How All This Started: A Novel [Paperback]

Pete Fromm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2001

The striking debut novel from award-winning writer Pete Fromm

Abilene and Austin, a sister and brother frustrated with the small-town Texas life their parents have chosen, turn to each other to escape the story they're all too tired of hearing: their father's unvarying account of "How All This Started"-how he met their mother then settled down in the middle of nowhere.

Pinning her dreams on her younger brother, Abilene becomes dead-set on making Austin a pitching star, a "fireballer" like Nolan Ryan. Swept up in her irresistible exuberance, they try, with baseball and firearms, to combat the stagnation of the Texas landscape--so fiercely it's uncertain whether either of them will survive Abilene's manic dreams.

Introducing one of the most memorable female characters in contemporary literature, How All This Started portrays with strength and subtlety the visceral bond between a brother and sister.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The award-winning author of nonfiction (Indian Creek Chronicle, etc.) and several story collections (Dry Rain, etc.), Fromm delivers a quiet but gripping debut whose themes are family, baseball and two kinds of talentAfrustrated and flourishing. As the novel opens, 15-year-old Austin Scheer waits out the kind of wind storm that chills and carries rain to the west Texas desert where he and his family live. But this wind doesn't bring rain, it brings home Austin's wild older sister Abilene, who had disappeared for a week. Austin and Abilene, named for the cities where they were conceived, are uncommonly close and share the dream of becoming pitchers. For 20-year-old Abilene, that dream has already died: she's a girl and a difficult girl at thatAtoo quick, sassy and confident. Abilene isn't about to let her brother miss his chance, and once she recovers from her manic spree and the depression that follows, she spends her evenings training Austin. Though her devotion to her brother is extravagant, her training tactics are abusive, calling into question her real motive. It becomes increasingly clear that Abilene's mood swings are dangerous and that, under her influence, Austin may lose his chance for any career in baseball. Fromm has limited his range for this novel, inscribing only the siblings and their parents, Clay and Ruby, in a few Texas desert locales. He focuses instead on the nuances of Austin and Abilene's relationship, as well as the passion and poetry of pitching. Fromm's portrayal of the elder Scheers is especially satisfying. At first, they appear as sad as their children believe they are, hopeless people who spend their days retelling the story of "how all this started." As the novel progresses, the younger Scheers' understanding of their parents deepens, and the children seem truly to mature. Baseball lovers will want to read this book, but so will anyone who has loved a difficult sibling. Author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Surrounded by the desolate Texas landscape and with little to do, Austin and his college dropout sister, Abeline, sneak out to the abandoned airstrip every chance they get to practice pitching and to play their own version of baseball, using a ball, glove, and a tire swing. In an effort to make Austin the greatest pitcher of all time, Abeline pushes him to the point of exhaustion. In total submission and admiration, Austin obeys Abeline's every command, unwilling to admit that her crazy obsession with Nolan Ryan, wild mood swings, and periodic disappearances are an indication that she is not well. When Abeline is institutionalized for manic depression, Austin, without his sister's constant guidance, must choose between Abeline's plan for him and his own dreams of playing baseball. Beautifully written and well thought out, Fromm's debut novel captures the true strength in the bond between a brother and sister. With subtle humor and complete honesty, he portrays the heartbreaking reality of a family dealing with manic depression and a young boy's struggle to come to terms with his hero's failings. Carolyn Kubisz
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (October 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312276974
• ISBN-13: 978-0312276973
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #828,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good story, November 24, 2000

By 

Raymond D. Marshall "Ray Marshall" (Thompson Falls, MT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How All This Started: A Novel (Hardcover)

Pete Fromm is above all else a compelling story teller. A brother and a sister are stuck in the middle of Texas on a ranch that their parents got as a good deal. Both children, Abilene and Austin, were named after the town where they were conceived. They are love children, but they don't quite understand the love their parents have for them. Dad is a bit of a bore, and Mom is a bit over concerned.

The story hinges around baseball. The two are bonded together against their parents by their love of baseball. Abilene is going to get Austin to the big leagues. Their hero is Nolan Ryan. Problems arise when Abilene exhibits manic depressive behavior. The "fireballers" can pitch. Abilene would have been a good pitcher for the Pecos Eagles, but her teammates wouldn't play with her. She wants to make sure that Austin makes it.

Austin demonstrates confusion about proper brother/sister relationship, and has difficulty understanding her bipolar illness. What happens when the hero proves to be fallible? How do you tell right from wrong when your hero just might be wrong?

As a first novel, Fromm continues his good writing from his collections of short stories in "Dry Rain," "The Tall Uncut," and "Blood Knot." At times perhaps, the book appears to be an extended short story, but Fromm neatly wraps the parts together into the novel. If you have not read any of his short stories perhaps you should read one first. The book was a gripper. Once I got started, I had to continue reading until finished.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scary and Wonderful, July 9, 2002

By 

Aquadiver (Columbia, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How All This Started: A Novel (Paperback)

Watching the relationship between Austin and Abilene is a little like looking down from a high tower watching two cars race toward a deadly collision. You desperately want to prevent the collision, but the movement of the cars is too beautiful, too graceful, and you don't dare intervene.

The beauty and grace are supplied by Pete Fromm, whose novel is filled with insights and surprises from the first page. What makes it the more remarkable is that the story is told by Austin, a high school sophomore in middle-of-nowhere, Texas, whose world view has been shaped entirely by his bipolar older sister, Abilene.

This is a fine novel on so many levels. It's a love story, a tragic love story set in the vast emptiness of West Texas, where everything is simple except for the people. It's a sports story, with an ambitious coach (Abilene) with an ax to grind jealously guarding her young phenom (Austin) out of love, hope and desperation, all of which are as twisted as a mesquite trunk. It's a story of a family whose love is under a blistering attack by mental illness, obsession and misunderstanding.

Most importantly, it's written with compassion, empathy and a delicacy of language that makes us hope that Fromm will keep producing for a long, long time. Put him in the ranks of Annie Proulx and Larry McMurtry. Come again, soon, Pete.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I'm in the minority on this one, November 20, 2009

By 

Just_Karen (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: How All This Started: A Novel (Paperback)

How This All Started tells the story of a brother and sister locked in a dangerous world of their own making, based on the delusions about baseball greatness that emerge from the bipolar disorder of the older sister.

Austin is profoundly loyal to Abilene's mental illness, because he's mistaken her sickness for her identity. During treatment, the identity she is trying to develop outside her sickness doesn't offer same dangerously passionate bond with him. This is the stuff of heartbreak, but the "tests" that Abilene puts him through when she's manic are so damaging, dangerous and disgusting that the book lost me as a reader.

There was plenty to admire in the writing and characterization of this book, and plenty of realism and truth. Families do tend to arrange themselves in orbit around the dying star of the sickest member, and sometimes loyalty is stronger then the instinct towards self-protection. But all the stuff with the guns, the swallows, the self-mutilation and the endless pitching; it was too much to believe Austin would still be hanging in there, especially after Abilene's forcing of his arm. It just didn't ring true.