Customer Reviews

Tilting at Windmills

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

 

 

If you only have time to pick up a handful of books each year as I do, you had better make them count. That's why I get very disappointed when I buy an overhyped book, and thrilled when I find a gem like this one. Can't believe it's a first novel--the narrator's voice is comfortable and unpretentious--like talking to an old friend. And his humor cuts through the action of the book with some wicked irony and references to pop culture, without undermining the emotional flow. Very, very enjoyable!

I am always looking for a book with a good story, and depend on recommendations from others to find it. I recommend this book to you as a good story. As I read, I felt as if I was on a boat ride and the story was pulling me along. I cared about the characters and enjoyed watching the people of Linden Corners charm Brian into staying in town. I read eagerly to see if everyone would get what they wanted.

Joseph Pittman has a relaxed, easy writing style that makes this book extremely enjoyable. I look forward to his next book!

After seven years at the Beckford Group as an executive, Brian Duncan believes he has everything. He is quite good at his work, which he enjoys. He loves and plans to marry his peer at the company Maddy Chason. The only bad thing that recently has happened to Brian is catching hepatitis, leaving him home bound for six weeks while Maddy and their boss Justin Warfield pursues a major contract.

However, as Brian recovers his health, he goes over to visit Maddy, only to see her in bed with Justin. Brian leaves without making a scene, quits his job, and drops Maddy. Next Brian leaves New York heading up the Hudson in search of something to believe in. When he notices a windmill, he decides to stop. There he meets a child Janey Sullivan and her mother Annie. As Brian finds himself not wanting to leave Linden Corners because of the women in his life, he begins to heal, not yet aware that his greatest test is soon to come.

TILTING AT WINDMILLS is a powerful relationship drama that readers will enjoy due to Brian, an empathetic hero, seeking a new life to reinvigorate his soul. The story line is moving and poignant, touching heartstrings, especially the ending. The support cast in Manhattan and in Linden Falls supplements the readers' insight into Brian although the characters in the former seem too sinful and in the latter too pure. Joseph Pittman provides his audience with a deep look inside the soul of a lost person desperately seeking something or someone to hold onto forever.

Harriet Klausner

Sloppy sentimentality is the essence of this badly written first novel. The protagonist is a bundle of self-conscious sensitivity, a man of shallow sentiments and saccarine emotions. It's no wonder his sweetheart choses to sleep with another man. Janey is a modern day Margaret O'Brien, all sweetness and light. The aw shucks residents of Linden Corners seem to be taken from some bucolic utopia as seen in bad TV. The dialog is unbelievably wooden, frought with cliched adolescent phrases and cutesy nicknames. Surprisingly, since the novel is set in the historic and beautiful Hudson Valley, there is no sense of place, no individuality of scene except for an out-of-place windmill; Linden Corners is indistinguishable from Green Acres. The plot is predictable, padded with redundant sentimental events, leading to the enevitable, and welcomed, tragic conclusion. Read this novel at your peril.

I found Joseph Pittman's writing style to be very compelling. I was drawn into the story immediately, and became friendly with the personalities in the story as soon as they were introduced. Mr. Pittman has an ease of writing that keeps the story moving forward and a style that takes you to the Hudson Valley of upstate New York. While reading I wanted to get into my car and find Linden Corners and the folk who lived there. The story is never predictable, but keeps you moving and waiting to see what will happen next. I highly recommend the adventure and warmth of "Tilting At Windmills" to all.

I don't read lots of fiction, but my wife had picked up Pittman's book, and I was getting ready to take a trip, so I took it with me -- which was a great decision. It's easy to read and compelling from the start. I also found that I "understood" and cared about the characters pretty quickly. In fact, the depth of the characterization was one of my favorite things about Windmills, along with Pittman's ability to keep the story moving without short-shrifting us on detail. I also appreciated his ability to be both sensitive and sardonic, sometimes at the same time. If you're on the fence, I'd encourage you to give this a try.

I didn't want this book to end - although I had to see how it would. I wanted Linden Corners to be real, I wanted the Windmill to be real, and I wanted the directions to vacation there. Living in the Hudson Valley region, I thought Mr. Pittman captured the true essence of the region, and although the characters of the book were fictional, I felt they were very real and believable.

This book was very enjoyable, real and totally involving. A quick summer book which was a nice change from typical formula books. It had enough twists that I didn't predict the ending. I look forward to Joseph Pittmans second book.

What a piece of sentimental slop this book is.Looking for flaws is like looking for hay in a haystack. The setting is a rural paradise, a sort of Wordsworthian Eden in contrast with the cruel, wicked city. Oddly enough, despite being set in the historic and beautiful Hudson valley, there is no real sense of place. The river is "beautiful", but no mention of local custom,history, or social climate. Its citizens are idealized native angels who welcome strangers and become trusting lifelong friends after five minutes. The earth-mother sweetheart's daughter is a precocious and sweetly cute Margaret O'Brien clone. The biggest weakness of the book, however, is the main character, a sensitive, self-absorbed man of feeling who spouts cliches and moral platitudes in sentimental plentitude. His first person dialog never allows him to become real or believable. The plot is predictable from the first chapter. Yes, there's plenty of sentimental hay in Joseph Pittman's haystack.