Sarah Collins Honenberger

I wish our book club would read this book, because I would love to argue with someone about it. Fifteen-year-old Daniel Solstice Landon tells this first person story about the last year of his young life after he is diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. His hippie parents, especially his mother, do not want to follow the advice of the medical establishment, so they pull him out of school and he spends most of his time stuck on their houseboat, trying to connect with his friends and especially his new girlfriend, Meredith.

I was really looking forward to this story, especially the references to The Catcher in the Rye, but less than halfway through the narrative fizzled out and I had to force myself to finish. I wasn’t hoping for something as formulaic as a Jodi Picoult novel (My Sister’s Keeper for example), but I was looking for more depth of emotion from the narrator. This is the part where discussing it in book club would come in handy: I don’t expect a lot of depth and introspection from a teenage boy, but I wanted a lot more than was displayed here. Especially from someone who adopts Holden Caulfield, that black ball of teenage rage, as his role model. I find it impossible to say more without being snarky, but there were many, many things about the plot that I found highly implausible.
… (més)

Fifteen year old Daniel Landon tells his own story since he has been diagnosed with leukaemia and given just one year to live. Daniel is a bright boy, and while his anti-establishment hippie parents being suspicious of Doctors' intentions are intent on pursuing a course of natural treatment for Dan, he begins to question their insistence on the avoidance of the obvious treatments, and eventually takes matters into his own hands. Encouraged by his literary hero, Holden Caulfield of J D Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, whom he defers to at every turn, he eventually heads off for New York from his sleepy Virginia home town of Tappahannock to seek his own solutions.

Through the course of the account in addition to getting to know Dan very well we get to know his parents, his younger brother Nick and older brother Joe, his best friend Mack and the twin girls who move in next door to Mack, one of whom Dan gets to know very well. Dan's narrative is honest and revealing, both about himself and others, if he speaks often with a voice more mature than one would expect for a fifteen year old boy we can forgive him for the warmth and candour his words convey.

Reading Catcher in the Rye is not a prerequisite for enjoying this book - I read it so long ago in the early 1960s that while it remains with me as a landmark book I have forgotten its content (but I will have to read it again now!) - although it does provide a framework for Catcher, Caught; at least I can remember Holden's character which is perhaps what is most important.

I found Catcher, Caught an engrossing read, Dan is a most endearing character, his laid back father and high strung mother set each other off well, and his brothers who clearly love him but at the same time give him no slack despite his illness are convincing; and his relationship with one of the twin girls is touching for its sincerity. Catcher, Caught is a moving and believable read.… (més)

When I first started this book written by a fellow Virginian, whom I had just met, I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but boy, was I wrong. Honenberger pulls you right into the middle of this father/son relationship and keeps you turning the pages! Her description of Rhue's love of horses is so intense you feel it. His abandonment of wife and baby, and subsequent sad, broken relationship with his grown son, Ford, is the theme of the story.

We meet the 40-year-old Ford in NY city at the same time he's meeting a new love, Evie. Through their poignant relationship, both afraid of commitment, Ford discovers he is ready to forgive his father for abandoning him years before. And Rhue, after meeting up with a series of most unlikely characters who lead him through a series of experiences that only an old waltzing cowboy could tolerate, manages to find his way to his son's door. Although the climax is thumbnail, it is enough. A good read and a happy one.… (més)