Customer Reviews

Hobo

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

It's difficult to review this book because I want so much to be able to say it is truly wonderful, refreshing and insightful. The idea behind the book is tremendous--a 20-something guy in the 21st century riding the rails. I hear that, and I'm hooked. I'm interested in how a person skirts the mandatory consumerism of today, interested in a kid who might think a little differently than most, and I'm drawn to stories of the vanishing American anti-dream.

Unfortunately, Cotton's work seeks to be a part of mainstream America by consciously flouting it. But a conscious effort to deny the norm is simply a twisted respect for the norm. It has nothing to do with authentic choices; indeed, Cotton's narrative is forced and disingenuous. His voice is static and tries too hard to be what Cotton thinks a Hobo's voice should be. I have no doubt he knows what a Hobo's voice is, given his autobiography, but he has no idea how to get that onto the page.

Sadly, my impressions were confirmed when I saw him read. His performance was filled with orchestrated dramatic pauses during which his band played (they were a decent junk band). But music can't accompany the book at all times, and the dramatic pauses Cotton wants to imply suffer due to one cliche following the other. If there is a fresh sentence in this book, it escaped me. What's not a cliche is a stilted metaphor, and what's not a metaphor is a flat description.

The book is just an armchair traveler's book--easy observations, stilted prose. Alas.

So what do you if you're nineteen, working with your father as a brickmason, and he fires you for sleeping on the job? Well, if you're Eddy Joe Cotton, you find the nearest truckstop, meet up with an old hand named Alabama, and jump a train. This memoir covers Cotton's first month on the tracks from Denver to Las Vegas as he meets up with old and young tramps, starlets, and murderers.

Eddy Joe Cotton is a name made up by the author to be his "tramp" name. Hoboes don't look back at their past a lot and it's almost a ceremonial thing to leave your old name behind if you're a real traveller.

There is a constant conflict inside Eddy. The conflict is between living the perilous, well, let's say precarious life of the hobo, and the American Dream. By American Dream I mean that slough of a nice house, car, wife, whatever. The life of freedom is one of loneliness and an avoidance of responsibility according to Cotton. Some would see this as a rejection of adulthood in a way. In some ways I agree. What's going to happen to Eddy when he gets old and he can't jump on a train? Who's gonna take care of him after all his wanderings? What is he truly gaining here? Of course Eddy rolls out the cliched "it's not the destination, it's the journey" hokey.

I don't know, this book is sad in the same way that Jack Kerouac's books are sad. I mean, the longing to belong and live a normal life which can never be had by the writer. It's something that can threaten to overwhelm any happiness or at the least cast a shade on it.

There is a lot of interesting information here, what with all the hobo jargon, and it really does make for a good adventure. Call me cynical but at some points I began to debate Eddy's credibility. I mean how do I know that this book is true? At times, his escapades have the feel of lies to me.

The fact that I hold this book in my hand kinda ruins his credibility to me. For a man who doesn't want the materialistic and is supposedly a hobo, I'm sure he had to get an agent and make a book deal just like any other person. If you were a true "tramp", what would you want to publish a book for? Your concern should be with living, not with dredging up the past. I'm much more impressed with Jack Kerouac, who descended into alcholism and death BECAUSE he was famous, thereby proving the fact that he didn't want success and fame. While Hobo is entertaining and has good passages, I believe it should be taken with a grain of salt.

This autobiographical account of the beginning of a life of tramping in America had the potential to be a really interesting book. But, alas, that potential was missed. Here's a guy who went on to become a member of the Yard Dogs Road Show. Now, how did he get from being a tramp to there? You won't find out in this book. You only know about the Yard Dogs from captions of pictures that were taken sometime (Years? Months? It's impossible to know) after the conclusion of this story. And he sets up by promoting that this is the story of his sojourn to Mexico, inspired by a picture post card. But he leaves us one month into the telling, as he concludes the book in a less than satisfactory way. Much less. And what makes it more frustrating, is that he has made us care about him and the other sidebar characters in the story. We do want to know more. And if he writes another book, I indeed will buy and read it. There are moments of pure poetic prose in this book reminiscent of William S. Burroughs, but without the gay sex, drugs, and profanity. These moments tell of his experiences in Nevada from Reno to Vegas. They are written so well with such colorful descriptions, it's almost as if someone else wrote this section of the book. And, maybe they did, because author Cotton goes out of his way to credit a very interesting character he meets -- Buckhorn Superstar -- for the help he gave him in writing this section. There is so much more for Cotton to tell us: more about the characters he meets, their background and outcome; the work he supposedly did along the way to keep himself in small change; his continuing experiences after he cuts us off; and how did he ever become a Yard Dog. Plus, how did he get a publisher to agree to print the ramblings of a tramp. This entire book could be edited down into four chapters and leave room for the telling of the rest of the story.

The author managed to keep my attention for most of the book, but at times his train of thought was very hard to follow. At other times,it was difficult to remember where exactly he was, geographically. This wasn't because he was travelling on a train, but because he'd say he was in Las Vegas, yet then talk about being in Mexico. A little bit too much introspection & "a hobo is this" and "a man is that" type of advice.
The portion of the book where he's actually living among other hobo's is interesting. Unfortunately about 1/3 is devoted otherwise. (including the Glossary)

This book doesn't follow a satisfying chronological path, but the title is honest, a young man's thoughts not necessarily in perfect order but alive and compelling. The chapters are as entries in a diary and simple words create vivid images of a life totally alien to me and anyone I know.

An intro...grandparents, father, mother, circumstance....starts it off, then he's off on the road following a father/son blowup.
We meet a bums and burnouts, hobos and waitresses and they are real people. He conveys the grit and flavor, the smell and grime to the reader. He's chasing a dream and I was cheering him on. Then plop...the book ends and there is no real conclusion. But the anecdotes are like stories on their own and offer some sense of closure. I was sorry that the narrative was over but I did not feel as though I were left hanging. More like someone was describing part of a life still in progress.

I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. It isn't profound or deep but it is colorful and engrossing.

As a young man currently tramping about the country, I was interested in seeing how the freight-train riders get by (personally, I hitch-hike, and avoid the alcohol that so many bums use to lubricate their journeys). Cotton's written a moderately interesting guide to his travels, including anecdotes of stealing feedcorn and being chased by rednecks (always great additions to any hobo story). He supplements this with a useful glossary of slang.

However, his tale lacks the kind of magic that can be found in similar & related sagas, such as (the not as well-written) Into The Wild, and (the phenomenal) The Last American Man, both of which contain dumpster-diving exploits and idealism that leave Cotton in the dust.

This is the first book in years that I've simply had to put down and walk away from. Mr. "Cotton" and his ramblings remind me of the pretentious b.s. of Anais Nin. Namely, overrated, trite, and without spirit. Eddy Joe wants us all to understand how sad he is, how hard life is out on the rails, and how all the hobos have heart and spirit simply because they live in a world of grime and impermanence. Well, there are some great people out there in the world, and some can be found drifting across the country, but if you believe Eddy Joe, the hobo community has a collective spiritual superiority simply by virtue of their lack of resources. My chief criticism, however, is the actual writing. Time and time again, the author employs extraordinarily tired literary cliches, writing with an annoying and hackneyed tone. Maybe I just don't "get it." But I aint no professional reviewer, neither. In other words, I don't have to get it . . .and my favorite authors, like Cortazar, Boll and Dahl, don't force this issue, the understanding, and the transportation, come effortlessly.

Try this book out. . .it might fit you like a rail oil stained shoe. It sure might, Alabama. . .it sure might.

While many people criticize Cotton for his work, I find it to be an extremely funny and personal account of a young, somewhat cynical but always grounded, man who has one helluva journey. Too often the status quo in exactly how to write this or write that get in the way of a darn good story. This is a piece that will make you think and make you laugh. It is the most entertaining piece I've read in years. The author possesses a decidedly patriotic air while illuminating the unique aspects of our American culture. A must read.

Hobo was a funny and adventurous read. Cotton's humor alone made this book worth buying. What I found most fascinating about Cotton's story was the pure and simple way in which it was told. He's a hobo, though he never once admits to it in the book, and I wouldn't expect complicated plots, overdeveloped characters or long impressive words from such a character. The story is much more powerful as it is - a colorful adventure told with integrity by a vagabonding storyteller. I recently saw a copy of Hobo in my local library, which means that it must have it's place somewhere in our American culture.

Hobo is one of those rare books that actually angered me. It's a schizophrenic piece of work, the first half being part "On the Road", part "Huck Finn" the second half "Penthouse Forum" and Comic book. I wouldn't have been so disgusted by the second half if the first half hadn't held such promise. The first half is filled with well drawn, interesting characters and thoughtful inner dialogue, and it is as if he got halfway through and said, "Damn, nothing's happening, let's throw in some drug dealers and a methed-out stripper and make this interesting."

From about hundred plus pages on it reads like a 14 year old's masturbatory material. For some reason he can draw interesting fully fleshed male characters but all his female characters are vulgar misogynistic cartoon characters. His meth addled stripper character, Misty, is souless 2 dimensional object of masturbatory desire with nothing there. His adventures with her turn into a laundry list of the boringly banal and yet vulgar. Compare this with say, Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" or "'Tis", or Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" which is filled with similar adolescent male urges and objectification of women, and yet, beneath all that testosterone fueled writing there is a there, there, under Mr. Cotton's writings there is nothing. It's hollow.

I think he began with a fascinating travelogue something that I could have read for hundreds and hundreds of pages more, meeting the fellow tramps, riding the rails, seeing the Mexican field works or the rednecks populating the tracks, that part was spot on and nearly brilliant, transporting the reader into his rank, soiled clothes. The second half was a souless penthouse letter with nothing to redeem it. He recounts in the epilogue for a mere two paragraphs a fascinating Indian ceremony he took part in and yet devotes a hundred or more pages to the dreck of the second part.

Before you read this, read "You Can't Win" by Jack Black a far superior work on the life of the Hobo.