Customer Reviews

My Last Days as Roy Rogers

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a story of an innocent childhood , set in the 50's in a small Southern town in Alabama. It's almost a Girls Huck Finn in that the main character Tab Rutland and her friend,Maudie May "the lightest brown skinned person that I know", get up to all sorts of mischief and fun in what turns out to be their last summer together and the virtual end of their childhood.I'm sure that this will bring back happy memories to many readers and a sense of nostalgia for a more innocent time.

This book reminded me a lot of my childhood. Long summer days, Roy Rogers, the polio scare, hideouts, and long-lost childhood friends.

It is the story of Tab Rutland who lives in a small Alabama town in 1954. The 1954 polio scare is on, and all of the swimming pools are closed in the town. So with her new friend, Maudie (who is the daughter of the neighbor's African-American maid) they set about to build a fort in a kudzu vine thicket which they nickname Fort Polio. They then begin a summer spying on the local moonshine maker, taking a fishing trip to get money for school supplies for Maudie, Tab's friendship with her neighbor's son, John (who is brilliant in his own right), in addition to other adventures. Meanwhile, Tab's mother is blackballed by the venerable Ladies Help League and especially by the head of the League, Mrs. Grace Poovey.

But the summer ends--and what happens to Mrs. Poovey? And--what happens to Maudie and why does she have to leave town?

This is a wonderful coming-of-age novel set in the 1950s and those have grown up in this time period will enjoy this book immensely.

Having grown up in Knoxville, Tennessee and living in the south all of my life, I really enjoyed this book. It brought back memories! Although it is light reading, it has a great story line. I have recommended it to my 80+ year old mother and fellow book club members!

From debating the merits of Roy Rogers over Gene Autry to building fantastic forts, from being afraid of catching polio to being adventurous enough to tackle local mysteries...the only thing missing from My Last Days as Roy Rogers was trading comic books and eating all the banana pudding I wanted. Pat Devoto lived in a world parallel to mine (is it true we all have a twin?). Ruleville, Mississippi, in the 1950s had the same quirky characters, the same colorful dialgue, and all those old familiar places that have held a lifetime's worth of excitement.

This is one of those books I wish that didn't have to end. It a shame that this is Devoto's only novel because I would love to read other works by her. She is extremely talented. After reading this book, I have been searching bookshelves for something of the same quality but nothing compares. Although, I did not grow up in the fifties, I can still relate because Devito portrays her story as truly from the eyes of a child. And several instances made me recall my own childhood. Also, the historical detail was exceptionally interesting. The polio vaccine, segregation, and other parts of history were portryed in way that anyone with an ounce of humanity can relate to.

I enjoyed the book. I grew up about 20 miles from the book's fictional town of Bainbridge, Alabama.(It's really Florence, Alabama, the author's hometown) The characters and story in the book share a little "To Kill a Mockingbird" and a little "Huckleberry Finn", even though the two main characters are young girls. Everyone who grew up in a small town in the south knows or knew someone like the adult characters in the book, and possibly even Tab and Maudie. It brings back memories of more innocent times when children could wander around the neighborhood at night and people left their doors unlocked.

Even after a month has passed, I still find myself thinking of this book, and when I was reading it, I couldn't put it down. Devoto tells a story of childhood in the South (northern Alabama) in the early 1950s, where fear of polio and segregation were pervasive realities. 8-year-old Tab (Tabatha) is friends with a boy whose mother, fearful of polio, makes him stay in the basement while she's at work. Tab's other friend is Maudie May, a 13-year-old "colored" girl whose younger twin brothers (known only as the Brothers) tag along around, kept in check by their strong-as-iron older sister. It is a time when children really were free to spend their summers with little adult supervision during the day. As a result Tab and her friends have some amazing and funny adventures, including an unforgettable episode on the Tennessee River in a rickety rowboat they've borrowed. I laughed out loud at a number of points in this book, both from the funny situations and the funny commentary by Tab.

This book is a keeper.

One can agree with some of the criticisms levelled in other reviews, but still call this a very enjoyable look at a specific period in time - the mid-1950s before the Salk and Sabin vaccines removed the specter of polio from our daily lives. So it's not To Kill A Mockingbird: What is? It is very funny and well-written. My congratulations to Ms. Devoto for a fine first novel.

Though the above catch phrase was usually applied to the ole Lone Ranger westerns, the same could be said of this wonderful book: it takes us back to the thrilling days of yesteryear, the days of our youth when the only things that mattered, so we thought, were "Who's your favorite Cowboy?," "Who you like best, Roy Rogers or Gene Autry?" and "Who has the best horse, Roy or Gene (Trigger or Champion)?...

This book is about a time, the mid-fifties, when all the world was young, or so we thought, and the only really bad men were on the Silver Screen. This particular story is set in that last summer of the great polio scares.

It is the story of a young girl, Tabitha, "Tab" for short, and her one last glorious summer before the world--the awareness of a world other than the peaceful, idyllic world in which she lived--collided with her world of innocence, play and peace.

All of the traditional Southern characters are here, all contributing in sometimes delightful, sometimes sad, ways. Life as it was back in those days. Back before it got complicated.

Pat Cunningham Devoto is a gift, a delight and a rare Southern treasure.
This is the first of three books featuring characters who made their debuts in his book. They are characters we come to know,to love and really care about, characters we cheer for and for whom we weep. Good stuff.

One small example of Devoto's writing as her character Tab looks back on the short, but most eventful summer of her young life:

"That night, standing with my back to Mama, washing the dishes at the sink, I said to her, Do you remember what a dandelion is like? All summer it growed into a puffy ball with millions of tiny pieces close together making a beautiful flower. Then when you pick it and blow very hard, just one time, all the pieces of the flower float off into space separated forever." She said she remembered. I said I remembered, too. The dirty dishes blurred before my watery eyes....

"That day Maudie May's world had floated away from me forever..."

If you are child of the fifties, especially a Southern child of the fifties, or if you want to find out or remember what it was like during the great polio scares of that day, this is the book for you. It is, in reality, a book for everyone.

I loved this story. Southern Fiction is my favorite genre and this is one of the finest. Tab and her cronies and a Kudzu fort and all the adventures a summer should contain. I loved the football game and the fishing tale. The bittersweet storyline of polio and bootlegging added to the tale. I especially enjoyed seeing all this from a little girl's perspective. I can't wait to read her second novel.