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Summary
Summary
Tim O'Brien is widely acclaimed as our finest chronicler of the Vietnam War and its afermath. In his ambitious, compassionate, and terrifically compelling new novel, this American master returns to his signature themes -- passion, memory, and yearning -- in a brilliant ensemble piece. July, July tells the heart-rending and often hilarious story of a group of men and women who came into adulthood at a moment when American ideals and innocence began to fade. Their lives will ring familiar to anyone who has dreamed big dreams, suffered disappointment, and still struggled toward a happy ending.
At the thirtieth reunion of Minnesota's Darton Hall College class of 1969, ten old friends join their classmates for a July weekend of dancing, drinking, flirting, reminiscing, regretting. The three decades since their graduation have seen marriage and divorce, children and careers, hopes deferred and abandoned. Two best friends toast their ex-husbands with vodka and set out for a good time. A damaged war veteran opens his soul to a Republican trophy wife recovering from a radical mastectomy. An overweight mop manufacturer with a large yet failing heart reignites his passion for a hyperkinetic housewife. And whispering in the background is the elusive Johnny Ever, part cynical angel, part conscience, the cosmic soul of ages past and of ages future.
Winner of the National Book Award for his classic novel Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien once again strikes at the emotional nerve center of our lives. With humor and a sense of wistful hope, July, July speaks directly to our unique American character, and to our unique resilience.
Author Notes
Tim O'Brien was born on October 1, 1946 in Austin, Minnesota. He graduated from Macalester College in 1968 and was immediately drafted into the U. S. Army, serving from 1969 to 1970 and receiving a Purple Heart.
Three years later, his memoirs of the Vietnam War were published as If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. Later works include Northern Lights (1975), Going After Cacciato (1978, winner of the National Book Award), and The Things They Carried (1990, winner of the Melcher Book Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award).
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
After a comedic hiatus with 1998's Tomcat in Love, O'Brien expands on themes he explored in some of his best-known earlier novels: memory, hope, love, war. It's July 2000 and members of the Darton Hall College class of 1969 are gathered, one year behind schedule, for their 30th reunion. Focusing on sharply drawn characters and life's pivotal moments rather than on a strong linear plot, O'Brien follows the ensemble cast (which includes a Vietnam vet, a draft dodger, a minister, a bigamous housewife and a manufacturer of mops) for whom "the world had whittled itself down to now or never," as they drink, flirt and reminisce. Interspersed are tales of other Julys, when each character experienced something that changed him or her forever. Jump-cutting across decades, O'Brien reveals past loves and old betrayals that still haunt: Dorothy failed to follow Billy to Canada; Spook hammered out a "double marriage"; Ellie saw her lover drown; Paulette, in a moment of desperation, disgraced herself and ruined her career. Comedy and pathos define the reunion days, while the histories often devastate. Because they are such dramatic moments-a tryst that ends tragically, a near-death experience on the bank of a foreign river, the aftermath of a radical mastectomy-some of them feel contrived, almost hyperbolic. Still, this is a poignant and powerful page-turner, and a testament to a generation. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
"What Went Wrong," the deadpan title of one O'Brien's chapters, could be the slogan for the class of 1969, gathered in July, July for their 40th reunion. There's drinking, dancing, and groping, but the cheer is false; what's real is divorce, addiction, dashed hopes, boredom, mental illness, and failing bodies. The revelers' dialogue is witty, but their youthful contempt for any sort of spirituality has not aged well. They seem shallow and, bereft even of their good looks, irrelevant. A few have children but take no pride in them. They have no social conscience. They aren't worried about global warming. In fact, there is little of interest to say about the reunion, but thankfully, O'Brien breaks off from the festivities to flesh out individual lives. There's the lonely senior center activities director in Tucson, whose repressed lust draws her into a mawkish but effective horror story south of the border. One of O'Brien's most attractive characters steps from the pages of his now classic The Things They Carried: a Vietnam vet--and amputee--who tries to silence the voices he hears with drugs. There's the bored suburban wife who flies away for an affair and then must deal with her lover's death; and the couple on their honeymoon, who hit a lucky streak at a casino, only to discover they aren't even slightly in love. In fact, July, July is a terrific story collection, but as a novel, while it is not exactly a failure, it disappoints. Maybe that's because the mirror O'Brien holds up to these folks in their fifties reveals only narcissists. --John Mort
Kirkus Review
The memories and the revised relationships stimulated by a college reunion produce a mixed bag of individual stories in this involving and beautifully written eighth novel from veteran author O'Brien, still best known for his award-winning Going for Cacciato (1978). There's an echo of The Big Chill at the start as graduates of a small Minnesota college's class of 1969 gather on a hot July weekend. The opening pages briefly introduce pivotal characters, then the story settles into juxtapositions of the present situation against tales of separate and shared pasts. We know at the outset that unmarried Karen Burns has recently been murdered and that good-natured dentist Harmon Osterberg drowned while on summer vacation. Further details emerge as O'Brien patiently connects their histories, as well as those of several others. Ageless sexpot "Spook" (Caroline) Spinelli, who's already managing two husbands, turns her attentions to obese, ever romantically hopeful mop-and-broom mogul Marv Bertel. Embittered divorcees Amy Robinson and Jan Huebner recall their unhappy sexual experiences, while functioning as a venomous two-woman Greek chorus. Happily married Ellie Abbott and presumably celibate woman pastor Paulette Haslo cope awkwardly with unsheddable emotional burdens. In a perfectly controlled dual story, cancer-victim and conservative matron Dorothy Stier reconsiders her refusal to move to Canada in 1969 with draft-dodger Billy McCann, who has never forgiven her failure of nerve. And in sequences that show O'Brien at his most assured, former baseball phenom and Vietnam vet amputee David Todd struggles heroically to live with his several disabilities, including the (brilliantly imagined) "voice" in his head and his unquenchable love for the woman who returned his affection but couldn't live with him. Though its parts are of unequal interest and excellence, July, July powerfully dramatizes the long, lingering aftermath of what had seemed to those who grew up during it, a veritable year of wonders ("Man on the moon, those amazing Mets. We had to believe"). A heartening recovery of form after the meretricious Tomcat in Love (1998). Once again, O'Brien proves he's capable of being one of our brightest and best novelists. Author tour
Library Journal Review
The 30th reunion of Darton Hall College gives O'Brien the chance to play with a host of troubled characters. If you think you've seen this before, you're right: it was excerpted in The New Yorker and Esquire. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Class of 69 The reunion dance had started only an hour ago, but already a good many of the dancers were tipsy, and most others were well along, and now the gossip was flowing and confessions were under way and old flames were being extinguished and rekindled under cardboard stars in the Darton Hall College gymnasium. Amy Robinson was telling Jan Huebner, a former roommate, about the murder last year of Karen Burns, another former roommate. "Its such a Karen sort of thing," Amy said. "Getting killed like that. Nobody else. Only Karen." "Right," Jan said. She waited a moment. "Move your tongue, sugar. Details." Amy made a weary, dispirited movement with her shoulders. "Nothing new, Im afraid. Same old Karen story, naive as a valentine. Trust the world. Get squished." "Poor girl," Jan said. "Poor woman," said Amy. Jan winced and said, "Woman, corpse, whatever. Still single, I suppose? Karen?" "Naturally." "And some guy -?" "Naturally." "God," Jan said. "Yeah, yeah," said Amy. Earlier in the evening, they had liberated a bottle of Darton Hall vodka, which was now almost gone, and both of them were feeling the sting of strong spirits and misplaced sentiment. They were fifty-three years old. They were drunk. They were divorced. Time and heartbreak had exacted a toll. Amy Robinson still had her boyish figure, her button nose and freckles, but collegiate perkiness had been replaced by something taut and haggard. Jan Huebner had never been perky. Shed never been pretty, or cute, or even passable, and at the moment her bleached hair and plucked eyebrows and Midnight Plum lipstick offered only the most dubious correctives. "What I love about men," Jan was saying, "is their basic overall cockiness. That much I adore. Follow me?" "I do," said Amy. "Take away that, what the heck have you got?" "Youve got zero." "Ha!" said Jan. "Cheers," said Amy. "Pricks," said Jan. They fell quiet then, sipping vodka, watching the class of 69 rediscover itself on a polished gymnasium dance floor. Unofficially, this was a thirtieth reunion - one year tardy due to someones oversight, an irony that had been much discussed over cocktails that evening, and much joked about, though not yet entirely deciphered. Still, it made them feel special. And so, too, did the fact that they were convening on a deserted campus, in the heart of summer, more than a month after the standard graduation-day gatherings. The school had a forlorn, haunted feel to it, many memories, many ghosts, which seemed appropriate. "Well," Jan Huebner finally said. "Bad news, of course - Karens dead. But heres some good news. Gal never went through a divorce." "Thats a fact," said Amy. "I mean, ouch." "Ouch is accurate," Amy said. Jan nodded. "Twenty-nine years, almost thirty, and guess what? That slick ex-hubby of mine, Richard the Oily, he grins and waves at me and strolls out the door. Doesnt walk, doesnt run. Strolls. Talk about mu Excerpted from July, July: A Novel by Tim O'Brien All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
