Boy's Life

[Nalagirl]

Well the title.. of course is Boy's Life. It's by Robert R. McCammon.

I think this book is amazing. I've yet to finish it though. I'm at the chapter called "Dinner With Vernon".

I love how each chapter itself is like it's own mini story, with a short climax and resolution to it. And the chapters have titles! I hardly ever find books nowadays that have titles for chapters. Makes me feel kiddy again... erm.. kiddy-er??

The main plot is basically this. A milkman and his son are by a lake one day. When a truck crashes into it, and starts sinking. The father goes to try and save the driver, and sees that the man has been beaten up, choked, handcuffed to the steering wheel, and butt naked. The rest of the plot? Man.. there are LOTS of sub plots. But the main one is just finding out "who done it".

I'll wait to say anything about specific parts though, see if anyone else has read it in the first place.

[Dave]

I have, and i'm a big McCammon fan. He basically quit writing because he was tired of being pegged as a horror writer.

Boy's Life is a great poinient story about growing up in a small town. The best parts of the book aren't the 'magical' parts - those can be explained away by the boys imagination, it's the charaters and their motivations.

If you like this book, look for The Wolf's Hour and Swan Song, as they are both excellent, the former being a WWII novel with a Werewolf protagonist, the latter being post aprocaliptic road tale, that gets unfairly compaired to Stephen Kings The Stand because of it's page count and theme.

Also i would be remiss if i didn't recommend his latest novel, which was released as 2 softbacks called Speaks the Nightbird. I thought it was excellent as well.

[Nalagirl]

I love the way he writes. It's very descriptive, but in the way most people "feel" just can't put into words. I'm not a big fan of books that are descriptive but... quite a bore, really. Now I'm on the chapter where Rebel dies, and it's kind of hard for me to read. Mainly because he loves his dog the way I love mine. I will read his other books though, an thanks for recommending those. It's sad that people stop doing things they love just because people title them a certain way.

The magic parts were my favorite, because most books make kids seem so....simple. They never really go into their minds and explain things from that perspective.

[Dave]

He still writes, but got fed up with the politics and mechinations of publishing. It's a shame really, because i think he's an excellent writer. His last book was put out in hardcover by a small press company and the PB rights were bought by Bantam or whomever, who put the book out in 2 parts. Still there are talks of a new novel in the works.

If you like horror stuff, be sure to check his early work, too.