Items related to The Obstacle Course
Synopsis
In a dazzling shift of direction from his New York Times-bestselling first thriller, Against the Wind, J. F. Freedman presents The Obstacle Course, a coming-of-age story that recounts the adventures of a colorful, profane, street-smart, and appealing fifteen-year-old boy growing up in 1957 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Roy Poole has to be smart because he is almost always on his own. His father is a drinker, womanizer, and wife-beater. His mother can't cope with her husband or her children; Roy copes by running with his own gang, whose escapades sometimes border on the criminal. And this young man is eminently available when the girls come after him, which is often. But there is another side to Roy. He builds model ships and regularly hitchhikes to Annapolis to run the Naval Academy's grueling obstacle course. For Roy Poole's one ambition in life, his consuming dream, is to become a midshipman. One day, like a gift from heaven, Roy meets a retired admiral who also builds model ships. The admiral is immediately attracted to the youngster, and he becomes almost a second father to the boy. Admiral Wells arranges for Roy to be admitted to a military prep school that sends most of its graduates to the Naval Academy. And then, suddenly, Roy's innocence brings about an explosion in this exotic world he has entered. Embittered and lost, Roy strikes out blindly for parts unknown. And on that adventure, particularly in an encounter with members of a black church, people that he, a Southerner in the fifties, has never known except as stereotypes, he begins the process of understanding that offers him a chance for his own redemption. This powerful and gritty coming-of-age novel will evoke memories of Holden Caulfield and Huck Finn. It also bears comparison to the novels of Pat Conroy. Best of all, The Obstacle Course confirms Freedman's talent for telling a compelling story in a full and rich original voice that marks him as a novelist with a limitless future.
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From Kirkus Reviews
Episodic coming-of-age tale from Freedman, here showing little of the flair for high melodrama that marked his robust literary debut, Against the Wind (1991). The title refers not only to the obstacle course at the Naval Academy at Annapolis that narrator Ray Poole, 15, likes to sneak onto during the winter of 1957, but also to the barricades to happiness that he must leap on his way to manhood--starting with his family (womanizing dad; abused mom) and their barren life in the white-trash town of Ravensburg, Maryland. Like his friends, Ray is tough, quick with his fists, and not adverse to stealing to support his passion: the building of elaborate ship models, his way of sustaining his dream of going to Annapolis. The dream begins to look possible when, at a hobby store, Ray meets a retired admiral who shares his love of models. The admiral takes the bright if wayward boy under his wing, introduces him to Navy brass (and a lovelorn Navy brat), then gets him into a military prep school. But life deals a hard lesson about human nature and class realities when, after the theft of a figurine at the admiral's house, the admiral spurns the accused Ray rather than name the real thief, a kleptomaniac old friend; and the lesson is fortified as Ray is twice treated well by the generally despised blacks--first by a whore to whom he loses his virginity, then by a church congregation that takes him in after the boy, despairing, has ridden the rails into the Deep South. At story's end, Ray--battered but wiser--is back running the Annapolis obstacle course, his future a mystery ready to unfold. Ray's an appealingly spunky creation, but his adventures feel contrived--as if he's not living a life but being hustled through his paces toward Meaning by Coach Freedman. (First printing of 35,000) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
From Library Journal
In 1957, 14-year-old Roy Poole dreams of escaping his grimy small-town life by attending the Naval Academy, where he runs the obstacle course when he is not hustling homework, trading insults with buddies, shoplifting, or robbing washing-machine coin boxes. A chance meeting with a retired admiral gives Roy a patron, but his hope for the future is endangered when he is accused of the one theft he didn't commit. Both a survivor and his own worst enemy, Roy careens from mishap to catastrophe: a quick escape from a junkyard guard results in six days as a runaway; a last-minute assault on coin boxes for some ready cash undoes his final opportunity with the admiral. Freedman's second novel doesn't live up to Against the Wind ( LJ 9/15/91), but its selection by the Literary Guild, an author tour, and a hefty ad budget may boost demand.
- Jan Blodgett, St. Mary's Cty. Records Ctr. & Archives, Leonardtown, Md.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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