Wide Blue Yonder
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Book Overview
A 1999 National Book Award finalist for WHO DO YOU LOVE, Jean Thompson towers into the stratosphere with her new novel, WIDE BLUE YONDER. It is the summer of 1999, and something big and bad is coming to Springfield, Illinois, 'the place the Weather lived.' WIDE BLUE YONDER is a novel about weather in all its permutations, climatic, emotional, even metaphysical. Our guides through this season of blazing heat and fearsome storms comprise an unlikely quartet, each preparing in some measure for the end of the world. Uncle Harvey believes he is the Weather Channel's 'Local Forecast.' Yet even an arsenal of meteorological facts and figures can't stanch his existential fears. Harvey's niece, Josie, is fixed with a different predicament. She's seventeen with nowhere to go in the Land of Lincoln except into deep trouble. Josie's mother, Elaine, feigns cheerful efficiency, desperately masking a far more urgent quest. And then there's the loner Rolando, who hails from Los Angeles. A human storm system fueled by boundless rage, Rolando is on course to make Springfield the ground zero of his wrath. Newsweek's Jeff Giles memorably described Thompson's previous collection, WHO DO YOU LOVE, as 'a
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:074320512X
ISBN13:9780743205122
Release Date:December 2001
Publisher:Simon & Schuster
Length:368 Pages
Weight:2.05 lbs.
Dimensions:1.1" x 6.0" x 8.7"
Customer Reviews
5 ratings
A wonderful read. I will look for more from Jean Thompson.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
This is the story of a teenage girl who seemeingly has nothing on her horizon but trouble. Her uncle believes that he is the Weather Channel's "Local Forecast". Unknown to them both is that a raging loner from Los Angeles is heading toward their hometown of Springfield. This is a beautifully written, dark and suspenseful novel. Thompson's writing is crisp, realistic, and she does an excellent job of capturing on paper what life is like in the heartland. I highly recommend this novel. I, for one, will be looking for more from Jean Thompson.
review
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
I love this book. exciting, different, wacko (some of them) characters. liked josie the best. this is my favourite book of all time. i recommend it. what more can i say? i am hooked.
More, please.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
While I love Jean Thompson's short stories ... being able to sink my teeth into this delicious hunk of a novel was even more satisfying. And frankly ... sad or dark endings have become trite at this point in literary evolution. What a relief to finish a novel without wanting to weep.
Fabulous
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
It's been a long time since I enjoyed reading a novel as much as I have enjoyed reading Wide Blue Yonder. The novel is well-written and funny and contains wonderful characters. The story takes place in Springfield Illinois in the hot, hot summer of 1999. Josie, a disaffected 17 year old lives with her divorced mother and spends the summer working at Taco Bell, avoiding her father, and stalking a gorgeous young policeman who wandered into her life one day. Her mother, Elaine, who tries so hard to be happy, is also trying to help her ex-husband's Uncle Harvey, who refers to himself as the Local Forecast (he's a bit obsessed with the weather channel). As Harvey keeps track of the weather heating up, things are heating up in Springfield. Josie's pursuit of her obsession takes her down a dangerous path and Elaine's pursuit of salvation for Harvey threatens to take him down another dangerous path. This story is told with much clever humor, with Josie's cynical observations on Springfield life being perhaps the most amusing. I really enjoyed this novel and highly recommend it.
Stunning. A Tour de Force.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
Telling a cohesive story from the narrative perspective of multiple characters is one of the toughest tricks in fiction. One voice usually outshines the others. Wide Blue Yonder is the glorious exception that proves the rule. All four voices are not only distinctive and wonderful but they balance and inform each other as well, spanning the spectrum from a young girl's teenage ennui to a con man's deepening madness. That Thompson's prose is crisp and often startlingly inventive is icing on a cake that is already deep and rich and completely satisfying.
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