Sky of Stone
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4.6 • 43 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Rocket Boys and The Coalwood Way transports us back to his West Virginia hometown and the summer that nearly destroyed the close-knit community in this “beautifully executed” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) memoir.
“Vivid and alive . . . Hickam has made [Coalwood] live again in his writing.”—The New York Times Book Review
In the summer of ’61, Homer “Sonny” Hickam, a year of college behind him, is dreaming of sandy beaches and rocket ships. But before Sonny can reach the seaside fixer-upper where his mother is spending the summer, a telephone call sends him back to the place he thought he had escaped: the gritty coal-mining town of Coalwood, West Virginia. There, Sonny’s father, the mine’s superintendent, has been accused of negligence in a man’s death. Sonny’s mother, Elsie, has ordered her son to spend the summer in Coalwood to support his father. For Sonny, so begins a season of discovery—a time when he will learn about love, loss, and a closely guarded secret that threatens to destroy his father and his town.
As the days of summer grow shorter, Sonny finds himself taking the first real steps toward manhood. But it’s a journey he can make only by unraveling the story of a man’s death and a father’s secret—the mysteries that lie at the very heart of Coalwood.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Retired NASA engineer Hickam became a minor mass market celebrity in 1994 after a last-minute 2,000-word filler for Air & Space magazine (he spent three hours writing about launching homemade rockets in 1950s Coalwood, W.Va.) brought an avalanche of phone calls and letters. He expanded the article into 1998's bestselling Rocket Boys, filmed as the critically acclaimed October Sky (1999). Four hundred schools now use his memoirs in their curricula. The latest episode takes place in 1961 during young Hickam's first summer vacation from college, shortly after a foreman's death at the mine that Hickam's father supervises. Hickam (nicknamed Sonny) plans to read Robert A. Heinlein and meet girls in Myrtle Beach where his mother, Elsie, has a new dreamhouse, but Elsie insists he return home since his father is being accused of negligence in the foreman's death. Stuck in Coalwood, Sonny takes a difficult job laying track. Amid Sonny's travails with unrequited love, the track-laying competition and being stonewalled by his father and the locals when he asks anything about the death, state and federal inspectors arrive to investigate. Hickam prolongs the suspense in this cleverly constructed, richly detailed mystery peppered with colloquial dialogue and vivid characters. This pleasing book only reinforces his oeuvre.
Customer Reviews
Sky of stone
Once again, Homer Hickam pulled me into his world of Coalwood,WV and the dreams of a young man growing up in the early 60's. Thank you, Homer!
Again, outstanding
Mr. Hickam rounds off the final component of the Rocket Boys trilogy with the surprising twists and turns of a college freshman's life. This epochal finale reminds all readers that home truly is where the heart is.