Review by Booklist Review
Set in the mid- and late twentieth century, Terrell's uneven second novel is narrated by Missourian Jack Acheson, who spent his formative years in the shadow of his father, Alton, a man singularly obsessed with building a suburban empire amid the cornfields of rural Kings County. Young Jack was both accomplice and witness to his father's dubious displays (Alton once shot a series of golf balls onto the sprawling property surrounding his boss' residence, after the man refused to return his calls). Alas, the majority of Alton's endeavors weren't nearly so benign: conspiring with the local crime family, using racial covenants to ghettoize the city's black community. Jack also kept company with a colorful group of friends, including green-eyed Geanie, the bright, brazen daughter of his father's boss. As time passes, Jack must face up to his father's legacy, manifested in the metropolitan nightmare his hometown has become. Kansas City native Terrell ( The Huntsman) is at his best describing Jack's trials and tribulations, which are infinitely more interesting than his heartfelt but lecturing accounts of urban development and decay. --Allison Block Copyright 2005 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
In his second novel (after The Huntsman), Terrell uses the first person to tell the coming-of-age story of Jack Acheson. Jack's father, the colorful Alton Acheson, yearns to be one of Kansas City's (MO) real estate movers and shakers during a time of suburban expansion and schemes his way into land and property deals-often calling upon his son and wife to be fellow conspirators. While Jack's intelligence and healthy skepticism help keep him above the fray, he nevertheless falls for Geanie Bowen, granddaughter of his father's nemesis, who becomes a lifelong challenge. Terrell is an astute, sensitive, and funny writer with the ability to pull readers into the story even when geographic details and complexities threaten to overwhelm it. All the characters ring true, as does the analysis of a city deteriorating after white upper-middle-class residents flee to the suburbs, lured by the designs of unscrupulous real estate magnates. Highly recommended.-Maureen Neville, Trenton P.L., NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Terrell (The Huntsman, 2001) returns with a powerful story about the birth of the suburbs and the death of the American dream. Jack Acheson is a quietly observant kid, and if he's wise beyond his years, it's because he's blessed--or cursed--with a father who refuses to treat him like a child. Privy to the outsized dreams and underhanded dealings of Alton Acheson, Jack becomes his father's chronicler. His story begins with the birth of the Interstate Highway in the 1950s, and it spans the last decades of the 20th century. A student of Gilded Age titans, Alton has special regard for Thomas Durant, the man who built the Transcontinental Railroad and--more importantly--purchased the land aongside it. When he sees his own chance for greatness in the new highway, he forms an alliance with revered Kansas City developer Prudential Bowen to buy Kings County farmland on the cheap and turn it into luxury housing and shopping centers for the new American commuter. Alton is a confidence man par excellence--a brilliant huckster and an individual with absolute faith in himself. A big man with long, blond hair and a fondness for pastel suits, Alton is a blithely conspicuous loudmouth and a constant source of mortification for his adolescent son. He's also a spectacularly appealing character, able to turn nearly everyone around him--his son, his wife, his friends--into willing (if occasionally uneasy) accomplices. A clear-eyed visionary, Alton not only anticipates school desegregation and white flight, he depends on it. The fatal flaw in his scheme is not his amoral calculation, but his miscalculation: By the time bussing comes to Kansas City, Alton's already been forced to trade his rich suburban acres for tenement buildings in a dying metropolis. An honest and unsentimental post mortem for America's cities, this is also a moving and original coming-of-age story. A grand work of fiction, epic in scope and intimate in detail. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
