The Coalwood Way: A Memoir

The Coalwood Way: A Memoir
- Homer Hickman
- Memoir
- West Virginia
In this follow-up to his bestselling autobiography Rocket Boys, Homer Hickam chronicles the eventful autumn of 1959 in his hometown, the West Virginia mining town of Coalwood. Sixteen-year-old Homer and his pals in the Big Creek Missile Agency are high school seniors, still building homemade rockets and hoping that science will provide them with a ticket into the wider world of college and white-collar jobs. Such dreams make them suspect in a conservative small town where "getting above yourself" is the ultimate sin and where Homer's father, superintendent of the Coalwood mines, is stingy with praise and dubious about his son's ambitions. Homer's mother remains supportive, but bluntly reminds him, "You can't expect everything to go your way. Sometimes life just has another plan." Indeed, Hickam's unvarnished portrait of Coalwood covers class warfare (union miners battling with his authoritarian father), provincial narrow-mindedness (the local ladies scorn a young woman living outside wedlock with a man who abuses her), and endless gossiping along the picket "fence line." These sharp details make the unabashed sentiment of the book's closing chapters feel earned rather than easy. Hickam can spin a gripping yarn and keep multiple underlying themes and metaphors going at the same time. His tender but gritty memoir will touch readers' hearts and minds. --Wendy Smith
Country USA
Brand Island Books
Manufacturer Island Books
Binding Mass Market Paperback
ItemPartNumber 0440237165_used
Color Silver
ReleaseDate 2001-09-04
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780440237167

Country	USA
Brand	Island Books
Manufacturer	Island Books
Binding	Mass Market Paperback
ItemPartNumber	0440237165_used
Color	Silver
ReleaseDate	2001-09-04
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780440237167

The Coalwood Way: A Memoir

Customers who purchased this also purchased....