Customer Reviews

The Summer I Was Seventeen: A Story of the Appalachian Trail

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

One of the characters in this novel has written a poem about friendship; the poem ends with two lines quoted from Montaigne -who, when asked to explain the reasons he loved a particular person replied, simply, "Only that it was he; / Only that it was I."

For me, this poem so perfectly describes this magical book. I've often wondered with amazement at the secret society of friendship among men. That acceptance so desired between them that only they can fulfill for each other. I have witnessed that unconditional bond, and can only describe it as -friendship.

This book so poignantly describes that acceptance and friendship among men (and boys) when away from social norms and taken to a place of the past, the Appalachian Trail.

It is rare and precious these days to find oneself in another place and time, a place beyond time really. The discovery of oneself in relationship to time and place, past and present, is written about skillfully in this book. The beauty of the place, of the soul, of a boy's purity, is all here. This is a wonder of a book.

Gerald Coomer has written that rare work of fiction that might appeal to a wide range of readers, from teenagers to gray haired sages. In our weary world so full of conflict and lacking in civility it is truly refreshing to discover such honest characters as John Hunt - a young staff assistant for boys hiking in the Appalachians. He is so innocent, so true, and so ready to re-imagine himself on the verge of early manhood. None of us will want to bid farewell to his loving mentor, Tooley - the teacher who leads these boys so kindly and with such gentle wisdom on their trek through the woods, recognizing all along the way the significant thresholds they cross. Eventually, we encounter others like old Mr. Turner - who has come to die in these same woods which once held the promise of spring. Coomer's novel suggests ways of finding wisdom in one's youth and reminds us of how we might revisit the innocence of our younger days to help us remember why we have moved in certain directions. The sojourn in this wonderful book is about much more than a seventeen year old boy's summer on the Appalachian Trail. Certainly the reader discovers a coming of age narrative, but the hiker who lived to recount such details of the forest and to share such tales of the human soul has traveled these paths many times and has not forgotten the thoughts of the great thinkers encountered along the way. Coomer allows us to enjoy youthful fellowship and spine tingling ghost stories around the campfire, but he also peppers his tale with well placed verses from the Greek bards, traditional hymns, and songs of the civil war. The ideas of St. Augustine mingle with those of Mathew Arnold at "Dover Beach," but Coomer's tale is not pretentious. It is the simple tale of male fellowship and lasting friendship which need not fear any sincere emotion or intellectual engagement. In short, it suggests an alternative to the ways young males are so often scarred in our culture, and it allows those of us who have passed through youth and young adulthood to treasure and re-experience those special moments that have helped us to discover a different way.

Herman Melville would like this story; it has all the elements requisite for the kind of tale he loved to tell--an all-male cast of characters, a long journey (in this case a trek in the mountains), a variety of adventures, an examination of the human psyche, and a young hero who is wrenched into the first stages of maturity.

Indeed, the narrator in The Summer I Was Seventeen seems to be an amalgamation of Ishmael and Billy Budd. John Hunt comes to the trail as uncomplicated as any one of Melville's heroes. If he is tainted with "original sin," he doesn't know it yet. If nefarious experience has darkened his heart, it is not an articulated darkness. He comes "fresh from the coinage of man"--to borrow an expression from A.E. Housman. He is Adamic.

Unlike Melville's fellows, however, John is fortunate to fall among companions who are trying to be decent human beings--who are eager to help him make the razor's-edge transition from innocence to goodness. And that entails certain realizations about the nature of existence, realizations that are always painful, always traumatic: that the world (here, the wilderness) is not always what it seems; that pain is not punitive so much as it is random; that love has a reverse side which is something akin to suffering.

What would Tooley do?
James Tooley Madison is the organizer of the hike in this book for coming-of-age boys. These boys can follow the adventures and feel the pains and joys of young John Hunt, a counselor on the hike, for it is his summer we wander in this tale of the Appalachian Trail.
But since coming-of-age boys rarely read what they should, the book works too for the parents and caregivers of those boys, who might find answers in the example set by Tooley when their sons stumble on the dilemmas of human relationship, whether they're far from home or in the next room.
Tooley is just one of the life-changing influences John Hunt walks with when he signs up as a helper on this month-long trek through the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland. Tooley is a college professor in the off-season, but he finds his rhythm and sustenance in his summers on the trail. His love of teaching invigorates and embraces the small group of hikers in his charge. His goal is their personal growth, and if the woods and the companions don't offer enough for the hikers to think about as they traipse, Tooley is OK with interjecting. Each of the hikers emerges a more worldly person than the boy who began the hike.
But this is John's Hunt's tale. We follow his sorting of teenage feelings and emotions with a nearness sometimes painful. The journey may be more stirring for a parent who has had to weigh the choices John Hunt confronts than for a teen about to make them, but the wisdom comes through, regardless.
What should happen in the life of a teenage boy in the United States often doesn't happen. The mentor, the guidance, isn't there when he needs them. John Hunt is lucky. He's on the right hike at the right time.

The Summer I Was Seventeen, by Gerald Coomer, is one of the few light novels I've enjoyed reading recently.
Vicariously trekking an old mountain trail, unknown to me, but rich with history and lore, I could savor John Hunt's experiences-replete with sensory delectation.
Gerald Coomer masterfully opens a portal where both he and the reader can project themselves into the persona of the fictional character, John Hunt.
Here is an idyllic setting that becomes more and more intriguing as the days and weeks of summer vacation pass, along The Appalachian Trail, to reveal the building of a youth's delicate character.
Tooley, the warm, charismatic, fatherly yet enigmatic adult leader of the group, subtly delivers lessons of life and love to all, but especially to John, who has not only shown a need to return Tooley's affection, but who has opened himself up as the quintessential seeker.
I applaud Gerald Coomer for literarily taking sensitivity and caring a notch higher in this too often insentient and insusceptible arena of life that has been sadly referred to in song as "teenage wasteland".
I would not at all be surprised if, in the near future, this novel were to be assigned as supplemental reading for either college Adolescent Psychology or Philosophy courses, where it could be more fully understood, discussed and appreciated.

This coming-of-age book is meant for young people but I suspect other grownups will find it appealing--not only for its evocative descriptions of the Appalachian trail but also for the characters' reflections on the meaning of life and Coomer's portrayal of a loving community.

This coming-of-age book is meant for young people but I suspect other grownups will find it appealing--not only for its evocative descriptions of the Appalachian trail but also for the characters' reflections on the meaning of life and Coomer's portrayal of a loving community.

I collect books about the Appalachian Trail. This is the only book I have not been able to finish no matter how hard I try. I would give it 0 stars but that is not an option....