Romey's Place [Paperback]

James Calvin Schaap (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1999

Boyhood friends grow up in different families -- one stable, one troubled. Years later, one of them remembers joys and sorrows, and reflects on the fullness of grace.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Smalltown "church-ruled" Easton, Wis., takes center stage in Schaap's (In the Silence There Are Ghosts) earnest, thoughtful coming-of-age novel. As middle-aged Lowell Prins helps his elderly father to sort through the belongings of a lifetime, he reflects on the fateful events of his last summer before high school during the late 1950s. His recollections soon become a study in contrasts, juxtaposing two very different fathers, and their sons, who have more in common with their fathers than they would like to think. Lowell's dad, Pete, is a "big-time Christian" and the town "saint." Cyril Guttner, the abusive father of Lowell's best friend, Romey, is the town pariah. In the black-and-white world of 1950s EastonAwhere gangs of kids picking green beans constitute a youth culture and an unpardonable sin is being caught in the girls' barracks at Bible campAmoral issues loom large. The retrospective account of this fateful period in Lowell's life is, for the most part, a familiar litany of youthful experiences (stealing cigarettes, finding summer jobs, attending town dances), but Lowell and Romey's religious discussions differentiate it from similar tales. Romey half-reveres and half-resents Lowell's faith, just as Lowell simultaneously admires and fears Romey's tough-talking ways. When events culminate in a misguided prank that turns deadly, a confrontation between fathers, sons and the town is inevitable. Looking back on those events, Lowell, now the curator for a small county museum, must come to terms with the rigid righteousness, which he sees as his father's legacy and which he blames for poisoning his friendship with Romey. Religious devotion, family loyalty and the dynamics of friendship are ultimately seen as issues subject to several moral interpretations, and Lowell finally understands that "if my father taught me goodness... Romey taught me grace." (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

James Schaap's most recent novel, Romey's Place, is the story of two boys whose fierce friendship springs from their differences, and is ultimately reshaped by them.... This compelling story of their coming-of-age is laced with the silent realities of social class in a small Wisconsin town. Ultimately, Romey's Place is about the human struggle to understand what faithfulness to God, family, and community demands, and their conflictive pulls. From the first chapter... to the stunning and unexpected conclusion, this is a riveting story about moral righteousness, grace, and the chasm that can lie between them. -- The Other Side, January/February 2000

Lowell Prins, son of a small-town minister, promises us that thestory he's about to tell has shaped his life. "What happened there years ago," he solemnly tells us, "I will never forget." This promise (repeated over and over as Prins wanders from one adolescent crisis to another) keeps us hanging on until the unforgettable event actually takes place (thirty pages from the end). Even then, the payoff is diminished by Schaap's narrative technique, which continually overlays the voice of the adolescent Lowell with the intrusive editorializing of the adult Prins....This distance imposed between the reader and the novel's events Makes Romey's Place as compelling as a set of vacation slides, complete with narration. At every turn, the adult Lowell turns up again, telling us exactly what each event means in stultifying detail. ....Schaap is so busy telling us what to think of these scenes that we're never permitted to experience them. He doesn't trust his readers; he has to spell it all out. This editorializing voice drowns his story - and finally kills our interest. -- From Beliefnet

Richly authentic and beautifully written, Romeys Place captivated me from beginning to end. This evocative, Tom Sawyer-like tale set in the early 50s may well be Schaaps finest work yet -- John Timmerman, professor of English, Calvin College

Romey Guttner lives in Wisconsin, not Mississippi, but his story of devotion to an unworthy father is just as poignant as Faulkners short story Barn Burning. Jim Schaaps novel has an additional dimension, however. How does the narrator, no longer youthful, forgive his own father for his oppressive righteousness? For those with eyes willing to see, this work shows the chasm between a well-intentioned piety and reckless rebels. The moral suspense it generates makes clear just how much is at stake here -- Virginia Stem Owens, author

Romeys Place is a novel of deceptive ease and simplicity. With long, confident, perfectly accurate strokes, Schaap paints the social landscape of small town America. So familiar, so well textured and convincing is his portrait that we find ourselves swiftly and deeply involved in itand in an experience which is anything but small. Here the conflicts are dramatic, powerful, and complex. Schaap writes at the bone of human interaction, where matters economic, spiritual, social, and moral knit and rip the fabrics of community. He knows the gravity of common things -- Walter Wangerin, author of The Book of the Dun Cow and The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel

Today many dramatic, high-concept novels, tales of apocalypse, conspiracy, and medical experimentation, shout for the attention of readers scanning the shelves of Christian fiction. But a few, like Romey's Place, stand out for quietly conveying sharp spiritual insights glimpsed in the dramas of ordinary life. Schaap skillfully transports readers to a small Wisconsin town in the late 1950s through the eyes of 14-year-old Lowell Prins, the son of a leading church family, and best friends with Romey Guttner, whose family lives on the wrong side of the tracks.... For a season Lowell and Romey share a friendship that bridges the gulf between their worlds. At times they test the boundaries of their behavior. But only when a labor conflict in the town gets out of hand and a confrontation with Romey's dad turns violent, does Lowell discover from an unexpected source the meaning of grace. -- Moody, January/February 2000

With an ominous, unsettling story line, this novel ferries readers back to the late 1950s.... More than a coming-of-age story, Romeys Place offers a thought-provoking, detail-rich narrative that literature buffs will savor -- CBA Marketplace, November 1999

[An] earnest, thoughtful coming-of-age novel -- Publishers Weekly, Aug. 30, 1999

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Baker Books (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080106001X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801060014
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,081,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James C. Schaap teaches literature and writing at Dordt College in Sioux City, Iowa, and is an award-winning author.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Romey's Place ..... or was it?, December 31, 1999

By 

Robert J. Ribbens (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Romey's Place (Paperback)

This book made me wonder if Schaap was secretly writing about me and my childhood friend. Same type of small town. Same type of fathers and families and churches. Same type of childhood experiences and thoughts in many ways.

But moreover, it was thought provoking in the way it looked at how we grew up, learned the things we learned about life and our "faith" and so much about the influences our parents have on our lives long beyond when we move out and start our own lives. It hit home on how other people in our life change the way we are and will be and that we indeed have that ability to change others also.

Deeply moving and takes a whole new approach on the whole concept of Christ's gift of GRACE. How we learn it, receive it and dispense it.

Well done and worth reading....maybe twice. Great for a discussion group!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent work by a strong new fiction voice, July 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Romey's Place (Paperback)

I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed this book. Schaap has given us one of the finer reads in inspirational fiction. In terms of quality, voice, style, and most of all, story, this novel stands leagues above many others that have garnered far more attention and plaudits in the "Christian fiction" category. In addition, his own Christian worldview shines through without hitting his readers over the head with the more common tactic of "sermonizing." It's too bad this novel hasn't received the recognition it so obviously deserves.

I applaud the book and look forward to the author's next work.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brings readers to wonder about the shaping experiences that they may not know about in the minds and hearts of loved ones, July 14, 2008

By 

FaithfulReader.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Romey's Place: A Novel (Paperback)

Set in the Wisconsin of the 1950s, ROMEY'S PLACE is a sepia-toned story about a summer that would change the lives of two boys forever. Romey Guttner and Lowell Prins (Lobo for short) were an odd couple --- best friends from different sides of the tracks, or, in this case, different sides of God.

Lowell grew up in a churchgoing household, his father and grandfather pillars of the Christian community in Easton, Wisconsin. And he himself embraced the faith of his family, albeit with reservations and sometimes even embarrassment. Romey, on the other hand, is the son of Cyril Guttner, the town's most notorious bully, a man so mean that the fear people feel in his presence is from the unknown. He seems capable of anything.

ROMEY'S PLACE is a study in contrasts between Cyril and Lobo's dad, the lessons these men taught their sons, and the lessons these sons taught each other. The drama of the book centers on mostly youthful hijinks the summer before the two entered high school --- stealing cigarettes, working at picking beams to make pocket money, sneaking into the girl's cabin at camp. This should suggest that drama is a strong word for the slow boil that makes up the vast majority of the book. But looming in the background is a union strike that surges forward with the specter of violence at unexpected moments. The strike is like a political manifestation of Cyril (an agitator in the union) himself --- mercurial, hard to predict and hard to reason with.

The story is told in flashback as a 50-something Lowell helps his dad clean out the house in preparation for downsizing into a retirement home. It's what he doesn't find in a closet, an heirloom bayonet he lost that summer so long ago, that sends him careening down memory lane. It seems fitting then that a large part of what's so lovely about this book is what it lacks. Pretension, for example.

The golden rule of good writing is to show, not tell. Yet author James Calvin Schaap has managed to break this rule to good effect by creating a character in Lowell who does just this --- he keeps reminding us he exists with heavy-handed foreshadowing and telling us the moral of the story --- while still remaining engaging. The pace of the book is slow and feels very much like what it is --- a tale told by a midlife man, young and full enough of the pride of life to still wonder at the drama of his own adolescence, yet old enough to repeat himself. And on this point, it feels true to life. People meander when telling their stories, and they repeat themselves. Lowell might be your dad or brother telling you something he has never talked about before. Reading ROMEY'S PLACE might make you wonder at the shaping experiences that you don't know about that exist in the minds and hearts of your own family members.

Though it's a slow boil, the bubbles do come. A night of violence breaks out that will forever link Romey and Lowell, and make it impossible for them to remain friends. To the end we're confronted with the contrasts --- between the violence that can be wrought by fists and by words, and between the lessons two men inspired. As the older Lowell says, "What my own foolish soul has come to understand is that while my father taught me goodness, it was Romey who taught me grace."

--- Reviewed by Lisa Ann Cockrel