Rocket City [Paperback]

Cathryn Alpert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 9, 1996

Reminiscent of such modern classics as Cowboys Are My Weakness and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, with a touch of Geek Love thrown in for good measure, Rocket City is a deliciously original and strangely moving novel of alienation in America's Southwest.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in the motels, highways and restaurants of New Mexico, Alpert's first novel is an elegant and witty, if modest, peek into the lives of a handful of characters in the American Southwest. Successfully sidestepping the cliches of the road novel, Alpert introduces her cast of fully dimensional characters with strong, selective strokes. At 26, Marilee Levitay (whose French-punning name is one of the author's few breaches of subtlety) is crossing the desert in her Dodge Dart to marry her high-school sweetheart, Larry. In the shadows of both the White Sands Missile Range and her own anxieties about life, Marilee meets a hitchhiking dwarf named Enoch. The unfolding of their uncannily erotic relationship is the heart of the novel, but Alpert gracefully weaves in the destinies of her secondary characters?an insurance salesman in hiding, a buck-toothed checkout girl, a landlady tamale chef. Comprised of conversations and chance meetings, the story is fundamentally subdued and rarely surprising; there is never much tension about whether Marilee will marry the fraud Larry. However, Alpert's imagery?melons on a car seat, a stunted boy digging in the dirt with a spoon?is inventive and often beautiful. Wry dialogue and a lean sense of humor give life to this novel about the awkward comedy of overcoming loneliness.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Marilee journeys from Los Angeles to New Mexico to surprise her fiance, Larry, who has taken a job on the Alamogordo Air Force Base to gain, in one of his antithetical Zen experiments, an understanding of peace. Sympathy for Enoch, a hitchhiking dwarf, disrupts her orderly plans. Enoch's free spirit, quirky humor, and inquisitive mind contrast vividly with Larry's controlling ways. In a separate voyage, Figman, an insurance claims adjuster on the run, relocates to New Mexico after surviving a lethal car crash that results in an unfair lawsuit against him. Now prone to migraines and the conviction that he is dying, Figman embarks on new adventures. Late in the novel, these two distinct love stories converge on a highway in near collision. This is a curious, fun, intriguing, and recommended first novel.?Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 364 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; First Edition first Printing edition (April 9, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067977016X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679770169
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #807,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A novel as big as the SW sky, August 1, 2001

By 

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

This review is from: Rocket City (Paperback)

This is a fine story, a road novel that manages not to stall when the skittish main character, Marilee, temporarily stops moving. Should she get married? Go on a diet? Sleep with a dwarf? Her ambivalence and squeamishness speak for a generation, as she barrels around New Mexico in her Dodge Dart.

Woven into her story is a deadpan social satire in the figure of Figman, a Californian searching for "the true West." As Marilee wrestles with the personal questions of love, cruelty, and vocation, Figman wrestles with a convenience store clerk and the question of his own artistic importance in a barren town. Figman's escapades are diverting, but the real story is Marilee's. She learns about the capacity for human cruelty and human forgiveness through her association with the mysterious Enoch, who keeps turning up in her life. Enoch is not thrown into this story as some symbol; he is a developed, troubling character, presented in all his twisted beauty.

If you want to read this book for fun, I guarantee you'll have it; but if you want to read it for the deeper lesson, the examination of Darwinian theory and what it means in terms of PEOPLE, you can do that too.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Imaginative and surreal, June 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rocket City (Paperback)

From the first sentence, I was hooked. I responded to the charcaters and the story. Who doesn't at one time or another, just want to get into their car and drive away from everything to a place where no one knows you. To start over again. I responed to every character, even the ones who were, in my opinion, real jerks ( I'd use the word that described them in the book, but I don't think you would post it). However, there always has to be a 'counter attack' to other characters. After reading the book, I had nothing but admiration for Marilee and Figman. They learned not to always expect love in the obvious places and in some cases, that love cannot be realized. I don't want to give the plot away, so I don't want to describe too much. I just feel that if you like a good novel about some wacky and surreal characters, this is it. I highly recommend it. I would like to be able to e-mail Cathryn Alpert, the author, and let her know how much I enjoyed it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Novel Brilliant Debut, March 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rocket City (Paperback)

You would think this is a tenth novel not a first, so polished and brilliantly constructed is Rocket City. I can't for the life of me figure out why this book didn't zoom to the top of the bestseller charts. Maybe because the NYTBR never mentioned it. More's the pity. I read it, read it again, and read it a third time before I felt I had picked up all the subtle nuance. Absolutely brilliant debut!