Going to the Sun: A Novel - Hardcover

McManus, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060173742 ISBN 13: 9780060173746

Publisher: Harpercollins, 1996

Synopsis

Seven years after assisting in the suicide of her mortally wounded lover, Penny faces her own debilitating illness and sets out on a cross-country bike tour during which she meets a young Black man who challenges her to confront her past and open herselfup to intimacy

About this title

About the Author

James McManus teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Reviews

Beckett, bicycling, basketball, bears and blood sugar are among the diverse interests of this meditative road story told in the stunning voice of a diabetic, emotionally scarred young woman. At 29, Penny Culligan, a jazz-loving student of Irish literature, is writing her doctoral thesis as she bicycles from Chicago to Alaska to confront a past trauma. She's bicycling back to the place where her lover, David, was mauled by a grizzly. Haunted by the experience, by the fact that she honored David's request to help him die, as well as by the impending threats of her own disease, Penny has lived in cautious solitude for the past seven years. Now, on this somewhat hazardous trek with the oft-postponed thesis deadline looming, she takes stock of her life. Along the way, she meets the possibly dangerous Ndele Rimes, who claims to be an NBA basketball player but might, she fears, be lying. Poet (Great America) and novelist McManus (Out of the Blue; Chin Music) makes interesting use of Beckett, relating his obsession with physical decay to Penny's diabetes, but ultimately this novel, with its heartland highway vistas and constant motion, could not be more American. If the ending is a bit awkward or unsatisfying, it only underscores the paramount importance of journey over destination. Penny's narrative?by turns lyrical, pissed off and longing?is a triumph.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Although it happened over seven years ago, Penny Culligan struggles mightily with the events surrounding the violent death of her lover and her own role in it. Since the time of his death, Penny has been incapable of sustaining a relationship with a man, obsessed with thoughts of her own demise, and haunted by her own fear, mistrust, and loneliness. In an attempt to sort out her past and future, she sets out on a solo cross-country bicycle trip. During one particularly lonely stretch of highway, with a storm threatening, Penny hits a pothole, rendering her bike unridable. Enter Ndele, a dashing young man in a very expensive car, who is either a famous and wealthy basketball player, as he claims, or a criminal, as Penny suspects. This encounter with Ndele sets off a chain of events that ultimately enables Penny to face the odds, ditch her unhealthy darkness and doubt, and attain the wisdom and courage to feel hope for the future. Readers will empathize with the heroine in this well-crafted tale of grief, introspection, and courage. Kathleen Hughes

Penny is a thirtyish Beckett scholar with little hope of finishing her dissertation; she has a serious case of diabetes and a ghost from the past. It has been seven years since she mercifully injected her boyfriend, who was mauled by a bear in Alaska, with a fatal dose of her own insulin. Now she is cycling from Chicago to Alaska on a mission not even she fully comprehends. When she has an accident in North Dakota, a very tall, young black man claiming to be a basketball pro and driving a new Mercedes convertible without license plates offers to help. She accepts despite her fears. A complex friendship develops in a short time. But is he really what he claims to be? Can she make it to Alaska? Has her life itself become a Beckettian open question? McManus's (Curtains, Univ. of Chicago, 1985) unusual psychodrama may not be flawless, but it is engaging and challenging, and has a gripping conclusion somewhat reminiscent of the infamous sled ride in Ethan Frome. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
Jim Dwyer, California State Univ. Lib., Chico
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harpercollins
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060173742
• ISBN 13: 9780060173746
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352