- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Random House Canada (Jan 22 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0679311157
- ISBN-13: 978-0679311157
- Product Dimensions: 22.2 x 14.5 x 2.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 435 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,279,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Amazon.ca
A coming-of-age story set in Florida in 1967, Edward O'Connor's Astral Projection concerns a teenager with the ungainly name of Goodwin DeFoe. Our hero comes from a fairly standard dysfunctional family background: at home his parents drink and fight, and his father is given to violent fits of rage. The novel's title comes from DeFoe's attempts to escape this miserable home life through spiritual flight, both literally and figuratively.
Astral Projection is strongest when O'Connor, a freelance writer and short story author living in Toronto, writes about music. DeFoe's passion for the guitar and his lessons with guitar teacher Chuck Buffington draw us in, however briefly, to that universe of two occupied by student and instructor. Here's Buffington explaining the mechanics of tenor saxophonist Lester Young's version of "I Want to Be Happy" to his young charge: "'Hear how that goes? Like you're being all boxed in, and that whole note at the end is the last nail in the coffin. But right then Lester makes his statement--he's gonna be happy. He blows this little four-note announcement--toodle-loo-doot--and he's off like a rabbit.'"
O'Connor is less convincing in his portrayal of the family and DeFoe's "horror-story home life," and even with the introduction of a gun into the plot line the tension never amounts to much more than the equivalent of a flat E-string. Without this tension, Astral Projection remains earthbound, a well-meaning, likable, but ultimately unsatisfying first novel. --Shawn Conner
Books in Canada
Astral Projection by Edward O'Connor could be a finalist for the Pretentious Title Contest, though it has an interesting jacket designed by Daniel Cullen. Set in humid Miami in the 1960s O'Connor tells the crackling coming-of-age story of Goodwin DeFoe, a mixed up teenager whose violent alcoholic parents conduct battles that make war-time Vietnam sound safer. Goodwin decides to take up the guitar and his first teacher Chuck Buffington is "A poor man, so poor in fact that on days he gave lessons he had to ride a bicycle from his rented bungalow in the black part of Coconut Grove all the way down to the music store in the Dadeland mall. . ." Buffington is also a drinker, repeatedly married, terminally broke, but a genuine musical talent. Music becomes Goodwin's savior, making his troublesome adolescence and traumatic home life tolerable. Buffington becomes both friend and father figure, until Goodwin clearly surpasses him as a guitarist, and Goodwin's insane parents take their destructive behavior to a higher level. The writing is clear and in some ways musical, and while the story is sometimes tough to bear, Goodwin and Buffington are worth cheering for. W.P. Kinsella (Books in Canada)
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Astral Projection,
By Marjorie Jones (Lanark Highlands, Ontario) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Astral Projection (Hardcover)
Teenage boy Goodwin, escaping from a homefront of warring, drunken parents in a lower middle class Miami neighbourhood , discovers the guitar; Buffington, his alcoholic music teacher; and how to survive, in this coming-of-age novel of the '60s.The writing in O'Connor's first novel is at once sparse yet fertile, and by the end of the journey, one is left, if somewhat unexpectedly, with the desire for a sequel. What happens to Goodwin as he ventures further afield? And, surprisingly, because we've come to care, what happens to Buffington? O'Connor creates detailed images with his imaginative use of a writer's tools, without taking away the reader's use of his own imagination. As for the title and its intended symbolism in the context of this novel? I will let the book clubbers delve into that. I was too busy enjoying the book!
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
4.0 out of 5 stars
Astral Projection,
By Marjorie Jones - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Astral Projection (Hardcover)
Teenage boy Goodwin, escaping from a homefront of warring, drunken parents in a lower middle class Miami neighbourhood , discovers the guitar; Buffington, his alcoholic music teacher; and how to survive, in this coming-of-age novel of the '60s.The writing in O'Connor's first novel is at once sparse yet fertile, and by the end of the journey, one is left, if somewhat unexpectedly, with the desire for a sequel. What happens to Goodwin as he ventures further afield? And, surprisingly, because we've come to care, what happens to Buffington? O'Connor creates detailed images with his imaginative use of a writer's tools, without taking away the reader's use of his own imagination. As for the title and its intended symbolism in the context of this novel? I will let the book clubbers delve into that. I was too busy enjoying the book! |
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