Customer Reviews

Snooker Glen

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We live in a world in which major media channels are
tightly controlled. This is especially true of
broadcast media and films, in which the major decision
making rests in rather few unelected hands. The big
exception is books-and for most people, books mean
novels. Until a topic is discussed in novels, it
simply isn't going to get broad exposure in US
culture.

Many folks need something with a story to start to
grasp an issue that isn't part of the "common sense"
of popular culture. Snooker Glen joins Fast Food
Nation as one the first books to seriously look at the
range of issues raised by mass immigration.

Snooker Glen takes the issue to a time upon which
many Americans have a bit of perspective of-and a
community that represents something that a lot of
America used to be a lot more like: town with a
strong sense of community and family wage union jobs.

The immigrants in Snooker Glen are more like the
original residents there than many other Americans
today (both groups are largely Protestant from
Northwestern Europe). Snooker Glen focuses not on the
issues of culture and language, but the effects of
immigration on economics, working conditions and the
disruption of an established community of people
who can't easily find another home like the one they
are in.

As a piece of literature, Snooker Glen deals with
things like the security ramifications of immigration
without coming off like a conspiracy theory. The basic
premise of the novel is asking how someone in the
American of the 1950's might view some major events of
the last 55 years if they could get a glimmer of the
future. Snooker Glen raises especially important
issues dropped from the contemporary political
debate-and does so in a way that folks from a wide
range of political perspectives might find thought
provoking and entertaining.

Wonderfully written book. DF Whipple is great at describing the social and economic environment through his characters. Also, DF Whipple uses humor throughout the book to keep your attention. Issue of illegal immigration is presented in the book, with much thought to the affect in a community held hostage by one employer.

I was taken away to Snooker Glen, Kentucky on the first page. At first, I thought it was a "light read", basically a book I could shut my brain off and get carried away. Well, carried away I was --- with an extraordinary plot and imaginative characters (all of whom I can say I met personally once or twice). I recommended the book to a few ladies at my church because it portrays a vivid and lively, and quite accurate account of a Southern woman and her family. Snooker Glen is a perfect book for a book club or discussion group - with so many issues intertwined. The author applies the concept of Biblical Esther to the way we live now, in a world threatened by bureaucracy and divided by language, aristocracy, money and religion.

Whipple has crafted a very unique book where the "common-folk" systematically deconstruct the stilted, open border arguments of coastal commentators. In a din of otherwise half-hearted, and self-promoting, intellectualism, Snooker Glen is an irreverant, timely and thought provoking commentary on the immigration debate. In lesser hands, a novel on immigration could be heavy handed or angry. Whipple had the foresight to infuse the novel with a refreshing wit, rich characters and stunning logic. Some of the more vocal advocates for open borders may want to change their tone, volume and vocation; Whipple has reduced their arguments to ashes.

D.F. Whipple has demonstrated once again that not only is he an impeccable eyewitness of the human condition, that not only is he an accomplished author deserving of great merit, and that not only can he compose a craftily arranged story of wide, multi-faceted themes, but he can do it all with a subtle grace that belies the great intensity broiling beneath the depths of his work.

I must admit, as a high school student greatly interested in the literary arts, I am left with a feeling hardly assessable after reading a Whipple book. The characters, ideas; the tale itself seems unable to lie contently within the pages that Whipple has so masterfully filled. There is not a word that appears haphazardly thrown in or written in as "padding". The characters lives don't end by the time one has read through to the back cover. Nor were they started on the first page; instead one gets the feeling that we are merely the observers of these people's lives who we can only begin to grasp. As in his previous novel, the story is never brought to a conclusive end. This comes not through any lack of lucidity on the author's part: no, indeed this arises more to the fact that what Whipple has constructed within the three-hundred odd pages is a large, allegorical mirror upon which we are to view ourselves.

Yes, there are the more universal themes here dealing with immigration that never fall to bland assumptions, conclusions, or otherwise clichéd and stereotyped ends. However, where some readers may not connect to such global themes (which remains unlikely - Whipple allows no connection, large or small, communal or individual to remain insignificant; we as readers are shown the impact of our moral obligations through his characters on a both a restricted and wide scale) he sticks to situations on which we all can connect: what mother has not fretted over the well-being of her own children? When have people not been incited to anger when an outside threat closes in?

It is interesting to note, though, that the truth becomes most clear in the character's greatest struggles. These "scenes" - if you will - usually involve an almost dream-like, hallucinatory sequence of events. It appears that Whipple is trying to tell us that we (as human creatures) have known the truth all along but do not reach realization until our doubts, our self-imposed trials, choke out all other knowns and only the ultimatum - that thing which we so try to ignore - becomes clear even (or especially) as all else falls apart.

Any of those who have read Whipple's first novel, Shadow Fields, will recognize such masterful tactics. You will not be disappointed with this great selection; not only does it display a wide range of interests (the setting is almost completely removed from the large corporations dominating his early novel) but it also documents a maturing style of this author who so far has only demonstrated genuine enthusiasm and skill for his art. Not to discredit his early work by any means, but I left this one feeling more satisfied with the depth with which he explored his world. If any of you are to recall my previous review, you would find this to be a nit-pick of mine (I wouldn't call it a complaint, I enjoyed that book far too much to have a complaint). This time around, however, I left a very satisfied, very thoughtful reader.

And I left, perhaps, just a little bit more interested and compassionate about my fellow man. When a book can do that to you, you most certainly know you have something a little bit more than a "fireside read" on your hands.

I highly recommend this book to any and all interested. I even recommend it to any who may not be interested; you will be surprised at how easily you will slip into the world of Snooker Glen and how very hard it is to leave it.