Boomer
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by Jim Olson
Price: $11.95
Book Website: http://www.edenvaleglenpublishing.com
392 Pages, Paperback, Select Trim Size
ISBN-10: 1-4243-2988-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-4243-2988-5
Friends are forever and family ties binding. So it would seem for Eugene Boomer, as he and his four friends, Sticks, Gracie, Fud and Pastor Jim Bob frolic through childhood and adolescence. Theirs is the silly and carefree life we wish for all our children. And if only it could prepare them for the harsher life beyond.
Friends and family fall victim to the turbulence of the 60s. Boomer’s relationships are battered by the choices he makes and by events he can’t control, particularly the Vietnam War.
Beyond middle age, he is drawn out of his self-imposed isolation and back to the gentle joys of his boyhood.
Boomer is the story of a lifetime, the joys and tragedies, the things that are destroyed and the surprising ones that survive and return.
Boomer is an allegory of a generation born from the euphoria of one war's end, and scarred by its bloody involvement in another.
About The Author
Jim Olson lives in Eden Prairie with his wife of 42 years, Judy. After teaching English and drama for 30 years in the Osseo Minnesota school district, Jim retired in 2000. "Teaching was a wonderful profession, which gave me a lifetime of memories, adventures and accomplishments. In retirement I am on my second lifetime, equally interesting and filled with adventure."
"Everything in my life shows up somehow in Boomer.
"At the heart is growing up in a small, Midwestern town, Jackson, Minnesota. I had the kind of friends that Boomer has and we did the silly kinds of things that they do.
"At the head are my years of teaching. One year I did an exchange where I swapped lives for a year with a teacher from Oxford England. On my first day of classes there, one young lad raised his hand and asked, 'Mr. Olson, how are you going to teach us English. You can't even speak it.' This and other humbling experiences with my students have given me a healthy respect for variety and richness and difficulties of language.
"At the soul is my year in Vietnam. While my tour there was not the turbulent one faced by many of my fellow soldiers, that event has stayed at the very center of my life's experience. It has defined me politically, and has shaped my ethical and religious development. I truly believe that no other event has so defined and occupied my generation."
Reviews
Reader responses:
"I finished reading Boomer and ended it sobbing. It broke my heart that the carefree boys ended up with so many cares as adults. Since I'm a boomer and had the carefree childhood, I suppose I was also crying for myself." Tina Grivna
"I've just finished your book and wanted you to know how much I enjoyed it. It evoked lots of very powerful emotions and will appeal to a wide public. And will Mrs. Hemseth feature in the sequel?" Francis Josephs
"The story jolted my memories of growing up and facing the uncertainties that we went through during that period. Relationships do make a difference and also the choices we make... I'm a little melancholy today." Susan Larson
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