≡ PDF To Be Sung Underwater A Novel Tom McNeal 9780316127394 Books

To Be Sung Underwater A Novel Tom McNeal 9780316127394 Books

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To Be Sung Underwater A Novel Tom McNeal 9780316127394 Books

This novel succeeds on so-many levels that it's a pleasure to recommend it without reservation. At its heart is the love affair between Willy, the son of a Nebraska farmer, and Judith, daughter of a divorced couple who moves to rural Nebraska to be with her father for the last two years of high school. The minor characters are all beautifully drawn while the one silent character, beautifully evoked, is nature. We explore the creeks and buttes and hidden swimming holes of the Nebraska country and discover them with the same joy as Judith.

This book is half set in the present and half 25 years ago. We are quickly aware that Judith did not stay with Willy but went to college at Stanford and ultimately ended up as an editor for TV shows. She has acquired a banker husband Malcolm and a bratty teenage daughter. Where and how and why did end life this - and can it be put right? This novel provides the answers to those questions.

As the book begins, the present-day Judith suspects her husband of infidelity and is suddenly aware that her life has failed to fully satisfy her. She constructs a little hideaway in a storage garage, a reconstruction of her Nebraska bedroom. Judith, we learn, opted for professional success and married the kind of man she thought she should marry. After all, Willy was just a teenage love, an immature first love, wasn't he?

Well, he wasn't. It turns out that turning one's back on true love is the biggest mistake one can make and it condemns Judith and Willy not to deep unhappiness - both have children, successful careers and build a life - but to a kind of restless and persistent dissatisfaction - a sense that they have not been able to taste fully all the happiness that life has to offer.

Unfortunately, we can't ever go back and redo our mistakes. But this star-crossed couple will find some kind of ultimate honesty with each other. This book is lyrical and wise and I found it beautiful and moving.


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To Be Sung Underwater A Novel Tom McNeal 9780316127394 Books Reviews

Today is the first day of summer. Summer Solstice....one of my favorite days of the year and I am feeling sad because I have just finished the perfect summer book. Can't help wish that I would of saved this one for my week on the beach later this summer. That's how much I loved "To Be Sung Underwater". This is a big, wonderful novel that the reader literally resides in during the reading experience.Didn't want to put it down. The story is about,Judith,a fortyish,married,mother and film editor who has become jaded and frustrated with the state of her life. She indulges in some pretty luxurious "daydreaming"/revisiting of her experience of "first love" 25 years previously.

Tom McNeal deftly leads us on a journey back in time to Nebraska and Judith's magical summer of love and self discovery and then back once again to Los Angeles as we become familiar with a cast of immaculately drawn characters that are quite flawed and impressively multi dimensional. The beautiful mid western landscape is presented as a vivid protagonist all of its own. It is magnificent. Sometimes while reading I felt like I was reading several short stories...the sub plots were fascinating enough to stand on their own and left me wanting to know more...all of these lovely vignettes were embroidered together in the most skillful writing I have seen in awhile.
Although people of all ages will enjoy this book...I feel those over 40 will especially find themselves treasuring the feelings that this theme evokes. Memory and reflection on ones own past experiences....it is definitely somewhere you want to go on a sweet summer afternoon.
My oversized paperback edition of the novel has five pages of reviews. I read them all, from Library Journal to those by other authors. But nothing prepared me for part three of this unusual love story. Judith and Willy fell in love when Judith was almost 18 and Willy was 24. Willy had been quite the chick magnet, but when he first saw Judith, he knew she would be the love of his life. And she was, as this novel so beautifully portrays. The first two parts of the novel alternate between Judith's growing up in Nebraska, where she lived with her father; and Judith's adult life in Los Angeles, where she seems to be falling apart within the structure of her seemingly perfect life. The pace of the novel is not rapid, as are most of the bestsellers of today. Instead we experience life at a slower, more poignant speed. But McNeal literally slams us with the intensity of the relationship between Judith and Willy, and how after 27 years, they reunite for a most unusual, even extraordinary, time together. I look forward to reading McNeal's other novels. Most superlatives in review sound trite, but this is a story that portrays the very meaning of the word LOVE.
I had read McNeal's earlier book, "Goodnight, Nebraska", and found it fascinating as a character study and picture of life in a rural small town. The author put the reader in the mind and life of a troubled youth who is given the chance to better himself after a rough start in a family with real problems. So I was eager to read another of McNeal's books. This didn't disappoint. His understanding of small town life and the interrelationships of the inhabitants is great. He is skilled in getting into the thoughts and feelings of impulsive, conflicted teens, in particular. I really enjoyed this book, but am only giving it four stars as I didn't particularly like the ending. Somehow the characters didn't mature and behave as I'd expected them to. But, I recommend reading both of these books.
This novel succeeds on so-many levels that it's a pleasure to recommend it without reservation. At its heart is the love affair between Willy, the son of a Nebraska farmer, and Judith, daughter of a divorced couple who moves to rural Nebraska to be with her father for the last two years of high school. The minor characters are all beautifully drawn while the one silent character, beautifully evoked, is nature. We explore the creeks and buttes and hidden swimming holes of the Nebraska country and discover them with the same joy as Judith.

This book is half set in the present and half 25 years ago. We are quickly aware that Judith did not stay with Willy but went to college at Stanford and ultimately ended up as an editor for TV shows. She has acquired a banker husband Malcolm and a bratty teenage daughter. Where and how and why did end life this - and can it be put right? This novel provides the answers to those questions.

As the book begins, the present-day Judith suspects her husband of infidelity and is suddenly aware that her life has failed to fully satisfy her. She constructs a little hideaway in a storage garage, a reconstruction of her Nebraska bedroom. Judith, we learn, opted for professional success and married the kind of man she thought she should marry. After all, Willy was just a teenage love, an immature first love, wasn't he?

Well, he wasn't. It turns out that turning one's back on true love is the biggest mistake one can make and it condemns Judith and Willy not to deep unhappiness - both have children, successful careers and build a life - but to a kind of restless and persistent dissatisfaction - a sense that they have not been able to taste fully all the happiness that life has to offer.

Unfortunately, we can't ever go back and redo our mistakes. But this star-crossed couple will find some kind of ultimate honesty with each other. This book is lyrical and wise and I found it beautiful and moving.