America by Mike Bond (2021)
This is one book I couldn't wait to dive into since I personally lived through the era it covers, as a child of the 50's and as an adolescent and young adult of the tumultuous 1960's.
What I didn't realize was that the book is only only the first of a sprawling, multiple book saga. The timeframe I really wanted to read about - the upheavals of JFK's assassination, the Vietnam war and the youth revolution. really doesn't commence until the last few chapters of this first book.
The story primarily begins at the beginning, with the childhoods of the four major characters, Mick, Troy, Lara and Daisy, all of them growing up in a rural, farmland area of New Jersey.
Having to plow through the Huckleberry Finn-Tom Sawyer life of the two boys certainly wasn't what I signed on to read, but Mike Bond is one hell of a writers. He made these characters and their world come to life and I found myself completely engaged with all of the coming-of-age chapters.
Later on, as the these four people move through their teen years, the story picks up real steam and becomes even more compelling, with the author seamlessly working in all the issues and events that defined and separated the confident America of the 1950's from the America whose very foundations were shaken at 60's progressed.
It's an ambitiously conceived saga and when the last chapter ended, I found myself hooked......there's no question that I'm eager to read the next book in the series. And for anyone afraid to take on an epic like this, I can only say that I found Mike Bond's writing swift, accessible and filled with knowing observations and viewpoints on those monumental times. Overall, a great read. 4 stars (****)
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