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Red Sky at Morning A Novel
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Rating: 4.75/5 from 32 reviews "Red Sky at Morning:" An Old and Wonderful FriendMy mother handed "Red Sky at Morning" to me when I was 16. She had no way of knowing that it would become one of "those" books -- one of the books I held up as an example of near (if not total) perfection; a book that I have re-read almost every summer in the past 16 years. It is one of the most well-written and naturally funny books that exists. If you do not kill yourself laughing and suddenly find yourself crying, if you do not fall in love with Josh, Marcia, Steenie and their entire world, then you have my sincere sympathies. "Jew are a pendejo bahstair,"...My father read to me a passage from RED SKY AT MORNING when I was eleven. He was trying to get me interested in reading the book for myself and chose one of the more memorable scenes. I remember reading it and getting partway into the book and giving up. I just found nothing interesting to the story. When I turned eighteen, I recalled the book my father told me about many years prior, and picked it up again. What a difference a few years made. I've literally spent a year getting intimate with this novel. Memorizing every passage, and character development. It's a rare American novel that has very few equal. Many people compare RED SKY AT MORNING with J.D. Salinger's CATCHER IN THE RYE. Both are classic works of literature, and have a very honest look at adolescents, but that's where their similarities end. RED SKY AT MORNING is also a rich look in the life of not just one character, but an entire town as diverse as we are. We grow along-side with those from the small town called Corazon, Sagrado. Frank Arnold decides to move his family from MOBILE, ALABAMA to a small town in New Mexico where Joshua (our Narrator) spends his Senior year of High School. RED SKY AT MORNING can be seen as a coming of age story; but it's very much a coming of understanding story as well. The Arnolds came from a mostly White upper class background, where they were the Majority, but by moving to this small town, they are turned into the Minority overnight. Old habits die hard for some, but through exposure others come to accept those who are different. This is a story that will make you laugh for days. It will make you cry the first time you read it, and the 9th time you read it. It's as bitter-sweet as life itself. I will never come across a book that has touched me as deeply as RED SKY AT MORNING. A vital piece of the New Mexico fiction readsThe Bradford books, Red Sky at Morning and So Far From Heaven are two tomes slightly before their times. When most of the New Mexico fiction enthusiasts discovered Hillerman and Nichols these two had already gone into decline and were settling into obscurity. Each is well worth pulling from the bottom of the heap, dusting carefully and settling down for a great read. Red Sky at Morning would fit well into the John Nichols collection insofar as insight, humor and good story-telling. The characterization is great in both Bradford books; the plotting is excellent; the penetrating insights into a New Mexico forever in transition between a colorful past, chaotic present and incomprehensible future are all conveyed here. Whether the reader wishes to know New Mexico or simply to spend the evening in smiles and laughs, Bradford will provide. | ||||||||||||||||||||
