Back Home is billed as Dan Walker’s “follow-up novel” to his 2016 book Secondhand Summer in which Walker first introduces the fourteen-year-old Sam Barger and his Alaskan family to readers. In Secondhand Summer, the Bargers move from a tiny Alaskan community to one of Anchorage’s poorer neighborhoods where Sam does not cope very well with the drastic lifestyle change forced upon him. Now, in Back Home, Sam is a sixteen-year-old high school sophomore living alone with his mother. Sam’s father is dead, and Joe, his brother, is doing a tour of duty in Vietnam.
1968 was one of the most dramatic years in modern American history, but even the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy really would not have rocked Sam’s world much were it not for the pretty girl he met in the school cafeteria one day. All Sam really wants to do is get by until the next summer break arrives. That means putting the least possible effort into his studies that will allow him somehow to get passing marks; work his job at Polar Pizza; maybe get Joe’s old truck running again before his brother comes home from the war; and meet girls — especially girls like Iris, the hippy who tempts Sam into joining the peace march that ends up with his picture on the local paper’s front page.
Hippies are not real popular in 1968 Alaska, but Sam and Iris could have survived that easily enough if the battle-scarred Joe had not come home to recover from his wounds, including the ones that cause him to wake up screaming in the middle of the night, just when he did. Back Home is a coming-of-age novel complicated by the tumultuous time in which it is set. It is one in which Sam and Joe Barger, despite being the only sibling each has, find their love for each other severely tested by how differently they view the war in Vietnam.
Bottom Line: I was primarily drawn to Back Home because I lived through the period myself and was curious to see how Walker (who based both books partly on his own experiences) would handle it. My disappointment stems from my definition of the term “follow-up novel.” To me, a follow-up is simply the book that follows a predecessor-novel, even if some of the same characters are featured. A follow-up novel is not necessarily going to be the second book in a longer series of novels. A series, however, appears to be the plan here because Back Home abruptly ends before all the subplots and questions are wrapped up. That leaves me imagining that a third Sam Barger book is in the works, one that will begin with a dramatic flashback to the point where this one calls it quits because the Barger brothers are quite literally not yet out of the woods when this one goes kaput. (Otherwise, why would a 196-page novel stop where this one does?)
Review Copy provided by Publisher
Thinking about 1968 and the two assassinations brings back memories for me. I was not in college, I had done my freshman year, left for a while, then went back and finished later. But I remember those events more than some of the traumatic events that happened when I was in high school (in Birmingham, AL).
ReplyDeleteSorry this book did not live up to your expectations. The time frame sounds very interesting with the brother being in Vietnam. But I don't like cliffhangers at the end of books.
1968 was a milestone for me in many ways. Dr. King was murdered on the day I completed Army basic training at Fort Campbell, Ky, and I was walking guard duty in the middle of the woods at Fort Sill, OK, when my little (sneaked in) transistor radio announced that Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. The first thing I think of when I hear either of those two men mentioned is always those two days and how they linked to my personal history in such odd, but memorable-to-me ways.
DeleteThe book was a let down in that if just seemed to fizzle out at the end as the end. It was too short for that kind of surprise.
I hate when a book ends that abruptly...especially when I'm not prepared for it. And it's only 196 pages long? This is me shaking my head. ;D
ReplyDeleteMe, too...and in a physical book like this one, it was easy to see this happening because the climax got more and more complicated even as the little stack of pages on the right side of the book kept getting lower and lower. It was kind of like running out of gas before the destination was reached - and I was watching the "gas tank" move toward "E" the whole last quarter of the tank.
DeleteIt was a tumultuous time, and I can understand both your interest and your disappoint.
ReplyDeleteI think it was extra disappointing to me because Walker is such a good storyteller that it really didn't have to end the way it did. It felt like he just ran out of steam. He's not a prolific writer, it seems, so readers shouldn't expect the next book anytime soon.
DeleteIt's always interesting to read what people think of my work. In a way I am glad that you wanted more from Sam Joe's story. Writing, like any creative form, presents limitless choices to the writer, and I still like the choice I made to end the book as I did. Of course the story goes on. They always do. Dan L Walker
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to comment. I was so taken by the story that I wanted to spend more time with the characters to see how everything would be resolved. If you ever do pick up their story again, I'll be there to see what comes next for them.
DeleteI understand what you say about "limitless choices" when it comes to ending stories. I'm one of those readers who prefer everything be nicely tied-up at the end of a novel, but I know that not everyone is that way or would agree with me.