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Is Breeden the new Jack Kerouac? It's the summer of 1965 and ten-year-old Tim and his kinfolk--"hillbillies" from southern Illinois--Pop, Uncle Buster, Cousin Velma Pearl, and Aunt Edna
Mae are traveling down Route 66 in a 63' Cadillac. Their destination: Los Angeles for the funeral of Uncle Shirley, Pop's oldest brother. Guest reviewer Cynthia Leal Massey gives the thumbs up to Breeden's new novel.
Reviewed by Cynthia Leal Massey
Stack to the Moon
by David Breeden
Superior Books and CrossroadsPub.com
ISBN for PBK 1-58338-406-5
PBK is $17.00, CD ROM is $9.95, Download is $4.20
181 pages, July, 2000
The order page is http://www.crossroadspub.com/Stack.htm
Never has a novel caused me to laugh out loud in so many public places--in a doctor's office waiting room, in a restaurant--then at a tire shop where
while reading Stack to the Moon by David Breeden, my guffaws prompted another patron to comment as she waved her women's magazine in the air, "Sounds like you're having a better read than I am." I nodded and spent the next few
minutes breathlessly telling her about this gem of a book.
It's the summer of 1965 and ten-year-old Tim and his kinfolk--"hillbillies" from southern Illinois--Pop, Uncle Buster, Cousin Velma Pearl, and Aunt Edna Mae are traveling down Route 66 in a 63' Cadillac. Their destination: Los Angeles for the funeral of Uncle Shirley, Pop's oldest brother. Though they need to make good time to LA, Pop sees no problems picking up hitchhikers along the way. "We got us a extra seat in this here Cadillac," Pop said, "and it's the right thing ta fill it with abody whut's walking'." And this simple
courtesy, or foolhardiness, depending on your way of thinking, is the plot device that keeps this novel moving forward in shifts and starts to it's
unpredictable conclusion.
"I didn't know then, but I would hear many times later, about a young man by the name of James and the adventures which started him about the time Pop's Cadillac zoomed through Oklahoma City. This is the story I'm going to tell you and I hope you'll forgive me once in a while if I pretend to know stuff I don't really know--about what James thought and stuff like that. I just want
to keep you interested," says Tim, the narrator, about the beatnik they pick up just before crossing from Texas into New Mexico.
James, the beatnik, has gotten himself into a bit of trouble--with drugs, armed robbery...that sort of thing--and is a wanted man. Despite his
felonies, you will find yourself sympathetic to James' plight. He is the perfect example of a person being in the wrong place at the wrong time...and that may or may not include being picked up by this family of hillbillies: Aunt Edna May who spouts absurd sayings and inaccurate Bible verses, "You know whut they say, you don't find music inside a dog fence." Uncle Buster who stares at nothing, "But that's the way you want Uncle Buster. You don't want him excited." Pop, who thinks a Cadillac operates best at a hundred
miles an hour. And Cousin Velma Pearl, who's in love with the Beatles and wears awfully tight dresses, "A lot of guys get nervous around Velma Pearl," says the narrator.
With the exception of James, the beatnik, and Tim, the narrator, the characters are somewhat stereotypical...but in the scheme of this novel it
doesn't matter, and in fact, is probably one of it's strengths. Watching James grapple with this family of hillbillies and running from the law is by
turns comic and suspenseful.
Breeden has a gift for dialogue and characterization, and his short titled chapters make this a fast, furious, and funny read. If ever a novel begged to be made into a movie, it is this one. Brad Pitt...have you ever played a
beatnik?
Dr. David Breeden has an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a Ph.D. from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has published five books of poetry and three novels, Another Number with Silver Phoenix Press, Stack to the Moon, and Artistas with Superior Books. He writes
about writing for Inklings and Audiobook Café. He teaches writing and British literature at Schreiner University, in the Texas Hill Country. His work has appeared in such journals as Mississippi Review, Poet Lore, Mid-American Review, The Quarterly, North Atlantic Review, Fine Madness, Folio, The Literary Review, California Quarterly, California Review, Boston
Literary Review, Turnstile, Paragraph, Borderlands, New Texas, and Wormwood
Review. His short film House Whine, funded by the British Columbia Arts Council, just appeared. More about Breeden can be found at www.davidbreeden.com
Reviewer's Bio: Cynthia Leal Massey has 25 years experience as a writer and is on the English adjunct faculty at San Antonio College, in San Antonio, Texas. Prior positions include
working as an editor and writer at a research corporation and as a correspondent for a major San Antonio newspaper. She is also a published
fiction writer. Her website is www.cynthialealmassey.com/fiction/index.htm
Another website that features her work is www.crossroadspub.com/FireLilies.htm
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