This is my review for Crystal Ships by Richard Sharp. The opinions expressed are my own and were in no way influenced by anyone.
The story follows a group of friends through two decades of their life set in the late 1950's and ending up at the end of the 1970's. It follows their lives as they grow, learn, live and survive one of the more turbulent times in our recent history. The cast is as different as can be and weave their way together the years, sometimes together, sometimes separate. Paired or alone, they're still experiencing things together.
The story begins by introducing us to Shane, Connor and Gil. They are living in Boston and attending college just as John F. Kennedy is about to come into office. Gil is the privileged scholar who chases women, writes poetry and never seems to want to grow up. His roommate is Connor, the younger brother of Shane. They are both from the Boston working class. We are then introduced to two college roommates and best friends, Lucy and Camille. They are Italian-American women, one Catholic and the other Jewish, attending Douglass college together. Lucy is the rebel, going against her father at every turn, shying away from her religious upbringing. She wants to become a dancer and is dragging Camille along for the ride. Thrown into the mix is Lucy's older and extremely conservative and protective brother, Ira. Who coincidentally dated Camille prior to her and Lucy becoming best friends. Awkward? Maybe, but in this case, it definitely works and he finds ways to realistically weave it in and out of the story later on.
These five are the main characters and the story really revolves around them and later their partners and wives, who also become almost main characters themselves. Ava, who marries Ira and Balinda, who Shane meets while working in South Africa. Their stories weave together to tell the greater narrative of the 60's and 70's. This book could have easily turned into a saga spanning over 1000 pages and I still would have been interested. I wanted more. More of their lives, loves, experiences. I wish he could have made the book longer so we could spend more time with each of them!
I will admit that the first part of the book is a bit slow, but I think that's more because you're being introduced to a lot of people and given a lot of background information about them and their lives. It's a lot to digest and you do have to take it a bit slow so that you can absorb everything because trust me, everything comes back later!
The book really does have everything. You get to experience the culture of the 60's and 70's through every form of media. You have music, books, poetry, television, movies and the news. And it's all very well researched with a bibliography at the end, which was very impressive! You also find yourself immersed in the many problems of the times. There were the assassinations that effectively ended the feeling of security that many Americans had at the time. The civil war both here at home and also in South Africa where apartheid was alive and well. The biggest elephant in the room during those decades was definitely the Vietnam war and it does take a very prominent role in the story. You're not treated to gory battles but you are allowed a peek into what the world was like for a very small portion of the military stationed in Vietnam and what they went through.
You have people MIA in Vietnam, a murder mystery in California, a crazy stalker and a bunch of people who even after 20 years are still trying to figure it all out.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who wants to have a glimpse at what life was like for young men and women during the turbulent 60's and 70's in America.
No comments:
Post a Comment