about his girlfriend, the delectable, black as sin Ivory. Yet he loves his wife, Annie, desperately. Just as much, but in so different a way, to how he loves Ivory. Contrasts.
The relationships explored in this superb novel are unique in so many ways yet still retain the measure of mediocrity they need to appeal to the reader, whoever the reader may be. There is so much that is implied and lies woven within the fabric of each character yet left there for the reader to discover, unravel and contemplate. Surely that is an element of literature as important as the characters and their relationships - what the writer leaves for the reader to find, to ponder upon and to decide for themselves what it means and where it fits in their own life experience.
There are moments within the text that make the reader think hard as to their own choices, mistakes and secrets. Even if the reader isn't exactly like Harry, there is something of Harry in all of us because Harry is totally human. He has his values, his standards and he knows some of his weaknesses are pathetic, despicable even but they are as much a part of him as are the noble qualities. Most of all, Harry accepts himself for what he is and in some ways he refuses to compromise, especially not just to conform to someone else's ideal.
Harry and Ivory absorbs the reader. The quality of the narrative is so good you are too often in need of being forgiven for thinking you are actually in the Lazy Jones, Harry's blue Ford Pickup, sucking on Corona's, taking a toke on a reefer and heading down the Interstate to Miami. Even if you don't share Harry's taste in the opposite sex, you have your own, very definite preferences and so you can relate to Harry and his obsession with black women. By the time you reach the end of the story, you feel mellow, laid back and at peace with the world, with Harry and most importantly... with yourself.
If I had to place this novel I would put it squarely between Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and John Steinbeck's 'Grapes of Wrath', with a touch of Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road' for good measure. It's that good.
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