A Sound Like Thunder: A Novel
A Sound Like Thunder: A Novel by Sonny Brewer, published by Ballantine Books in August 2006, is a richly woven narrative that explores themes of family and personal growth. This first edition, comprising 288 pages, follows Rove MacNee, who, approaching eighty, reflects on his youth in Fairhope, Alabama, during the winter of 1941. As he navigates the complexities of his relationship with his father, Captain Dominus MacNee, Rove’s memories resonate like thunder, revealing the struggles and influences that shaped his life.
Readers will find a lyrical coming-of-age story that intertwines memoir and memory, as Rove contemplates his passions, including fishing and his cherished sloop, the Sea Bird. The novel delves into the pivotal moments and relationships that define him, from his grandmother’s wisdom to his first romance with Anna Pearl Anderson. Through Rove’s journey, the narrative captures the essence of confronting one’s past and the realization of personal truths, all set against the backdrop of a small coastal town.
Official synopsis Publisher
Approaching eighty, Rove MacNee sets out to write the story of his youth– “I will be forgiven, I’m sure, if I don’t remember things with stunning clarity.” What memories clearly remain resonate within him like rolling thunder and shower down like rain in Sonny Brewer’s superb and richly rewarding new novel of fathers and sons, family and betrayal.
Set in the small gulf town of Fairhope, Alabama, this lyrical coming-of-age tale begins in the winter of 1941. Named for his father’s drowned Labrador retriever, Rove is a strong-shouldered and self-reliant sixteen-year-old, an uneven match for his volatile father, Captain Dominus MacNee. Though he sometimes wishes the whiskey-soaked man would be lost at sea, Rove himself is in danger of sinking in the troubled waters of his home life.
Navigating between memoir and memory, past and present, Rove reflects upon the people and pursuits that have influenced his life: his passion for fishing, where the toss of the net is more thrilling than the catch in the bucket; his much-loved grandmother, who gives him a copy of Huckleberry Finn, saying, “Boys sometimes run away, you know”; and Anna Pearl Anderson, “the prettiest girl on the Eastern shore,” who ignites in Rove the first flickers of romance. Yet his greatest treasure, perhaps, is his twenty-five-foot sloop, the Sea Bird. Given to him as a gift, the Sea Bird brings with it both the possibility of salvation and the threat of disaster. As Rove dreams of escaping his tumultuous surroundings, it becomes apparent that he can never truly shake the hold of his seaside home unless he confronts, head on, a startling truth.
Returning to the setting of his much-lauded debut novel, The Poet of Tolstoy Park, Sonny Brewer, once again, gives a skillful performance in the Southern storytelling tradition. A Sound Like Thunder is a magnificently crafted tale of a man revisiting the crossroads of his life, connecting the fragmented keepsakes in his heart and mind, and reemerging with a clear understanding of his defining moment.
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