Where the Wind Blew [Hardcover]

Bob Sommer (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 323 pages
• Publisher: Wessex Collective (June 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979751616
• ISBN-13: 978-0979751615
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,010,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intense and Captivating; Worth the Read, July 20, 2008

By 

Anne S. Allen (Aliso Viejo, Ca. USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Where the Wind Blew (Hardcover)

Sommer has captured the various sides of an issue still very much at large. Like a prism, each of the characters face their own direction, but are tightly connected.
For anyone who has memory of the emotionally charged 60's, no matter your political standpoint, Sommer brings you back and gives voice to those memories. For those young enough not to remember, WTWB will enlighten in many areas.
A telescopic vision into one man's past runs parallel to his current life and gives the reader a jolting awareness of how one decision can affect all that follows, and how it impacts those around you.
Peter Howell had an opinion. He opposed the War in Vietnam. In his college years he was caught up in the anger and need for action. He and his friends made a mistake. He ran, he hid, he worked, he married, and he lived with that mistake.
Twenty-five years later, he found himself facing that mistake, again making choices about how to cope with what happened then and what his life is now.
Sommer takes us through those original, youthful dreams of a better world and into the present as Peter has found new dreams and begun to make a better world in a different, more mature way. The blending of past and present, young impulsiveness and mature thoughtfulness will inevitably force the reader to reflect on their own journey through time.
Save a day or night when you decide to read WTWB. You won't put it down.
Thank you, Bob Sommer, for a journey.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taut and intriguing, July 9, 2008

By 

R. Jacobs "Ron Jacobs" (Asheville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Where the Wind Blew (Hardcover)

Told in a series of flashbacks that tell about his growing involvement in an independent radical cell grown frustrated with the never-ending war in Vietnam interspersed with a chronicle of his journey away from his suburban mask as Peter St. John, Howell/St. John becomes a fugitive once again. This time, however, he is running from his second life back into his first. He recalls his girlfriend from college who lost Peter to the antiwar movement while she perfected her cello playing and music composition. He relives the night of the bombing and the mixture of machismo and politics that brought the cell to undertaking that act. He recalls the tension after Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia--an action that led directly to the decision to set their bomb. Throughout the story lies an undercurrent of doubt and guilt--for the deaths caused by the bombing; for leaving his St. John family. For not doing enough to stop the war and giving up.

Sommers' novel is an emotionally taut tale. Like the strings on his old girlfriend's cello, the story is tuned perfectly. One twist of the pegs to the left or right would make the story less than what it is--either too flat or mere melodrama. Where the Wind Blew is an intelligent and sensitive treatment of a time when the apocalypse was always just around the corner. It is also a look at how the period we call the Sixties is never far from the present, no matter what we do to deny it or how far we run. It is the story of one man's redemption in a journey both literal and figurative back to that time when his transgressions, no matter how well-meaning, continue to ripple through time.

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent and captivating read, February 27, 2009

By 

L. Neyen - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Where the Wind Blew (Hardcover)

'Where the Wind Blew' takes us back to a time when idealism was high and the youth of the day were driven to extreme action to get their words heard. It was an exciting read, as well as a psychological one. I flew threw it, wanting to know how it was going to unfold. I highly recommend reading 'Where the Wind Blew'. Hats off to Bob Sommer!