Challenger Park

A smart, nuanced, and emotionally powerful novel. As always, Harrigan's writing is terrific, his subtle sense of humor engaging, and the narrative compelling.

I came to this book as someone very interested in the space program, and generally not someone that reads novels focusing on characters in relationships. I found the novel a worthwhile read. I suspect that not everyone will like it, and it will depend a lot upon personal taste - but it kept me engaged, even if personally a little frustrated by the ending. Harrigan has a very understated, unhurried writing style that I enjoyed. Not similar to, but clever in the same way as, the writings of Gabriel García Márquez and Thomas Mallon. The novel's premise - an affair set against the backdrop of the space program - could (and probably has) been horribly done in the wrong hands. But this isn't a romance-novel-genre book. Harrigan slowly builds his story carefully and deliberately, with a subtle and elegant interweaving of the space program and personal relationships. Both plot elements drive each other without doing so too obviously. I suspect it may be too slow and nuanced for some people's tastes, but it kept me engaged and interested in reading new chapters every night. Not being a NASA insider, it's hard for me to truly know how accurate this book is, but there seems to be an effort by Harrigan to truly reflect the lives lived by families working in Houston (both of astronauts and their co-workers), and it comes across as realistic. It vividly depicts how, while us non-astronauts probably imagine a spaceflight to be the defining moment of a life with the rest of life flowing up to and after it, life isn't lived that way: instead, a spaceflight finds a peculiar place in the middle of all-too-human demands of work, family and personal details. This book shows not only what a surreal job it must be to be an occasional spacefarer, but also the realities of spaceflight - the physical toll, the occasional boredom and isolation - it felt like a very real depiction of events that can often be overglamorized by others. It was interesting to compare to the works of Michael Cassutt, who with thrillers like "Missing Man" has used the same backdrop to very different effect. My only real negative - and this was a personal perception - was that, having built up the story over 350 pages to a place where I was eager to see what happens, Harrigan wraps up the major plot points in 2-3 pages. That was in fact all he truly needed, and to stretch it out more may have been belaboring - yet it seemed like a rather sudden end. This may even be a hidden positive - he had me invested enough in the story that I wanted more, a longer resolution. But I was not frustrated enough to be annoyed to have read it, and in fact must respect Harrigan for taking the less predictable path, and ending the book in a way that most readers may not expect, but probably makes for a more original novel.

What was Stephen Harrigan thinking? Before the Challenger shuttle disaster, even before 9/11, it was relatively easy to market space-related books, movies, documentaries, or just about any other decently appropriate product you'd care to mention. That was then, this is now. When authoritative voices on public television and network talk shows lament that space travel and exploration have become a political backwater, mortgaged to wars in the Middle East, the exigencies of natural and human disasters, or the fickle temperament of global stock markets, I also hear undertones of genuine grief and loss. A whole generation has come into being that doesn't share the awe of three heady decades when launches, landings and footsteps on the moon were glorious events. The dream all but ended in 1986 with the pre-orbital explosion that instantly killed the Challenger crew and has haunted every subsequent NASA project. Just last week, I posted two nifty little SST shuttle models on eBay --- for the third time. It was a resounding no-go; they will probably be mine forever. Why this long preamble to Stephen Harrigan's just-launched CHALLENGER PARK? It's because I'd have given him an A-plus just for tackling the unjustly neglected space program in the first place, let alone for writing this amazingly cogent and heartfelt story that has kept me entranced through nearly 400 pages. Now don't get me (or Harrigan) wrong; this isn't about uncritically cheerleading for NASA, or for elevating astronauts into unrealistically heroic brand-name action figures. Nor is it about ignoring the overwhelming needs and urgencies that bear down on us every day all over our stressed planet. Only sentences into this book, Harrigan proved beyond a doubt that he's formulated a new style of "the right stuff," combining numerous literary, scientific and emotional ingredients into a recipe that goes beyond mere entertainment --- beyond even mere good entertainment. A large part of what makes CHALLENGER PARK far more timely than any marketing survey might reveal is its honest encounter with the enormity of it all; the very idea of confronting a universe so vast and dangerous that it forces our myriad human bits and pieces into achingly clear perspective. By focusing on how the multiple professional and personal demands of the space program --- even in its current just-staying-alive state --- affect the complex family dynamics of a wife-husband astronaut team, Harrigan has injected a healthy dose of grounded (forgive the pun!) reflection and substance into a theme too long dominated by larger-than-life theatrics. I was also pleasantly surprised by the unaffected normality of relating to a woman's experience in a field no longer dominated by men in any measure, except that of cold statistics. Harrigan's artistic ease and assurance never overtly drew attention to the fact that a man writing from within the texture of female senses and responses could have saddled himself with a built-in

I picked up a copy of this book last week and started reading with some trepidation--after all, it hardly looked like the sort of thing you'd read during spare moments over the weekend, but I thought I'd give it a chance. Still--a book about astronauts and personal dramas? Yes--and a compelling one at that. The author does a good job of establishing not only the human side of the story but delving into the technical as well--the chapter in which he describes the launch of the shuttle was especially well done and left me breathless. I don't want to delve too much into my caveat for fear of spoiling the book, but let's just say, for those of you who have read Jay McInerney's latest, that this book gets a bit 'Good Life-ish' at the end. Let's just say that certain characterizations in the novel lead to an ending that, while perhaps not wholly unexpected, is a bit disappointing. Still, this is a book that warrants a reading.

I loved this book! I just got it from my local bookstore and read it in a matter of two days. I just couldn't put it down. I know more now about space travel than I ever thought possible...and the story of Lucy was riveting! I haven't read "Gates of the Alamo" yet, but I love the author's writing style... so I'm reading that one next!