Ancient Highway

April 7, 2008
Lott picks up the themes that dominated his 1999 Oprah Book Club Selection, Jewel
, in this multigenerational saga. In 1927, 14-year-old Earl Holmes runs away from his unhappy home in Hawkins, Tex., for Hollywood to become a movie star. But poor bumpkin Earl has better luck in marrying big band singer Saralee Kennedy than he ever does building his acting résumé. Earl and Saralee's only child, Joan, grows up to resent her father's dogged pursuit of a practically nonexistent film career at the expense of his family's happiness. She has plenty of her own residual problems by the time she has her son, Brad, who joins the navy and returns in 1980 to live with his grandparents, Earl and Saralee, in L.A. Estranged from Joan, Brad takes it upon himself to heal the family's rifts. The colorful off-camera anecdotes of filmmaking are gems, particularly how Earl lands a bit role in a forgettable Three Stooges skit. This chronicle of the Holmes family is sluggish in spots, but Lott's handling of characters and domestic conflicts picks up for readers who stick through the first act.

July 15, 2008
Recent Fulbright scholar and celebrated author Lott (e.g., "Jewel") here shows how one man's aspirations to become a famous Hollywood actor reverberate over three generations. In 1927, handsome Earl Holmes runs away from his Texas home at age 14 to Southern California. Some years later, after he has married budding, talented songstress Saralee Kennedy, his schemes to make it in the entertainment industry affect his young daughter, Joan. Years pass again, and Joan's twentysomething son, Brad, fresh off the boat after six years in the navy in Southeast Asia, arrives at Earl and Saralee's Southern California home to try to find direction in his life. As the novel moves among the experiences of these three characters, a story unfolds about how people, when feeling misunderstood and unloved by those they love, sometimes turn away in bitterness, and this causes years of hurt and unforgiveness to fester. Breaking such a stalemate requires courage. Written with a distinctive sense of emotional resonance, this novel reveals complex personal truths that feel authentic. Highly recommended for all library fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 3/1/08.]M. Neville, Trenton P.L.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2008
Lott is at his best writing about ordinary working people whose lives fall short of their expectations, andhere he describes three members of a multigenerational family with issues of truth and illusion. At 11, Earl Holmes falls in love with the "flickers," and at 14, he leaves his unhappy Texas home for Hollywood. Scrambling for parts, the handsome Earl continues his "sidewalk screen tests" in hopes of being seen after marrying singer Saralee Kennedy. Their only child, Joan, feeling surrounded by her parents secret pasts and exploited for her fathers future, flees to make an unwise marriage, becoming estranged from her son, Brad, who runs away to the navy while remaining close to his grandparents. Lott mixes persons and chronology in the stories of Earl, Joan, and Brad, tying them together in a sad yet hopeful reconciliation. The real strength of this booklies in its vivid set pieces, among them Brads observation of Vietnamese evacuees on the deck of his ship and Earls getting a bit part in a Three Stooges short; the strength of such pieces alone is worth the price.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)