Forever by Pete Hamill
I'm going to try to catch up on the backlog of book reviews. For better or worse, there aren't as many as I'd like for this time of year, mostly because I spend the majority of my free alone time either at the gym or obsessively watching episodes of The West Wing on Netflix. More on that another time. :)
So, Forever was a book club selection from last year. It's the story of Cormac O'Connor, born in 18th century Ireland to a blacksmith and his wife. His childhood is happy until his family crosses paths with an arrogant earl, who is ultimately responsible for his mother's death and his father's murder. When the earl departs for America, Cormac follows him across the ocean to fulfill the debt of vengeance. During a fairly horrific crossing, he befriends a group of Africans who were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Cormac continues to cross paths with Kongo, a powerful shaman, after they arrive in pre-Revolutionary War New York City. Both join in an uprising against the British, and when Cormac is gravely injured, Kongo offers him the gift of eternal life. The gift, however, has a catch: he can never again leave the island of Manhattan. The majority of the story follows Cormac through the city's evolution over more than two centuries.
The book is aptly named, because it took me forever to read it. Don't get me wrong; it's a good story, but it's just so long. At times it felt endless, and I think that may have been intentional, helping the reader to better relate to Cormac's life. I was intrigued by the idea of one character observing the city's growth and development, but his early life in Ireland drew me in far more. I did enjoy the journey through time in New York, but could only seem to manage a few chapters at once; the story didn't compel me to stay focused and ignore other books until it neared the end. Hamill did also fall into the standard eternal-life trope of his character coming into contact with an unlikely number of historical figures and celebrities, though not nearly so many as Helen Magnus befriended in a lifetime an entire century shorter...
I'm glad I read Forever and glad I kept returning to it. But I can't say I was sorry to reach the end.
So, Forever was a book club selection from last year. It's the story of Cormac O'Connor, born in 18th century Ireland to a blacksmith and his wife. His childhood is happy until his family crosses paths with an arrogant earl, who is ultimately responsible for his mother's death and his father's murder. When the earl departs for America, Cormac follows him across the ocean to fulfill the debt of vengeance. During a fairly horrific crossing, he befriends a group of Africans who were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Cormac continues to cross paths with Kongo, a powerful shaman, after they arrive in pre-Revolutionary War New York City. Both join in an uprising against the British, and when Cormac is gravely injured, Kongo offers him the gift of eternal life. The gift, however, has a catch: he can never again leave the island of Manhattan. The majority of the story follows Cormac through the city's evolution over more than two centuries.
The book is aptly named, because it took me forever to read it. Don't get me wrong; it's a good story, but it's just so long. At times it felt endless, and I think that may have been intentional, helping the reader to better relate to Cormac's life. I was intrigued by the idea of one character observing the city's growth and development, but his early life in Ireland drew me in far more. I did enjoy the journey through time in New York, but could only seem to manage a few chapters at once; the story didn't compel me to stay focused and ignore other books until it neared the end. Hamill did also fall into the standard eternal-life trope of his character coming into contact with an unlikely number of historical figures and celebrities, though not nearly so many as Helen Magnus befriended in a lifetime an entire century shorter...
I'm glad I read Forever and glad I kept returning to it. But I can't say I was sorry to reach the end.