Customer Reviews

Waltzing Cowboys

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I always make it a point to buy at least one book at book signings where I'm also pushing product. My motives are mixed. I joke that it's like priming a pump. I buy one of yours and you reciprocate. I did this at my first signing, with three other authors, and ended up spending more than I made even tho the reciprocal theory worked for the most part. But it was in December and the books I bought were gifts - signed gifts, at that - which took care of the bulk of my Christmas shopping. That was last year (2010 depending on when you're reading this).

This year's December signing at the same bookstore - Twice Told Tales in Gloucester, Virginia - featured seven authors, too many for the reciprocal ploy to work without depleting my bank account whether or not I sold any books. I bought one, figuring maybe it might start something that would spill over unto me. It didn't, although I did sell one to a walk-in customer.

Deciding which book to buy was the rub. Cramped for space in the small store, I was positioned on the second-floor landing between two "Jessica Fletchers" who'd already each published several dozen of the kind of mysteries known as "cozies," which are distinguished from "hard boiled" mysteries by their titles, characters and lack of on-page violence. I wasn't in the market for a cozy. One of the other authors among the four on the ground floor was also peddling cozies.

I should note that had any of the three cozy authors bought one or both of my books, I'd have reciprocated. It's the way I roll. But they didn't so I rolled on by. Two of the others had books I'd bought the previous year. This left Sarah Collins Honenberger. I almost rolled on by her, too, as her books looked literary and I rarely buy literary without a proper introduction.

Yet, here we were, standing near each other in a small bookstore with her three novels arranged unpretentiously on a small table. She seemed relaxed and friendly. I politely asked her about her books and she talked about them articulately with enthusiasm but without any huckster's hype. Her sales savvy nonetheless zeroed in on the book she sensed most interested me - Waltzing Cowboys. I thought at first it might be a Brokeback Mountain-type story, but I didn't say this. She told me it was about an old cowboy who goes to New York to find the son he'd abandoned decades earlier.

Possibly without realizing it, altho I suspect she sensed this somehow, too, she mentioned she saw the story as perfect for a movie starring my favorite actor.

"A friend of mine in L.A. knows Robert socially. I'm hoping she'll show it to him," she told me. She tried to restrain the excitement in her voice, but I picked up on it. It blossomed full blown when she saw she'd struck paydirt with me.

I finished the book last night. A good read. Literary, oh yes, but a fascinating story and well-crafted, leaving me hungry for what takes place after the book ends. I'd buy the sequel in a New York minute. And, yes, Sarah was right, Waltzing Cowboys is perfect for Robert Duvall.

So who does the waltzing? Would this be a movie Dubya Bush might shy away from, too? Ha. Only if the former Texas governor has a thing about the delicate dance cowboys and untamed horses must do before they learn to trust each other. This occurs in beautifully intimate detail in the first chapter, which Sarah had entered in a short story contest several years earlier, winning first place.

"Rhue's prairie dance with Delilah stood on its own as a story until [the cowboy's] past in New York City rose up like a ghostly mourner from Vince's funeral and begged me to explore Ford's life without a father," she writes in the book's acknowledgments. Waltzing Cowboys was the thoughtful, literary and entertaining result.

Sarah Collins Honenberger has an amazing skill with first chapters. It was reading the first chapter of "White Lies" online that persuaded me to buy her first book. And the first chapter of "Waltzing Cowboys" has a similar effect.

I've never ridden a horse, nor even really wanted to. Yet Sarah brings me alongside her aging cowboy, Rhue, and I hold my breath, trying to keep silent, as he stretches out his hand to the palomino. I want to feel that soft breath in my own palm, and I keep my eyes almost closed as I read, so as not to disturb her.

There's a theme established in that first chapter and the rest of the novel stays true to it, eventually coming full circle with Rhue re-entering the broken relationship of his past. I hold my breath again.

Rhue's story is interwoven with that of his grown-up son. Rhue's love is seen through the eyes of a fascinating cast of characters, looking back on their own families' pain. And Rhue's quest becomes a journey as full of pitfalls as an old man's stumbling in a crooked pasture.

There were places where the coincidences seemed a little too contrived in this story, but their contrivance contributed to a beautiful picture---New York as wonderful as the Montana plains---and each new event became part of an intricate dance. Full of glorious images and people and phrases, this book was a waltz with my own soul, through the footsteps of another, and I really enjoyed it.

It's never too late to form something special. "Waltzing Cowboys" tells the story of an old cowboy who begins to understand his own mortality and fix his life's wrongs, starting with the son he never met who lives across the country. A tale filled with interesting characters, "Waltzing Cowboys" is an intriguing read and a drama of humanity.

Honenberger writes about individuals between the poles of leaving the pains and mysteries of the past and coming to what they visualize will be a remedial, fortifying future. As in most lives, this involves relationships at either end. Older Rhue Hogan means to leave behind memories of his best friend who died in meeting with his son he never saw upon abandoning his pregnant wife. The 40-year-old son Ford travels to New England to uncover his Puritan roots with a young woman he barely knows. Father and son are filled with neither ennui nor hope. They move on their journeys mainly intuitively, too honest despite holding their disappointments and qualms at a distance to believe they will find completeness or an answer to their unease even if they reach their ends.

The author has a near-perfect pitch for popular fiction. The characters are just different, just marginal enough to be interesting; yet at the same time, just familiar enough for readers to relate to. Dialogue is crisp and informative, occasionally catchy. Narrative is skillfully woven with frequent touches of poetry. The characters, their situations, their emotions, and their behavior are all basically rooted in the world as experienced by ordinary persons.

The popular novel goes does as easily as watching a TV movie. In fact, "Waltzing Cowboys" is such that maybe one day one will see it as a movie.

Although mainstream literary work is not my area, I recognize fine writing when I read it. Sally Honnenberger has written a poignant story supported by excellent character development. She is going from strength to strength, and we can happily anticipate more such good work. www.irancovenant.com

Iran Covenant

The story has good twists and turns and, since it is entertaining,and ends on a positive note. It is short and fast paced so you don't have to commit your summer to reading one book. This is Honenberger's second novel and shows growth in style from her first one which was also quite good. This second novel is a winner and I think Honenenber is an author on the rise. I give it a High Five!