Eureka

July 23, 2007
Spurred on by the sight of a toy he never received as a child, a restless, aging Eureka, Kans., insurance executive relives his youth with disastrous (and hilarious) results in the 17th novel by Lehrer, prolific writer and PBS NewsHour
anchor. Otis Halstead, 59, married father of one, is in the clutches of a midlife crisis spending spree; he dismisses his nagging wife’s pleas that he see a therapist and continues buying items he’s always dreamed of owning: a miniature fire truck (now a collector’s item that goes for $12,000), a BB gun, a football helmet and an antique red Cushman motor scooter. The suicide of disillusioned co-worker Pete Wetmore (who left behind a telling note) provides the impetus for Otis to mount the scooter and leave town. But a steady string of bad luck finds a hospitalized Otis back in Eureka faking a coma to buy time for some heavy, overdue retrospection and one final decision. Calamity gives way to poignancy in this consistently fun story buoyed by an endearing protagonist readers will cheer for.

September 1, 2007
In his 17th novel (after "The Phony Marine"), PBS anchorman Lehrer takes a fun-filled but serious look at the pre-retirement crisis. Approaching his 60th birthday, reliable Otis Holstead reflects on his past life as husband, father, and CEO of an insurance company headquartered in Eureka, KSand mourns the teenager who sang like Johnny Mathis and lost his high school sweetheart to a senior jock with a Cushman scooter. Determined to make the most of his remaining years, Otis runs away from home on a 1952 Cushman, subliminally bought for that purpose. An accident two days into his journey sends Otis to the hospital, where he has plenty of time to tot up his lifetime of gains and losses and plan a more effective escape, as he listens to the idle talk about him and plays mind games with doctors, nurses, family members, and friends. Lehrer has effectively captured the essence of the pre-retirement months and created a wonderfully human character determined to live a life that makes a difference. Recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 6/1/07.]Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2007
Earnest, honest lifelong Kansan Otis Halstead is plodding toward his sixtieth birthday when he impulsively spends $12,000 for a cast-iron toy fire truck he didnt get for Christmas at age five. In short order, he also buys a genuine Red Ryder BB rifle, a Kansas City Chiefs football helmet, and a 1952 Cushman motor scooter. Insurance company CEOs in small-town Kansas simply dont do such things, so his earnest, honest Kansan wife sends him to a psychiatrist. Soon after, he loads the toy fire truck and the BB rifle onto the Cushman, dons his helmet, and heads west. He tells people he meets on the road his name is Buck. For regular readers of newsman Lehrers surprisingly extensive oeuvre, a new book is a welcome event; his seemingly artless but actually sly, winsome, and crafty stories always celebrate the ordinary, confront some elemental issue of being human, offer bittersweet elegies for a past that seems better than the present, and give us characters whose essential decency stays with the reader long after the book begins to gather dust on the shelf. Eureka does all of those things. In fact, it may be Lehrers best novel yet.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)