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    Heading Out to Wonderful
    Heading Out to Wonderful
    Heading Out to Wonderful
    Audiobook9 hours

    Heading Out to Wonderful

    Written by Robert Goolrick

    Narrated by Norman Dietz

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In 1948, a mysterious and charismatic man arrives in a small Virginia town carrying two suitcases-one contains his worldly possessions, the other is full of money. He soon inserts himself into the town#8217;s daily life, taking a job in the local butcher shop and befriending the owner and his wife and their son. But the passion that develops between the man and the wife of the town#8217;s wealthiest citizen sets in motion a series of events that not only upset the quiet town but threaten to destroy both him and the woman.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJun 12, 2012
    ISBN9781611747645
    Heading Out to Wonderful
    Author

    Robert Goolrick

    Robert Goolrick was the author of the bestselling novels A Reliable Wife, Heading Out to Wonderful, The Fall of Princes, The Dying of the Light and the acclaimed memoir The End of the World as We Know It.

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    Reviews for Heading Out to Wonderful

    3.5/5

    233 ratings37 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Browsburg is the traditional American small town: quiet, conservative but full of gossip and secrets. When a stranger comes to town with a set of butcher knives and a suitcase full of money, everyone is interested. Not least of whom is one Sylvan Glass, the beautiful young wife of the richest man in town. Just who is Charlie Beale and what is he doing in Brownsburg?This charmingly narrated story gives such a strong sense of place. Browsburg comes to life and all the characters that live there flower on the page into a thicket of densely packed drama. From the first lines I was transfixed and my fascination continued until the novel's stunning conclusion. A truly haunting portrait of love and possession in small town America.
    • 3/5
      The premise of this book sounded interesting: a man comes to a small town and no one knows who he is or where he's from. As the townspeople start to open up to him, Charlie Beale becomes integral to their lives, including an involvement with a woman, and things are downhill from there. The writing is straightforward, not beautiful yet not sparse. Still, the first portion of the book was so much backstory, with little to no action or emotions, that I wasn't sure I would make it through. Nothing really stood out for me, but every time I decided to stop reading, I'd come back to it. I had to know what happened with Charlie and the woman. This book is worth sticking with. I had several options in mind for how the story would play out, and the actual ending was none of them. The emotions are more prevalent in the second part of the story, and the characters seem more real.
    • 5/5
      i got this book for a book club read.
      i was not disappointed with this purchase.

      i could not put this book down
    • 3/5
      Not as good as the previous novel, The Reliable Wife. It was too dark for me. There were loose ends never tied up as well.
    • 3/5
      I so wanted to rate this higher than three stars but as much as I love Robert Goolrick's prose, I just did not enjoy the story enough to be able to recommend this book to anyone, and that's what makes a book four stars for me.

      As mentioned, Mr. Goolrick has such a beautiful way with words. When I first started reading Heading Out to Wonderful, I was thinking about how reading to me is like eating chocolate, something to be savored. Heading Out to Wonderful is so beautifully descriptive that it made me feel like I was having Godiva and not just ordinary chocolate.

      And then, I really got into the meat of the story (no pun intended since the main character was a butcher). Having read A Reliable Wife and reviews about this book, I knew it was not going to be an uplifting story. I think what makes the tragedy in this just so heartbreaking is that it was based (albeit loosely) on a true story that Mr. Goolrick heard many years ago.

      So, am I glad that I read it, yes. Will I read future books by Mr. Goolrick, probably. But, I do think the next book I pick up will be some romantic fluff just to clear my brain!
    • 4/5
      I loved the writing in this book. "a tiny slice of time in a small town a long time ago." "The river water, the sweet Maury, so fresh and clear, still leaping greenly, the water that flows from the eye of Jesus into the heart of God." So pretty. I liked the story, I loved the characters. I'm not sure I'd have ended it the way Mr. Goolrick did, but it was still a heck of a read.
    • 4/5
      It took a few chapters for the story to really get moving but once it did I found it difficult to put down! I really liked Charlie even though he did some things I wasn't happy about. The ending threw me for a loop, I didn't expect it to end that way! The author wrote that it was based on a true story which made it even more interesting!
    • 2/5

      Spoiler Alert....
      I am relieved to have read the last page and closed the book. My anxiety increased as I turned each page. I became more and more uncomfortable until I realized that given the passion, place and time there could only be one viable ending. This story and it's telling evoked thoughts and emotions I would have preferred to keep buried. The greater tragedy is that this fictitious town in Virginia in 1948 had a real life counterpart in 1972.
    • 4/5
      When Charlie Beale arrives in Brownsville, Virginia in the summer of 1948, his background is a mystery. All that we (and the townspeople) know is that Charlie is trained as a butcher. He goes to work for Will Haislett at the town's only butcher shop and gradually is accepted by the townspeople and by Will's family, especially his 5-year-old son Sam. But a series of events, some caused by Charlie and some outside of his control, set Charlie and the whole town on a path that will upset the delicate balance of their lives. This story kept me turning the pages of this book, but I felt that more could have been done to develop the characters and make their motivations clearer. I was especially disappointed by the ending, which didn't seem to fit with the characters actions up to that point.
    • 2/5
      A mysterious stranger settles in a rural West Virginia town and soon falls in love with another man's wife. Tale told, with some gaping holes, by a 12-year-old boy. The title was better than the story.
    • 4/5
      A small, placid Virginia town in 1948 is the setting for this tale of torching passion. Charlie Beale arrives in town looking for a place to call home. Having wandered for years after the war, something calls to him in Brownsburg that leads him to settle down - first in a field by the river, and later getting a job in the butcher shop and buying his own home. He becomes a second father to the butcher's son Sam, who adores him and follows him everywhere. Charlie is on his way to building a life of approbation and belonging, with the reader following along in appreciation, until he sees Her.She is Sylvan, the beautiful wife of the town's richest and least liked man, Boatie Glass. She is a damaged soul from Blue Ridge poverty, with dreams of glamour and longing for ... something, she isn't sure what.The combination is explosive, and Goodrick leads the reader through it, both through the eyes of Charlie and of Sam. I found the viewpoint of Sam is especially wrenching, in the midst of secrets and drama he cannot understand. Goodrick does a masterful job of telling the story with sympathy for all.Recommended.
    • 4/5
      I read this right after finishing Goolrick's first book, A Reliable Wife. This one was just as well written. Very nuanced characters, none of whom are perfect and all of whom are reaching for something more in their lives. The fact that the something more is really just a little happiness makes it all the more compelling.
      The event that ends the story of the two lovers wasn't entirely to my liking. Not because I don't like what happened; I'm just not sure it was the right move for these characters. Perhaps with more reflection on the small town community, which can be overly familiar, I will change my mind. But the final event was abrupt in terms of storytelling. Then again, violence of this type always is abrupt, so perhaps I was too influenced by the pace of the story to be prepared for the final event.
      At any rate, another excellent novel from Goolrick.
    • 4/5
      Let me tell you something, son. 
When you're young, and you head out to wonderful, everything is fresh and bright as a brand-new penny, 
but before you get to wonderful you're going to have to pass through all right. And when you get to all right, stop and take a good, long look, because that may be as far as you're ever going to go." Thus the story of Charlie Beale begins...a tragic love story in a sleepy small town in Virginia. The character development of Charlie is so define that you fear that the worst will happen when he enters into a love affair with a fantasy woman. Sylvan Glass is a living breathing fantasy made from her image of how a Hollywood starlet is created. As the story progresses you feel for Charlie, Sylvan and Sam, the young boy who is witness to the small town tragedy. Mr. Goolrick's narrative creates a spell that does not stop until the end of the book. My only disappointment was the reader is left with the mystery of where did Charlie's money come from.
    • 4/5
      In spite of the title and the lyrical writing, readers can tell pretty quickly that ultimately something awful is going to happen. A stranger arrives in a small Virginia town soon after the end of World War II, and becomes a local favorite for many reasons. He falls in love with the young woman bought by the wealthiest man in town as his bride, and we just know that no good can come of it. There is small town goodness, race relations, religion, and pettiness all converging on the seemingly inevitable ending.
    • 4/5
      This is a novel from the not long gone, but still days past, and also from the days partly imagined, fashioned with a Holywood movie filter in place. The times past when lives were more singular and the decisions made more grave. One gave in to destiny as if it were true, as if it existed. In a place where love is larger than life itself, and the reason too, and characters cut out sharply in the scorching light of a merciless summer, the mistakes are made but never regretted. One cannot help oneself, one accepts whatever comes next. Lives are broken and ruined without hesitation, without even a thought, as if hit by a natural disaster.I loved the way Goolrick eased us readers into the story like every good storyteller should, by showing us the larger picture of the small town and the country, by setting up the stage for the dramatic love story. It was so good I could almost hear a manly Hollywood movie voice introducing the plot, whispering in my ear, promising terrible, large things, cajoling me into this tragedy.
    • 2/5
      Will be adding the "to wonderful" quote to my collection of quotes to remember, refer to.
      Having trouble rating this book higher, because I had difficulty with things that were never explained, things that didn't fit for me - even in the stretch of "it's fiction".
      However, if I muse on the individual characters and some of the interactions, it is excellent, evocative, and magical in some ways.
      For me, personally, just wish those wonderful characters and locale descriptives could have been fit into a slightly differently slanted story line.
      Later:
      Was going to revise my rating, when discussing with Winston and he asked if this wasn't the standard format for a "tragedy" or like an opera . . .oh, my but they have a zillion twists, turns, traumas, tragedies . . .
      But - - - they come with MUSIC!!!!! and some of it quite good/moving/sometimes 'catchy' even !
      So, on further thought of my further thoughts, going to leave this one at the "it was OK" rating. Wouldn't discourage reading it because segments are very well done. Just don't expect it to make any profound conclusion. Too bad that the great characters that could have been there are about 3 books or 1000 pages short.
      I'm done now.
    • 4/5
      The book opens with a first person narrated introduction to the quiet town of Brownsburg, Va. in 1948. The story begins when Charlie Beale arrives with a suitcase full of cash and a set of butcher knives "sharp as razors", adding one more to the population of 538 people. The story is about a particular town, in a particular time, and a particular place to a particular group of people who belonged to the land. Charlie Beale is not one of those particular people. He is a perpetual outsider, not just because of the nature of Brownsburg, but by his own nature as well. Through out the story we are given clues to his separate nature. One example is his difficulty fitting in at church leading to his identification with the people of the AME church, who didn't particularly want a white man man to join them. Through out the story, Charlie remains a cipher. It is not clear where the suitcase full of cash came from. There is an allusion to an unhappy childhood. The knives are German. And it's not clear where this 40 year old man spent the years of WWII.Another theme in the story are the various types of love. There is love for a child as Charlie takes on his boss's 5 year old son, Sam Haislett. There is neighborly love as the Haisletts hire Charlie in the butcher shop and Alma takes him under her wing. There is filial love, as Charlie's brother Ned comes to help Charlie in his time of need. And there is the forbidden love that Charlie has for Sylvan Glass, the wife of Boaty Glass, the richest and possibly meanest man in town. And there is self love, which is the undoing of all of the others.This exploration of love and motivation are similar to Goolrick's previous book, The Reliable Wife. Both are sinister and somewhat cynical. While The Reliable Wife takes place in wintry Wisconsin and St. Louis, this book is firmly rooted in summer in the Appalachian Mountains with a Southern Gothic atmosphere in the writing.
    • 5/5
      I loved Goolrick's first novel, A Reliable Wife. This second novel, Heading Out to Wonderful, was almost impossible for me to put down -- it combines a plot that really moves along, gorgeous writing, and great character descriptions. For me, a truly unforgettable novel.How Goolrick gives us a sense of time and place, and the mood (pages 8-9 of my trade paperback edition):"Children remember summer best; they feel its pleasures on their skin. The older you get, it's the winters that stay with you, down deep in your bones. Things happen in the winter. People die in February.Children remember staying up late. Grownups think about getting up early.A particular town, then, Brownsburg, in a particular time and place. The notion of being happy didn't occur to most people, it just wasn't something they thought about, and life treated them pretty well, and even though at least two or three men got drunk every week night and slapped their wives and children around and children were punished hard when they were rude or misbehaved, the notion of being unhappy didn't occur much either."
    • 3/5
      A very Southern book. Dark, light, joy, sadness. Memories kept alive so that people we have loved remain with us. Beautifully written but horribly sad. I keep thinking that if it hadn't been for the preachers and their damning words the book might have ended differently, if this had been real life. Life and love, action and consequences.
    • 2/5
      Charlie Beale, a loner, recently home from the war in Europe--wanders into the town of Brownsburg, a sleepy village of only a few hundred people nestled in the Valley of Virginia. He brings with him two suitcases: one contains all his worldly possessions, including a set of butcher's knives; the other is full of money. Charlie quickly finds a job at the local butcher shop and through his work there meets all the townspeople, most notably Sam Haislett, the five-year-old son of the shop's owner; and Sylvan Glass, the beautiful, eccentric teenage bride of the town's richest man. What no one anticipates is how the interaction of these three people will alter the town forever, and how the passion that flares between Charlie and Sylvan will mark young Sam for life. Summary BPLBallad of a sordid affair--who sits their kind boss' trusting 5 year old boy--a boy you profess to love and care for like a son--in a kitchen with crayons and a colouring book while you go upstairs to have sex with someone else's wife?? And asks the 5 year old to lie for him??Beautiful writing, but I couldn't get past what, to me, amounts to child abuse.6 out of 10. For fans of Robert Goolrick
    • 4/5
      I loved A Reliable Wife, Goolrick's previous book. There are almost the same number of one star reviews as there are five stars on Amazon.com for it. It seems to be a book people either love or hate. While I really enjoyed A Reliable Wife, Heading Out to Wonderful is a book I just kinda liked. After reading A Reliable Wife I tried to catch Robert Goolrick at the Miami book fair this past November where he was promoting this book. Alas, too many authors and too little time so we never crossed paths. I would have loved to have gotten my copy of A Reliable wife signed but in retrospect I am glad I didn't shell out the hard cover price of this book. In the end it was better for my pocketbook and overstuffed book shelf that I just checked it in and out of the library. Although A Reliable Wife is allotted a permanent place on my shelf this was just a pass through.In Heading Out to Wonderful, we have Charlie who returns from war and insinuates himself into a small Virginia town. This town is a perfect slice of Americana pie. Everyone knows everyone and they have town oyster festivals and it's wholesome and all that good stuff. Charlie is adopted as a de facto member of the butchers family and he goes about his day cutting up the best cuts of meat anyone has ever eaten and charming the socks off the lady folk. Everything is rolling along until one day in walks Sylvan Glass. She is the teenaged bride of Boaty Glass which is a rather apt name since he is roughly boat sized. When Boaty was in his forties he decided to find himself a bride so he "bought" Sylvan from her dirt poor family and whisked her away to a loveless marriage. Sylvan longs for Hollywood glamour but she is stuck in a hick town. Sylvan and Charlie try to escape their circumstances by starting a relationship with each other. Charlie even tries to incorporate the butcher's young son Sam into his fantasy family. As Charlie becomes more involved in his obsession for Sylvan he become oblivious to the people around him that he is hurting, especially Sam. When Sylvan and Charlie's star crossed love finally explodes the people in the town will be left to suffer the consequences and pick up the pieces.This book reminded me of an Appalachian murder ballad. If you know anything about them you know they don't end well and tend to be rather depressing. I think I was missing some feeling of hope from this book. Even so the story was still beautifully told and I was left with a longing for small town life. Even though the story followed a predictable path I enjoyed it and would pick up Goolrick's subsequent books.
    • 5/5
      In spite of the title, this is not a "Once upon a Time.....happily ever after" fairy tale.Seldom does a book leave me speechless, but when I reluctantly closed this one I was stunned, without words and almost unable to breath. It's slow, measured, every word carefully chosen to craft a story of a small town, of quiet ordinary people trying to live moral lives, of ingrained prejudices and lack of education, of Bible thumping preachers and butchers, and seamstresses and secrets and dreams. It's a story about morals, ethics, cause and effect, truth and consequences.Goolrick tells us the story mostly through the eyes of an old man who reflects back on his town Brownsburg, a town "where no crime had ever been committed... where the terrible American wanting hadn't touched yet, where most people lived a simple life without yearning for things they couldn't have." He tells us of an ill-fated illicit love affair between a strong minded and introverted young man Charlie, and the Hollywood obsessed beautiful young wife of the town bully. As their affair develops, they unwittingly involve Sam, the six year old young son of the town butcher, swearing him to secrecy. Sam has hero-worshipped Charlie from the day he arrived to work in his father's butcher shop and even now, sixty years later, still seems to be putting together the pieces of what happened as he relates the story.There are really two stories here. The author unfolds each slowly tantalizing the reader with possibilities. Charlie's story, which is ultimately Sam's story, is told alongside the life and dreams of Sylvan Glass, a young woman sold into marriage when she was sixteen by a father who wanted security for the rest of his family to to the town bully, a man who wanted a trophy. Once Sylvan walks into the butcher shop, dressed in movie star finery, and once Charlie sees her, the illicit relationship marches inexorably to a conclusion worthy of the movies Sylvan is so in love with.Goolrick's prose is spare but poetic; it paints a vivid picture of a seemingly idyllic life resting on secrets, immune to modernity, and destined to hold the reader's attention from beginning to end. To more about the plot or the characters wrapped into it would be to spoil one of the best reading experiences available today. I haven't read Goolrick's earlier work but he is certainly going onto my list of authors to search out.
    • 3/5
      Heading Out to Wonderful. Robert Goolrick. 2012. Goolrick also wrote The Reliable Wife which I enjoyed to a certain extent. And I feel the same way about this book: it is readable and suspenseful but it is not a great novel. The plots of both of them involve wonderful love stories that are doomed from the beginning and are mired in violence and adultery. This book is beautifully written. I guess it would have been too much like a Walton’s Mountain story if our character had fallen in love with a married woman. You know from the beginning that this story will not end well, but you keeping and hoping.
    • 5/5
      By the same author of "A Reliable Wife" who has written just as compelling and strong a book as that one in telling the story of Charlie Beale who arrives in his pick-up, two suitcases to his name and a set of butcher knives, and nothing else, in the small Virginia town of Brownsburg that nestles in the foothills of Appalachia. Filled with a longing he can’t identify, he puts down roots, camping by the Maury River, bathing in its waters, and sleeping under the stars.Brownsburg is filled with good people, including Will, the butcher, his wife, Alma, the Latin teacher at the one school, and their young son, Sam, who loves baseball and comes to worship Charlie after he sees him play at the annual Methodist oyster festival.But even an idyllic Eden has its snake. Harrison Boatwright Glass (Boaty) is obese, mean, greedy, and married to the beautiful mountain girl. Sylvan, whom he bought from her parents for a couple thousand dollars and a new tractor when he was 48 and she was 17. Then, one day, Sylvan goes to the butcher shop to see for herself who the new man in town is. She’s dressed like a movie star down to the sunglasses and so beautiful that Charlie is dumbstruck. It takes one encounter in the butcher shop for Charlie’s life to change. Another encounter at the oyster festival in the presence of Sam for Charlie and Sylvan to know they’re destined to become lovers, and less than a year for it all to end in tragedy.The fragility of wonderfulness, the dire consequences that comes to people who dream and believe their reality can be like what they see in the movies, and the nature of man – even good men – is the nature of sin are Goolrick’s themes – ones he revisits from "A Reliable Wife."The novel is beautiful, written in lyric haunting prose; the story is simply and straightforwardly told, inexorable is a better word. Goolrick is a master at revealing how forbidden love is so powerful that it can twist a soul and change a person into someone unrecognizable, especially to themselves.
    • 4/5
      Russian playwright Anton Chekhov famously said that if you place a loaded gun on the mantle in the first act, the gun had better go off or there was no purpose in the gun being there in the first place. (I acknowledge that this is a gross paraphrasing but the truth behind the statement is intact.) Robert Goolrick has obviously internalized this maxim and uses it to impressive effect in his latest novel, Heading Out to Wonderful.Charlie Beale is a stranger to the small, peaceful Virginia town of Brownsburg when he arrives with his truck, his set of butcher knives, and a suitcase full of cash. He starts by camping out by the river and deciding if this closed and somewhat xenophobic place is where he wants to put down roots now that he's back from fighting in WWII. And strangely enough, he does want to stay in this place that is initially less than welcoming, asking local butcher Will Haislett to hire him on, buying up land and eventually a house, and befriending Will and his wife Alma's five year old son Sam along the way to winning over the rest of the town.Charlie, nicknamed Beebo by Sam, seems to have no past, at least no past he's willing to share, but he is a decent man and finds himself being folded into the life of the town, accepted and liked by everyone. And everything seems wonderful until he spies the beautiful, teenaged Sylvan Glass with whom he is instantly captivated. Unfortunately, Sylvan is married to the town's wealthiest and meanest man, Boaty Glass, who essentially bought his child bride, bringing her from her poor, hardscrabble existence in a mountain holler to be his trophy in a town not quite willing to accept her. Charlie, as another outsider, falls hard for Sylvan and although at times she seems almost diffident about him, they are fated and their inevitable ending was written the first time Charlie clapped eyes on her.Goolrick has created a masterfully atmospheric novel here. Even before any conflict occurs and everything is seemingly perfect in this fictional world, there is an undercurrent of menace and foreboding, a dark intensity to the tale that makes the reader alert to the cracks in the facade of innocence and idyll. Narrated sixty years on from the main events of the tale by Sam, who was present for more of the story than anyone else in the book besides his beloved Beebo, this is a novel of desperate love, betrayal, mystery, and obsession. Charlie remains a cipher throughout the novel but even so he charms the reader as much as he charms the inhabitants of Brownsburg. Sylvan is distant and lonely and trapped by her past. Her method of coping, through fashion and the movies, is pitiable. The important secondary characters are intriguing, especially in the ways they face the main plot development. And what an unexpected development it is! Goolrick leads the reader, ratcheting up the tension slowly but steadily, as things between Charlie and Sylvan get more and more complicated, even as they are always bound and governed by outside forces, until the final shocking denouement, a plot twist that threatens to unravel much of the town. Richly detailed and completely engrossing, there is no doubt from the beginning that the book cannot contain a happily ever after. That gun casually placed on the mantle must go off. And Goolrick's aim here is nothing but true.
    • 5/5
      I read this book last night and it shattered me. The whole time I read it, I was filled with trepidation, not sure if I wanted to go further. Everything was so idyllic, perfect, you just knew something was going to happen. Like the Robert Frost poem, nothing gold can stay. I even had to tweet Jennifer at The Relentless Reader I was so nervous!! And here is the tricky thing - everything in the book was going swimmingly. I had no reason to be anxious, but Goolrick has a way of creating an atmosphere, and although all was wonderful, it was an ominous wonderful. Charlie Beale arrives in town,a stranger and a drifter living out of his truck on the land he had purchased. He enjoys a cigarette and a glass of whiskey before bed, and never fails to write in his diary. He is a butcher who cares about the animals he slaughters not wanting them to experience fear. He gets a job at the local store as a butcher, and befriends the owners, Willie and Alma, and their son Sam. Within a short time, Charlie becomes beloved. His relationship with Sam evolves into one close to that of father and son, and Charlie would never do anything to hurt Sam. Charlie possesses a mastery of whatever he decides to do, and for a while, that is just being a good citizen of Brownsburg. And then Sylvan waltzes into his life, and it all goes to hell.I had a crush on Charlie, like all the residents of Brownsburg. I thought I understood him, although we know next to nothing about who he was before he came to Brownsburg, what he did, where he got his money. Love will certainly mess a person up! He started doing things that I was uncomfortable with, I trusted him less as a character. I was hoping for redemption, but what I got blew my mind! I was so emotionally involved in this book, I am tired out today. Charlie Beale is a character I will think about for a long time. If anyone has read this, and wants to talk about it, feel free to email me! I want to avoid spoilers. I would tell anyone to read this book.
    • 4/5
      Robert Goolrick is a great writer he knows how to turn a phrase and his descriptions are always lush. I read the Reliable Wife when it first came out it was an odd story but well written and a book that stuck with me much longer than I expected it to and I actually liked The Reliable Wife the longer I was away from it and I think this one may end up the same way. So, I had high hopes for this book expecting and getting Goolricks fantastic writing but the story was a much slower simmer than I expected it to be, it made me sit on the edge of my seat not from the story really, but in the waiting for the other shoe to drop, you just know something bad is coming.I am not sure how I felt about Charlie dragging this little boy along with him on his trysts, I don’t understand why he took him along it’s not like it was his child. I think what he put the little boy through was worse than anything else Charlie did. Another story from this author that I think will stick with me awhile and probably will end up liking more the farther away I am from it. But I think that is the genius of Goolrick he is an amazing writer but his books are never easy but they will touch you and stay with you even if you didn’t totally love the book.Norman Dietz is the narrator of this one and I’m just not sure what I thought of him; all of his voices sounded like old men, including the little boy and the women. But he fit the book well, so I am not saying he was awful it was just his variations on voices weren’t that different. I hope that makes sense. If you haven’t read Goolrick’s biography – “The End of the World as we Know It” you won’t see how biographical Goolrick’s work is. I think to really “get” his fiction you should read his biography.3 ½ StarsI received this book from Audiojukebox Solid Gold Reviewer Program for a fair and honest review
    • 4/5
      Charlie Beale comes to Brownsburg Virginia where he becomes the butcher's assistant and friend, and becomes a second father Will,the butcher's, son Sam. He falls in love with Sylvan, Boaty's wife and eventually she accuses him of rape at her husband's instigation. Very convoluted and sometimes confusing, but characters are well developed.
    • 4/5
      A Reliable Wife was so startling that it was unlikely the sophomore effort would equal it, but this was a worthy summer read. The vivid word pictures of the Virginia setting after WW II is more riveting than the mysterious male lead and the female main character is pretty unlikeable despite her unusual background. Too much emphasis on physical beauty, as in the first one. But give it a try for the descriptions of beautifual country that is surely a lot harder to find now.
    • 5/5
      A beautifully written novel that I've heard some people say reminds them of an old folk ballad. It's beautifully sung and skillfully realized but you know it's going to end in tragedy. I've had the privilege of meeting Mr. Goolrick when A Realiable Wife was first released in paperback. He is a great guy and so honest about his writing. Absorbing characters and an involving story make this book a must...especially for reading groups. Can you tell how much I like it?