Sorrow Floats [Paperback]

Tim Sandlin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1997

Maurey Pierce Talbot is too smart, too feisty, and too funny to be making such a mess of her twenty-two-year-old life. Despite denials - always clever, often hilarious - Maurey is rapidly becoming the town drunk. But on the May day she takes one drink too many and accidentally misplaces her baby (thereby giving her husband all the excuse he needs to boot her out), even Maurey has to admit she's hit bottom. So when two old reprobates, AA zealots both, turn up and offer her a ride in exchange for gas money, the legal cover of her still-valid driver's license, and an old horse trailer owned by her late and much-lamented dad (to haul the Coors they plan to sell illegally in the South), Maurey agrees. And so begins one of the oddest hegiras in American roadtrip history as this less-than-cordial threesome sets out to cover twenty-five hundred miles of good-ol'-boy '70s America. What Maurey finds as she crosses the country will turn a trip into a quest and change a girl into a woman. Sorrow Floats is Tim Sandlin at his best: zany and wry, caustic and innocent - and full of a million amazing insights into the human heart. It is everything readers have come to expect from the author of Sex and Sunsets, Western Swing, and Skipped Parts. As Publishers Weekly said, "In a region heretofore dominated by Larry McMurtry, Tom McGuane, and Ed Abbey, Tim Sandlin, of Oklahoma and Wyoming, is emerging as a new and wickedly funny talent."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Able storytelling and an engaging cast of dysfunctional modern American pilgrims animate this winning tale of the road. When tipsy, 23-year-old Maurey Pierce Talbot accidentally drives through her Wyoming town with her baby on the roof of her car, she realizes just how far she has sunk since her father's death left her distraught and almost unhinged. (She writes him daily picture postcards, knowing full well he is gone but unable to come to terms with her loss.) After attempting suicide and being thrown out by her philandering husband, she meets Lloyd and Shane, two recovering alcoholics who have devised a scheme to smuggle Coors beer to the East Coast. Longing to be reunited with her eight-year-old daughter Shannon in North Carolina (Sandlin chronicled Shannon's birth in Skipped Parts ), Maurey decamps on an unlikely odyssey, pulling a horse trailer full of beer behind a broken-down old ambulance, sipping Yukon Jack from the bottle as her companions search for AA meetings. Maurey is not yet ready to deal with her alcoholism or her reluctance to be loved, but the hardships of the road and the bonds that unite this group of refugees (others join them along the way) will change that. Maurey's wry, cocksure voice evokes both her cowgirl roots and the novel's '70s setting. Despite the bickering, sarcasm, cynicism and personal tragedy that season the lives of his colorful, credible characters, Sandlin fashions a convincing tale of redemption.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Another yahoo yarn from Sandlin (Skipped Parts, 1991; Western Swing, 1988), who steps out in narrative drag this time as Maury Talbot, a dipso Wyoming cowgirl who hits the road, dries out, and grows up en route to North Carolina. Like all good drifters, Maury heads away on a pretext because she hasn't any choice: The eight-month binge that started at her Daddy's funeral has left her living in a tent behind what used to be her home, while a local bimbo nurses her baby inside and waits for the Talbot divorce to come through. Under the circumstances, then, an opportunity to drive a hundred cases of Coors cross- country in a derelict ambulance with an obese cripple and his unlicensed friend appears as an attractive alternative to suicide- -which has already been tried without much success. Maury's road companions, as it happens, are both reformed alcoholics who plot out their itinerary along an uneven line that touches every A.A. meeting on the way. Poor Maury. She knows that sooner or later she'll have to relent, but she's too tough to give in without a fight, and it takes a string of catastrophes reminiscent of the Pharaonic plagues to beat her eyes open. Robbery, rape, and mutilation conspire to show her what life is like down below, and her friends in the backseat help her make the causal connections and work out an alternative. Once that has happened, her story suddenly seems a lot less intriguing, but fortunately (for us) it doesn't happen until the very end. Readable and obvious: Sandlin doesn't have much of a tale here, but plays it with panache. Good for your next long flight. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573226041
• ISBN-13: 978-1573226042
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,905,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A life's story, November 6, 1999

By 

Kathryn Wetherbee ([e-mail]) (Atlanta,GA / Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sorrow Floats (Paperback)

I have to say that I was not seriously searching for a book when I was browsing down at the local book store. I ran into the "out of print" discount table, and happened apon this book *Sorry Tim* I read the first few pages and laughed out loud in the middle of the store -- From that moment on I was hooked to Tim Sandlin. I finished this book in 3 days (would have finished it sooner but school and work call) and it has become my all time favorite. It wasn't until I was half way through the book did I realize that it was the middle book in the GroVont Trilogy, and I was thrilled that there were other books out there by him with the same humor (at times dark, off-color, and hilariously inappropriate) realness, and charm as this one. I went on to read the other books in the Trilogy -- Social Blunders, and the finally tracked down Skipped Parts. I highly recommened this book if you want a book that is a witty, realistic, and exciting adventure through and about life. I laughed at this book, and laughed some more, and cried some, but more than anything it made me feel -- I could relate to the characters in a way that I never thought that I could in a book. Read it. If you would like to chat about his books, e-mail me.

Katie

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book, But Not Without Its Flaws..., December 19, 2000

By 

Feetsy (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sorrow Floats (Paperback)

Maurey Pierce-Talbot is a lost soul never to be found without her gun in her pocket and a bottle of whiskey in her hand. When Maurey leaves her baby on the hood of her Bronco during one of her many drunk spells, she realizes that what she has done is beyond redemption and decides to hit the road. Off she heads across the country in a big white ambulance with two recovering alcoholics and a band of assorted vagabonds picked up along the way.

The story is compelling and even touching at times, but ultimately, Maurey's selfishness and insecurity is a little irksome. Sandlin does a fine job of explaining some of the reasons for her behavior, and her little idiosyncrasies can be charming (i.e. she writes postcards to her dead father because of a joke he once made that when he died, he was going to San Francisco). However, most of her personality traits are more obnoxious than anything else. For example, her habit of naming her bottles of whiskey as though they were lovers is a tad overboard.

There are strokes of genius abound, however...for instance, Maurey's partners on the run are wonderful characters; primarily Shane, the obese, wheelchair-bound compulsive liar. His epic lies and grandiose behavior call to mind Ignatius J. Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces in a most entertaining way.

In all, I give this book 4 stars, because it was a great read and because Sandlin has such a way with words. Maurey as a character is a little despicable, but he does a good job of redeeming her in the end and making her a bit more bearable.

To be quite frank, the tale of Maurey is my least favorite in the Grovont trilogy, but this is still a gem of a book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book in the trilogy!, November 4, 2001

By 

Alice Fielding "kangarunitarian" (Norman, OK USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sorrow Floats (Paperback)

I was hesitant to read Sorrow Floats when I found out it begins with Maurey leaving her baby on the roof--how much more depressing can you get? In true Sandlin fashion it turns tragedy into comedy, and Maurey's character development is just fantastic. As a 22-year-old woman myself, I can attest that Sandlin manages to write from the perspective of a 22-year-old woman with astounding accuracy. Maurey is a good example of someone who screws up her life and then somehow manages to learn that she is worth saving. I went through that too, and so did you I bet. Read this book if you are curious about what happened in the spring of 1973 in a very memorable young woman's head.