Publishers Weekly
- Publisher's Weekly
The first novel by newspaper columnist Greene ( Hang Time: Days and Dreams with Michael Jordan; Be True to Your School ) is a sunny, nostalgia-drenched ramble across much of the U.S. While attending his high school class's 25th reunion in the sleepy town of Bristol, Ohio, TV reporter Ben Kroeger is drawn to memories of his summers as a teenager, when the season ``was everything--it was freedom, it was joy, it was the promise of adventure and maybe of romance.'' Ben comes up with an inspired scheme: he and his two best friends from boyhood will spend the summer traveling the country. With no particular destination in mind, they will simply try to recapture the season's lost mystique. Ben's network gives him a three-month leave of absence, and--conveniently enough--his 40-something pals can also vacation freely: steady, goodnatured Michael Wolff is a high school teacher, while cigar-chomping Ronnie Hepps just happens to be a multimillionaire. And so the three men take in such bits of Americana as the Fourth of July parade in an Iowa town and the butter cow at the Ohio State Fair; they discuss the meaning of life at motel swimming pools and stop in at Las Vegas casinos, Wrigley Field and the NBC studios. Despite brushes with tragedy, the mood here is one of gentle, upbeat reverence for times past. Open and direct, this novel will win over readers who, like Ben, believe that ``You should never live in any town that doesn't have a Main Street.'' Author tour. (July)
Library Journal
Three friends meet at a 25th high school reunion. In different ways, each is unhappy with his present life. ``Summer,'' mourns Ben, a TV journalist of modest fame, ``used to be the best part of our lives, and now it's not.'' A month later, all three have left families and jobs behind to set off on one final summer of cruising. They crisscross the country without connection or purpose, stopping wherever they land. Unexpected love interests for each of them and a personal crisis apiece add spice to their otherwise bland adventure. The penultimate stop is Las Vegas, where they contrive to sleep in Elvis's suite. Riddled with cliches, this marshmallow of a book trivializes such truly serious matters as the midlife adjustments that men make, the importance of friends and memories, and the value of male bonding. The reader with a taste for calculated sentimentality may derive pleasure from this first novel by Greene, a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune and an author of nonfiction, but the discerning reader most emphatically will not.-- David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
