Mica Highways (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Sunshine dappled into Granddaddy's bedroom..." (more)
Key Phrases: old bootleggers, lug wrench, Rufus John, Uncle Edwin, Miz Drake (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's hard to say what the ghost of Ernest Hemingway would think of some of the riper writing in William Elliott Hazelgrove's new psychological thriller; lines such as "Darkness cast shadows on the tangled sheet by his knees, turning his shirt on the chair to dirty linen" might give Hem's shade pause. But Hemingway would probably approve of most of the work being done in his old attic in Oak Park, Illinois, which Hazelgrove has turned into a studio to produce his praised novels Ripples and Tobacco Sticks.

Mica Highways is more conventional in its plotting and ambition than its predecessors, but equally strong on Southern atmosphere and fully imagined characters. Thirty years after his mother's mysterious death in 1968 (on the same day that Martin Luther King was killed), Charlie Tidewater makes a trip back to his boyhood home near Richmond, Virginia, leaving behind in Chicago a failed marriage and an equally unsuccessful career as a stockbroker. He stays with his only surviving relative--Granddaddy, Austin Turin, almost 90, a man who knows everything about cars and quite a lot about how people behave under pressure. Charlie is a dry stick, a standard seeker of truth, but Granddaddy has enough meat and juice and memories in him to keep the story moving to its surprisingly suspenseful conclusion. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

Admirers of Hazelgrove's highly regarded earlier fiction (Ripples; Tobacco Sticks) may be dismayed by his overripe prose in this dark tale of Southern racial hatred and murder spanning three generations of an aristocratic Virginia family. Haunted by the troubling enigma of his mother's death on the day of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Virginia-born Chicago stockbroker Charlie Tidewater leaves his job and marriage and the "mica highways" of the North to visit his granddaddy in Richmond. As the conundrum begins to unravel, Charlie is stalked by shadowy figures who try to intimidate him into going back North. He meets and becomes enamored of a young divorced mother whose father, a respected judge, seems to have some sinister connection with Charlie's past. Told in the third person, the narrative cuts between the present and events concerning Charlie's family as far back as 1927. Unfortunately, Hazelgrove indulges in overwrought and pretentious prose: "Charlie turned to the windows in their lightless dimension, seeing something he couldn't place, but felt in the void he was seeing." Despite the mildly intriguing plot, even the most forgiving readers may be put off by the author's self-conscious straining to find literary Nirvana.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Edition, First Printing edition (November 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553106392
• ISBN-13: 978-0553106398
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,939,604 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book, well thought out and well realized., January 11, 1999

By A Customer

This novel was a complete surprise for me. I picked it up on Sunday morning was compelled to finish it before I went to work on Monday morning. The southern ethos is beautifull developed, the characters realistic, and the plot twists are unexpected. It is, unfortunately, probably too politically incorrect for the movies, but I cast it as Jimmy Smits as Charlie Tidewater, returning to Richmond 30 years after the death of his mother, Jason Robards as Austin Turin, the mysterious grandfather, Robert Duvall as Judge Barrek, the almost archetypal aristocrat and Mary-Louise Parker as the love interest. This is a thrilling, poetic, suspenseful novel.

4.0 out of 5 stars This is a thoughtful and suspenseful mystery., January 19, 1999

By A Customer

I truly enjoyed reading this book. In fact, I think this is the best book of the three books that Mr. Hazelgrove has written. It draws the reader into a family web of secrets and connects current events in the book with events from the past. The ending of this book is a true surprise but not an unreasonable result. For mystery lovers it is truly addictive. I couldn't put it down!

2.0 out of 5 stars Surpising ending to this book which is his first mystery., December 18, 1998

By A Customer

It handles topics of racisism from the typical white southerners 1940's view. I find it offensive from todays standards. It is set in the 1910's through the 1960's. The author doesn't seem to know much about cars, and to car buffs this will show itself. It also seems as if someone hacked the hell (editor perhaps?) out of this story, which has some confusing jumps in storyline. It is still very nicely and dreamliy written overall, and a good book to read. The author is still not a tight storyteller like Hunter Thompson.