Long Time Passing [Hardcover]

Adrienne Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1961

In the turbulence of the late 1960s, while his father is serving as a Marine officer in Vietnam, seventeen-year-old Jonas falls in love with a free-spirited flower child active in the peace movement and begins to question his own attitude toward the Vietnamese War.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Containing the same structure as A Separate Peace and Summer of '42 , this story unfolds as a man visiting the place of his youth recalls his growing up. Jonas Duncan's journey begins in 1969, when the 17-year-old narrator moves to Passot, Calif., after his mother dies and his lieutenant colonel father is assigned to Saigon. From the very beginning, Jonas does not get along with his conservative guardian, cousin Hester, and ignores her warnings to avoid the town's unsavory characters. Jonas becomes acquainted with a one-armed seaman and the girl he supposedly fathered, Auleen Delange. The young man falls in love with Auleen, is introduced to her commune friends and follows them to Berkeley, where he hopes to complete his education. Discovering that his father is missing in action, Jonas returns to Passot and impulsively joins the Marines. Those interested in the Vietnam conflict will become absorbed in Jonas's struggle to distinguish heroes from cowards as he weighs his father's patriotism against the beliefs of his newfound friends. While evoking the unrest of the '60s, Jones ( Street Family ; Whistle Down the Dark Lane ) has produced a dramatic tale about love, war and sacrifice. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

For Jonas, 1969 is a summer of choices and decisions that will echo throughout his life and eventually take him back 20 years later to the northern California coastal town where he spent his eighteenth summer. His romance with spirited peace activist Auleen Delange conflicts with Jonas' allegiance to a Marine Corps, Vietnam-based father, and his attraction to social outcast Gideon Brophy riles his staid, upstanding Aunt Hester. The lure of Auleen's commitment and devotion to the peace movement draws Jonas to Berkeley, but a deeper commitment to his MIA father propels him to enlist in the Marines and go to Vietnam. Jones again demonstrates a mastery of character and setting. As Jonas gains insight into the personalities and past relationships of Gideon, his mother, Aunt Hester, and his father, he rebels against family expectations and social constraints. His personal struggle for independence takes place against a vivid backdrop of cliffs, pounding surf, and the Berkeley campus. This new addition to Vietnam-era fiction offers both the establishment and antiwar perspectives on the peace movement. Although readers will identify with the young Jonas rather than the reminiscing 38-year-old narrator, the plot twists and the course and consequences of Jonas' life decisions are brought to a moving and satisfying conclusion. --Gerry Larson, Chewning Junior High School, Durham, NC
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 244 pages
• Publisher: Joanna Cotler Books; 1st edition (December 1961)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006023055X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060230555
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,109,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting read..., May 20, 2001

By 

"one_dead_black_rose" (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Long Time Passing: A Novel (Paperback)

It is the year of 1969 and the Vietnam War is taking place. A young man named Jonas Duncan is sent to live in a small town called Passot, on the northern Californian coast.

Jonas' dad had always loved the military. Dragging Jonas and his mother Letty from camp to camp. His dad, Hugh, wants Jonas to join the Navy and to follow in his father's footsteps. But one day Letty dies in a car crash and Hugh is sent to fight in Vietnam. Jonas is stuck with his Aunt Hester McAffee until he turns eighteen. Then he'll get out of this small town.

Going agaisnt his Aunt's rules he befriends Gideon Brophy and falls in love with his rumored daughter, Auleen Delange.

Auleen is reluctant at first, leaving Jonas once in a grassy field, way out in the forest. She tells Jonas that "McAffe's and Delanges don't mix." But Jonas intervines and tells Auleen that even if his mother was an McAffe, it doesn't make him one. He is and will always be a Duncan.

Jonas leaves Hester before he turns eighteen and goes to the Berkely campus with Auleen to help protest about the Vietnam War. Though he ends up going back to Passot when he finds out that his father is missing in action. He makes a decision that will change his life forever..

In my opinion this book was good. This was my first time ever reading a novel in the setting of the Vietnam War. The book had many twists and turns in it. It was a plot more different than all of the books I have read. There were so many creative ideas.

I think it is great that Adrienne Jones choose to write about this cetain era. Most kids like me, probably haven't read a book in this setting. A lot of author's don't really turn the Vietnam War into an adolescent's novel, having fiction and non-fiction at the same time. I actually learned something about the war! WOW!(amazing for me)

If you are really desperate for anything to read, buy it. But if you're more laid-back like me. I'd say you should go to your local public library and pick up a copy of this book.