Mystery Ride [Hardcover]

Robert Boswell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 13, 1995

A thoughtful, funny, and penetrating portrait of a modern American family that explores the breaches and bonds between husbands and wives, parents and children--and introduces one of the most incorrigible and affecting teenagers since Holden Caulfield.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Boswell's memorable second novel, Crooked Hearts , about a dsyfunctional family, established his reputation on the literary scene. His next book, The Geography of Desire , was earnest but inchoate with his need to make a statement. This new work makes a brilliant return to the subject Boswell writes about with distinctive tenderness and humor: a marriage that has fractured, although the love husband and wife once felt for each other endures as a touchstone in their lives. The novel reflects Boswell's increasing maturity and wisdom; its characters--especially an exasperating teenager--are vivid and fresh, its truths poignant and penetrating. The "Mystery Ride" (from a Springsteen song) is marriage, and here is "the almost inexhaustible mystery of love found and lost." Brimming with high ideals, Angela and Stephen Landis wed in the '60s and moved to a farm in Iowa, where their daughter Dulcie was born. Later, desperate for a life outside the confines of the farm and its small community, Angela left Stephen. She has remarried, and Dulcie is a rebellious, almost dangerously unstable adolescent when Angela returns to the farm for the first time in a decade to leave the fractious 15-year-old with her father. As Boswell cross-cuts among different events over a 20-year span, he draws a nuanced portrait of decent people striving to connect with each other. A fundamentalist Christian couple in the farm community is sketched with as much empathy as Angela's second, philandering husband and Stephen's understanding girlfriend. Boswell's compassion for his characters, his coherent control of motivation and plot, help him build to a series of tremendously affecting events, followed by Dulcie's quiet epiphany and an unforgettable ending. The dialogue has wit and energy, and the details of farm routine are rendered with impressive authenticity. Most important, the book is charged with insight, resonating with questions about how one leads a moral, fulfilling life and accepts the mystery of love.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Life, indeed, can be a mystery ride. Who can explain the bonds that hold us together when the odds so often seem stacked against us? The answer lies best in works by novelists like Boswell ( Crooked Hearts , LJ 6/1/87), whose latest effort focuses on an American family separated by time, distance, and generation. Angela Vorda and Stephen Landis have been divorced for ten years. Remarried, she lives and works in Los Angeles; single, with a live-in woman friend, he owns a small farm in Iowa. Their daughter, Dulcie, lives with her mother and suffers from more than the usual teenage angst. In an attempt to straighten out Dulcie, Angela arranges for her to spend the summer with Stephen. Struggling to adjust to these changed circumstances, both Dulcie and her father learn some important truths about life and love. Combining wisdom, humor, and poignancy in equal measure, this well-told tale inexorably draws in the reader. Highly recommended.
- David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (June 13, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517137534
• ISBN-13: 978-0517137536
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,279,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to the real world., December 15, 1999

By 

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

This review is from: Mystery Ride (Paperback)

This author has an ear; he sets down the words of Iowa farm folk with pitch-perfect accuracy. Set in both California and Iowa, Mystery Ride tracks the lives of a divorced couple, their daughter, friends, neighbors, and new families. The portrait of Dulcie, a teen as disturbing as she is disturbed, is especially wrenching. The author absolutely refuses to pretty her up. You have to love her, anyway. The opening passage of this book comes close to literary perfection. I read it, I sighed, and I reread it. The writing is luminous. The plot moves swiftly while remaining mercifully free of gimmicks. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a thoughtful, humorous, realistic novel.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An overlooked gem, January 3, 2001

By 

OmnivorousReader (Chelsea, MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mystery Ride (Paperback)

Robert Boswell's work has been uneven, but in this novel he pulls everything together. The blazing romance and failed marriage of Stephen and Angela is one of the subtlest and most insightful portraits of real love in modern literature. Dulcie, their daughter, is an unforgettable holy terror who brings out the worst in everyone around her and very nearly steals the show. Boswell never takes the obvious road in this story--Dulcie makes sure that everything will go awry at one point or another. But her savage humor and flair for anarchy, brilliant as they are, only serve to highlight what may be Boswell's greatest feat: his portrayal, in Stephen, of a truly contented man. Happiness is a hard thing to write about, but Boswell does it and still keeps you turning the pages. Tremendous stuff.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The ambiguities of marriage, love and family, December 13, 1998

By 

Rick Hunter (Malone, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mystery Ride (Paperback)

The "Mystery Ride" in Robert Boswell's 1992 novel of that name is marriage, or perhaps life itself. Angela and Stephen were married young, had a daughter, Dulcie, then divorced. Each remarried, and spends much of this novel examining whether they made the right choices, and realizing that what's past is prologue. Stephen remains on his farm in Iowa, where he struggles with the business and regrets. Angela, who has custody of Dulcie, moves to California, where she marries a husband whom she realizes is adulterous, but whom she still loves dearly. Dulcie, as a teenager, is hopelessly screwed up, and her parents hope that some time on dad's farm might help matters. Above all else, this is a very good story about people we can't help but care about. A very good book.