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Rocket Man

by William Elliott Hazelgrove (Goodreads Author)

3.15 of 5 stars 3.15 · rating details · 68 ratings · 43 reviews

COUNTDOWN TO LAUNCH...
Dale Hammer is trying to find his part of the American Dream. But he just can't keep up. In a story of hilarious consequences, we find Dale in one week accussed of cutting down the sign to his subivision, plagued with a father who has come to live over his garage, and on the hook for being the Rocket Man of his son's Scout Troop. While the price of th...more

Paperback/Kindle, 380 pages

Published December 1st 2008 by Pantonne Press Inc.

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Dec 28, 2008 Lanette rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

I really wanted to like this book. I won it here on Goodreads through the first-reads giveaway, and I was hoping to be able to sing its praises.

Unfortunately, I have two pet peeves in this life. The first is stupid people who repeatedly make bad decisions. The second is unnecessary cursing. This book was loaded with both.

Dale, the main character, is a worthless troll. It was impossible to find ANYTHING to respect about this man, and therefore I truly didn't care what happened to him... or his aw...more

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Nov 14, 2008 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

William Elliott Hazelgrove’s Rocket Man is a first rate voice-driven black comedy. It is very funny and very engaging, one of those books I was happy to plough through in a couple of sittings, but Rocket Man has a lot more going on than its excellent entertainment value. It’s protagonist, Dale Hammer is a failing (or possibly failed) novelist who has abandoned his beloved Chicago neighborhood for a generic suburb in order to live out the most banal iteration of the American dream – the big house...more William Elliott Hazelgrove’s Rocket Man is a first rate voice-driven black comedy. It is very funny and very engaging, one of those books I was happy to plough through in a couple of sittings, but Rocket Man has a lot more going on than its excellent entertainment value. It’s protagonist, Dale Hammer is a failing (or possibly failed) novelist who has abandoned his beloved Chicago neighborhood for a generic suburb in order to live out the most banal iteration of the American dream – the big house and the big car. That there is a link between Dale’s inability to write and his environment is more implied than stated, but I think that at the heart of this novel is the assertion that the real American dream – that of being self-made and maintaining individuality under the pressure of conformity – is what gets crushed by the pursuit of the empty and material products we are programmed to desire.

Dale is unambiguously his own worst enemy, placing himself in situations that are self-destructively calculated to unbalance his already precarious situation. He cannot afford his house, he antagonizes his neighbors, he doesn’t maintain a run-down rental property, and he refuses to fulfill the most basic responsibilities he has taken on in heading up his son’s Cub Scout rocket day. As things do in this sort of novel, one mistake piles upon another. On top of that, Dale is surrounded by a number of outrageous characters. In a Curb Your Enthusiasm sort of way, Dale may behave badly, but everyone else behaves worse. The secondary characters – Dale’s father, his wife, his neighbors, his son’s teachers, his clients as a mortgage broker – often threaten to veer off into the absurd, but when the novel takes a detour from verisimilitude, it more than compensates in humor and entertainment. Anyhow, verisimilitude, in my opinion, is overrated. Anyone can say, “people don’t really talk that way,” but hardly anyone can write a book this good. I’ll definitely be checking out Hazelgrove’s back list.
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Dec 26, 2008 Kate rated it 2 of 5 stars

Wow. This book was a disappointment. I wanted to like it, after all I’m an angst ridden writer, living in a far off gated community, with serious back-to-the-city envy. I am Dale, and I hated him.

He was whiney and angry for no particular reason. His complaints grated on me and were ridiculously repetitive. Plus, the idea that they allowed him to be “rocket man” felt contrived at best. The book opens with him drunk driving through a field. If nothing else, we suburbanites are ridiculously over pr...more

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Dec 21, 2008 Angela rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: given-away

Dale Hammer is a struggling writer who has moved his family to the suburbs in search of the American Dream. Rather than finding suburban bliss, Dale is unable to hold his life together as he faces financial problems, marriage problems, and his failures as a father.

While many reviews of Rocket Man have referred to the book as humorous, I failed to see the humor in Dale Hammer's tremendous failures as a husband and father. (Although to be fair I didn't *get* the humor in The Nanny Diaries or The D...more Dale Hammer is a struggling writer who has moved his family to the suburbs in search of the American Dream. Rather than finding suburban bliss, Dale is unable to hold his life together as he faces financial problems, marriage problems, and his failures as a father.

While many reviews of Rocket Man have referred to the book as humorous, I failed to see the humor in Dale Hammer's tremendous failures as a husband and father. (Although to be fair I didn't *get* the humor in The Nanny Diaries or The Devil Wears Prada either.) Dale is not a very likable or sympathetic character because it is clear that many of his problems stem from his own actions and attitude. At the same time, Dale is examining his life and sees his failures yet is unable to change his course - like a train wreck that one sees coming but is unable to prevent.

My favorite character in the book was actually Dale Hammer, Sr. because he is essentially my father in law with a southern accent. Dale Sr. is also a tremendous failure but the difference is that he has a spark of life that the main character is lacking. Despite Dale Sr.'s problems he continues to move forward with a vigorous new plan. He is loud, crude, and demands attention - a true salesman in all areas of his life.

Rocket Man is an engaging look at the illusion that is the American Dream. The book is also incredibly timely with the collapse of the housing market and current economic conditions that have many people struggling to maintain their customary lifestyle in the face of financial difficulties. The events of the book are occasionally interrupted by Dale's contemplations of his current situation. While these scenes allow readers to understand Dale's thoughts and motivations, the inner monologues come across as a bit pretentious - would such an epic failure as Dale really be that aware of his own life?

As a novel in the literary/general fiction category, which is outside of my usual scope of reading, I enjoyed Rocket Man more than I expected I would. One caveat - the book does contain quite a bit of foul language which could turn some people off to the story.

Thank you to William Elliott Hazelgrove and Pantonne Press for sending me an Advance Review Copy of Rocket Man.

Find this review and more at http://librarygirlreads.blogspot.com (less)

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Dec 02, 2008 Marcy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: early-reviewer

I received and Early Reviewer's copy of Rocket Man by William Elliott Hazelgrove through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. In general I am predisposed to like these books because I had some initial interest in reading it based on the description and that was certainly the case with this book. I was quite pleased that I was chosed to receive this book. Unfortunately this book did not live up to my expectations at all.

Rocket Man is a story of middle-aged, middle class white men's angst. It...more

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May 08, 2013 Shelly Itkin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dale Hammer is a forty six year old man who is married to Wendy, a lawyer but now a stay at home mom for their two children Dale, Jr. and Angela.

When Dale was growing up one of his fondest memories is launching a rocket with his dad, so now we know where the title comes from.

Wendy and Dale decided to move from Oak Park to Hazelgrove to a big house with a large mortgage, plus additional expenses. Dale had been a successful author five years ago and he is expecting to continue to do the same to su...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Philip rated it 5 of 5 stars

Rocket Man by William Hazelgrove is not a good novel: it is unequivocally a great one. Many writers attempt to portray contemporary society, mixing social comment and empathetic life stories with expressions and interpretations of culture, but few succeed. Often the result is an admixture of what the writer wants to say carried on a vehicle of plot too flimsy to carry it, or a merely impressionistic view of events devoid of significance. In the case of Rocket Man, William Hazelgrove’s portrayal...more Rocket Man by William Hazelgrove is not a good novel: it is unequivocally a great one. Many writers attempt to portray contemporary society, mixing social comment and empathetic life stories with expressions and interpretations of culture, but few succeed. Often the result is an admixture of what the writer wants to say carried on a vehicle of plot too flimsy to carry it, or a merely impressionistic view of events devoid of significance. In the case of Rocket Man, William Hazelgrove’s portrayal of contemporary society is so convincing, so perfectly apposite that the reader almost becomes a participant. The author mixes tragedy and humour, wit and literary invention, observation and opinion, reality and farce into a completely seamless portrayal of competitive suburbia, where battles can be fought across driveways, as ongoing wars are pursued in the lounge. Domestic reality becomes fiction, but presents a picture that is almost more real than fact. Rocket Man is thus an almost complete literary achievement.

Dale Hammer is himself a novelist. His books, once critically acclaimed, he tells us, have fallen from fashion and are now also largely out of print. Their existence can be traced to thumbed copies on Dale’s shelves and via increasingly oblique references on the internet, where they lie in lists, second hand and largely unwanted. Dale devotes himself full time to writing, but nothing new has emerged from his disaster area of a study for some time and even those who were once enthusiastic about his work have now either forgotten it or grown old enough now to worry only about themselves.

Dale is forty-six and is married to Wendy. Like all Americans, he has his dream, as Wendy has hers. They have two children and do not always see eye-to-eye. Dale Junior is ten, and Angela, five. Dale Junior likes his sports and his Boy Scouts, but seems to do less well at school than he or his parents would like. Angela usually has her own way, but reality often interrupts the dream, it seems. Wendy sometimes seems rather oblivious to crises and seems to defer to her husband whenever possible, especially when she is looking for someone to blame. Dale, however, usually lacks competence, despite his apparently limitless faith in his own abilities, abilities that others often find hard to recognise. Though he tries hard, he is often ever so slightly misdirected by himself and thus accomplishes things he did not quite intend, usually to his detriment.

The title refers to Dale’s adopted responsibility to act the role of chief launcher of the traditional rockets at an upcoming Boy Scout jamboree. It’s a major social event in Charleston’s suburbia, as it nestles newly-developed and mock-rurally near Chicago. And Rocket Man is a role that commands respect, and thus demands competence. Thus there are doubts, not least within Dale himself, as to whether this year’s choice of operative is quite up to the task.

Dale and Wendy are really city types, used to Oak Park, an area that has its share of problems, safety-issues, drug use, poor schools and the like. As an inner city, it’s as stereotypical as Charleston might pretend to the suburban, the latter boasting exaggerated safety, smart cars and overtly expressed community that is really a skin around a scrum of individual competition. Wendy in particular wanted the move, preferring something more substantial now that the kids were growing up, something more respectable, perhaps, now that she and Dale had achieved middle age, a term they themselves probably shunned until its sheer inevitability finally demanded acceptance. Overall, the suburbs offered a salubrious safety, a state that Wendy came to desire, a state that years ago she had rejected when she married Dale, believing that life with him would never be dull. So off to Charleston they went, to a big house with a big mortgage, an aging SUV and neighbours who at least appear to claim greater stability than the Hammers. Dale was to write full time, while Wendy pursued her own work. To make ends meet, or at least to bring them a little closer, Dale took up brokering on commission. This meant dealing with the public.

Dale’s father turns up. He has been thrown out again. He has also lost his job. Dale Senior seems almost to have walked straight out of John Updike, and rabbits around the single lady across the road, as his Jaguar is repossessed. The other son, Elliott and his African American wife appear, sincerely concerned about dad now having to live over a garage. They, as academics, have more space and comfort. Dale’s in-laws also visit, and open war breaks out as attitudes and assumptions clash, but only as a result of the best of intentions, which really are just euphemisms for self-interest.

So what is so special about Rocket Man that merits such high praise? The answer to that is nothing. Like all great achievements, Rocket Man raises the mundane to the special by encouraging us to participate. These characters could pontificate about the state of the economy, about contemporary values, about the nature of society, but they don’t have to because they are alive, and we, for a while, live alongside them, sharing their concerns, concerning ourselves with them. We thus become participants in their lives and the experience is so real that we, ourselves, experience the issues that affect them. The result is a riveting and enlightening read. It owes much to Updike, with the raw sex replaced by liberal helpings of wit, humour and irony. Rocket Man is without a shadow of doubt a masterpiece of modern literature and deserves to fly very high indeed.
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Mar 25, 2013 Kacunnin rated it 4 of 5 stars

What does it mean to be a white, middle-aged, free-thinking liberal living the post-recession American Dream? In William Hazelgrove’s darkly satiric ROCKET MAN, it means being lost in the wasteland of suburbia, where the “Dreamers” wear blinders to obscure the wreckage of the world in which they live. Dale Hammer is in his forties, with a stay-at-home wife (a former lawyer) and their two precocious kids. Unfortunately, Dale is pretty much a useless loser – he was once a successful novelist, but...more What does it mean to be a white, middle-aged, free-thinking liberal living the post-recession American Dream? In William Hazelgrove’s darkly satiric ROCKET MAN, it means being lost in the wasteland of suburbia, where the “Dreamers” wear blinders to obscure the wreckage of the world in which they live. Dale Hammer is in his forties, with a stay-at-home wife (a former lawyer) and their two precocious kids. Unfortunately, Dale is pretty much a useless loser – he was once a successful novelist, but that was a decade ago. Now, he makes a paltry living by renting apartments to seedy tenants and selling expensive mortgages to people with bad credit. In other words, he’s a slumlord living in an overblown suburban mansion he can’t afford.

There is nothing likable about Dale Hammer. When we first meet him he’s driving a bunch of Boy Scouts in his SUV while drinking a Bloody Mary – “It’s just a splash of vodka,” he tells his long-suffering wife, Wendy. The novel’s title refers to Dale’s appointment as Boy Scout “Rocket Man,” tasked with helping a troop of Scouts shoot off rockets on the much-anticipated Rocket Day. Dale doesn’t want to be Rocket Man, but he doesn’t quite know how to get out of it – and part of him (a very small part, actually) wants to do something special for his son, Dale, Jr. You see, the only memorable moment Dale ever had with his own father (a Willy Loman-style traveling salesman who was almost never home) was the one Christmas when the two of them shot off Dale’s own model rocket – for that one moment in time, Dale had his father’s attention. “[I]t was the only time we were really together,” Dale says, “watching that rocket disappear into the coal sky.”

ROCKET MAN is sharply satiric and very well written. But I have to admit I didn’t like any of these characters. Dale is one of those whiny losers who constantly does things that undermine his chance of happiness. Wife Wendy is unbelievably supportive of her wayward husband – and I had a lot of trouble believing she would have put up with him for so long, leaving their finances in the hands of a man with absolutely no sense of responsibility. Their neighbors are both pretentious and arrogant, castigating Dale while labeling all the tools in their immaculately kept garages. Dale’s father, a womanizing workaholic who was never there when Dale was growing up, is loud and crude in a way that’s more sad than funny. Dale’s brother, Wendy’s parents, the Scout leaders – none of them are likeable. These are not people I’d want to hang out with.

Ultimately, ROCKET MAN is about the tenuous relationship between fathers and sons, and on that level it comes close to working. Dale wants to be a better father to his son than Dale Sr. was to him – but he constantly fails to live up to his own goals. In the end, Hazelgrove gives him a happy ending, but it’s not one he particularly deserves. I expected the ending from the first chapters, and it plays out pretty much as I thought it would. Dale and his son have their moment together, just as Dale and his father did decades before. And Hazelgrove suggests that in Dale’s case, that moment makes all the difference. But the fact that Dale’s father can’t even remember the Christmas when he and Dale shot off their rocket together suggests otherwise. One character, former Scout Rocket Man Dean Heinrich (who is passing the torch to Dale), beautifully sums up what this novel is all about. Dean is trying to get Dale to take Rocket Day seriously, and he opens up to him about the shallowness of his own suburban life. The rockets, he says, are his only way of “lifting off from the earth” and feeling free. “I don’t expect you to feel the same way I do,” Dean tells Dale. “But I want you to promise me, that as Rocket Man, you will give the rockets a good launch, do a countdown for the boys, let them press the button, let them blast off their rocket, because I’m here to tell you it gets harder and harder to leave this earth and for a lot of them, it might be their only chance.” Dale gets it in the end. But it takes him a frustratingly long time to get there.

I did enjoy parts of ROCKET MAN, and I do see a lot of truth in the lives these characters are living – or trying to live. Ours is a sad world filled with one-time dreamers with upside-down mortgages, marriages that are more adversarial than loving, and men who want a 1950’s lifestyle in a world where the bubble has already burst. Hazelgrove is giving us a healthy dose of suburban angst, but it often feels more whiny than real. Fans of Updike’s Rabbit books will undoubtedly like this. I just never cared enough about Dale (or his suburban struggle to be a rebel in a cracker-box palace) to really feel for him, much less identify with him. It’s a well-written novel that almost works.

[Please note: I was provided a copy of this novel for review; the opinions expressed here are my own.] (less)

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Feb 15, 2013 Mark Eleveld rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bill Hazelgrove's Rocket Man took 10 years to launch.
By Mark Eleveld
Published: December 9, 2008

A poet once told us that if we wanted to know good writing, we had to read Chicago authors Stuart Dybek and James McManus. Surprisingly, at the time both were out of print: two full decades of writing only attainable via eBay. Since then, of course, they’ve gone on to become icons in Chicago literature, proof that despite the fleeting nature of trends, good writing survives. For this reason, Bill Haze...more

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Dec 05, 2008 A.J. rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Dale Hammer's got problems. He's got a big house in the 'burbs that he can't afford and a marriage that's cooling faster than polar bear droppings. The police are after him for vandalizing a sign and the school crossing guard is after him for speeding. His father, who has just lost his job and his marriage, has moved into his office. But worst of all, Dale realizes that he is becoming his own father, a remote figure who continually lets down his son -- and he can't seem to break out of his funk....more Dale Hammer's got problems. He's got a big house in the 'burbs that he can't afford and a marriage that's cooling faster than polar bear droppings. The police are after him for vandalizing a sign and the school crossing guard is after him for speeding. His father, who has just lost his job and his marriage, has moved into his office. But worst of all, Dale realizes that he is becoming his own father, a remote figure who continually lets down his son -- and he can't seem to break out of his funk.

Rocket Man is a novel about the American dream gone sour. You can't buy happiness in a bigger house, or in any other form. Dale is finding this out the hard way. He blames his problems on his sterile suburban surroundings, but his wife points out that he was just as unhappy in the old house. Moving again isn't going to help.

A comparison to Richard Ford is inevitable: Dale's a transplant from Mississippi, a failed writer who now works as a mortgage broker; he owns a rental property. But the similarity is superficial. Ford's characters inhabit the quiet aftermath of events, beset by a quiet melancholy; Dale, on the other hand, ricochets from one crisis to the next, refusing to go gently into the afternoon. A more apt comparison would be Thomas McGuane: the unaccountable transgressive behaviour, a penchant for taking things too far, the struggles of fathers and sons. But Hazelwood lacks McGuane's flair for language, the electrifying precision of his diction. His humour is not deadpan, but manic.

The novel opens with a bang: Dale, driving a group of Cub Scouts to Dairy Queen, has missed his turn. The solution that occurs to him, as he sips a Bloody Mary to ease his hangover, is to go cross-country, taking a shortcut across a construction site. The kids, which category includes Dale, think it's a riot. His wife and the scout leader, who has just realized that he's not drinking tomato juice, are less amused. The scene is laugh-out-loud funny; we're in for a heck of a ride.

Unfortunately, that ride stalls; the novel suffers from a sagging middle. Matters cease to develop as we pass from one scene to the next in a suburban picaresque. Here the faults of the novel are on full display: a tendency to overdraw minor characters, weak dialogue without subtext, the insistence on explaining all through passages of exposition that interrupt the flow of the scene. In much of the middle third of the novel, it lacks a real emotional connection to its characters.

When the novel picks up again, however, all this fades into the background. The last 100-or-so pages pick up the pace and the story here undeniably fulfills the promise of its opening scene. Here, also, a real emotional connection is restored. The faults of the sagging middle are redeemed.

Rocket Man is in many ways an enjoyable novel; it's unfortunate that it isn't about 100 pages shorter.(less)

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Nov 25, 2008 Agnieszka T. rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I’ve got „Rocket Man” as ARC through LibraryThing as well. And as some other people before me – I’m still not sure if I like it or not.
As you may read in many posts – it’s a story of 46 years old Dale, who moved his family out from the city, to the “land of happiness”, where the family would bloom. And it happened the opposite – everything is wrong – wife want to divorce, son hates him, his father is kicked by his wife and is moving to live with Dale, Dale has problems with everyone around him...more

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Nov 03, 2009 Donna rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Gen-X group

Recommended to Donna by: my book group

Shelves: fiction, read-more-than-once, twisted-sisters

The author is the writer-in-residence at the Hemingway house and there are a number of Oak Park links in this book. (I think that references to the town of "Oakland" in the book is Oak Park.)

The story is about a man, his wife, and two kids who move from their nice little house in "Oakland" to a big sprawling house with 2 acres in "Charleston" (maybe St. Charles?). He's a writer; she's a stay-at-home mom (ex-lawyer). Both, along with their 9 year old son, must cope with the lifestyle changes as w...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Randy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To be honest, I wasn't sure how I would view this novel as I read it. It's been years since I read much of anything but genre novels. But ROCKET MAN caught me up in it early and I was disappointed when it ended.

I was immersed in the life of Dale Hammer, a man living the life of the middle class: wife and two kids, big car, a big house in the suburbs, the perfect life.

Almost. He also has the big mortgage, a failing marriage, children constantly in turmoil, a day job about to end, a father thrown...more

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Aug 04, 2009 George Hawkey rated it 2 of 5 stars

I see Dale Hammer as an angrier, more ironically aware Rabbit Angstrom. I think a modern update of the suburban ennui that Updike laid out for the '60s, '70s, '80's and '90s is necessary. The problem is, this book is not that modern update.

While at points, Hazelgrove's writing was spot on, pinpointing just the perfect detail or situation of suburban life that makes it so deadening for many people. The emotional turmoil of the character was well detailed and the subtle growth in Dale Hammer's ups...more

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Oct 09, 2009 Sean Evans added it

Hmmm. Apparently my original review of this didn't save, so I'm working from memory here. This book was, for the most part, a good, light read for me. It felt, to me, like a cautionary tale, and somewhat autobiographical at that. What happens when you get everything you think you want from life (or at least think you're supposed to want), and discover that what you really want is what you already had. Being at a similar crossroad in my life as the main character made it easy to identify with his...more

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Jan 03, 2009 Sheila rated it 4 of 5 stars

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this or not. It started slow but as I continued reading it I enjoyed it. It's about a man who doesn't know himself and is trying to find his place in his home and community. He is rebellious and doesn't want to conform. He is constantly pushing the envelope. He doesn't like the sign to his subdivision. It's cut down. He denies doing it. Did he or didn't he? He drives through a vacant lot with a vanload of boy scouts to get to the Dairy Queen they passed. He's...more

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Nov 25, 2008 Melanie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2008

I received an Advance Reading Copy of Rocket Man through Librarything.com. Because of it being an ARC I pushed my way through the entire book. I did not like the bad language; it was too much for me. I think the story would have been just as effective without it – which isn’t saying much because I did not think the story was believable. I found it hard to believe that anyone as self-involved as the protagonist would have stayed in a relationship that long. While parts of the book were amusing, t...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Annie Fyfe rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: family, suburbs, mid-life, crisis, life

I really enjoyed this book! I think it is my favorite early reviewer book I've read. Being younger then the main character in the book I found myself thinking I could be in that sort of position in 20 years, and that I don't want to be. So even though not directly related to me I can still relate to this book a lot. I really liked the humor in this book and found myself suppressing giggles throughout it. I think this book is good for anyone who can really relate to the main character and his sen...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Jason (FNORDinc) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed, arc, reviewed-on-fnordinc

Rocket Man was a very enjoyable story. It centers around Dale, husband and father of two. Dale is stuck in the burbs, hating every minute of it. His idea was to get out of the city and live the idyllic country life. This is not what he ended up with. instead, his house is close to foreclosure, bills are piling up, and his daughter cries at the drop of a pin.

Dale is an author in a slump. His first few novels are published but he has had nothing new in four years. He fights with his wife, his boy...more

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Aug 04, 2009 Shannon rated it 3 of 5 stars

A good book, that accurately describes much of the middle class sentiments in our most current society. A writer who feels literary guilt, the guilt of knowing he should read the classics but never does, who hasn't had a hit in years, and can't make the money to support the house hold in the suburbs that he purchased three years ago. His life slowly falls apart in front of his face due to serious family, neighborhood, and financial problems, all coming to a head with his promise to be Rocket Man...more

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Nov 25, 2008 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars

I got this ARC through Library Thing...to be honest I wasn't sure if I would like it or not. I am totally a judge a book by the cover kind of person but it was free so I thought I would give it a fair shake. I really liked it. I thought it was funny. A lot of people here have commented on the editing and yes that was annoying but it is an ARC. It's a story that I could related too. A parent who gets caught up in the rat race and is trying to make it right. He doesn't want to make the same mistak...more

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Nov 05, 2008 Kathy (Bermudaonion) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Rocket Man by William Elliott Hazelgrove is an independence story. Dale and Wendy Hammer decide to live the American Dream and move from the city to the suburbs. They move into a neighborhood of million door homes that is beyond their means. They find themselves lonely and alone. It seems that everyone and everything in the suburbs is the same, and they have trouble conforming. Things start to fall apart for Dale. He has three published novels, but can’t seem to write anymore. He’s a mortgage br...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Dwight Morgan rated it 5 of 5 stars

What a gem of a novel: cleverly written, great humor, great characters and a timeless theme. William Elliot Hazelgrove's ROCKET MAN documents one man's mid-life crises as his romantic notions of life as an author clash with the responsibilities of adulthood, jeapardizing his career, his marriage and all of his family relationships. His life is full of engaging, quirky characters and unexpected turns as he compuslively rebels against the responsibilities and conformity of suburban life. Great rea...more

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Jan 18, 2009 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: humor

What happens when everything in your "perfect" life seems to take a nose dive? Your Dad moves in with your family, the HOA believes you have destroyed their sign (the worlds ugliest sign that is!)and to top it off your supposed to be the rocket launch man for your sons boy scout troop. But as Dales wife says when he asks "why did you marry me?" she answers because it will never be boring and this book is never boring. When you are ready for a good laugh here's the book for you.

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Dec 12, 2008 Debra rated it 1 of 5 stars

I hate to say this (I mean, here they send me a free book), but I really didn't like this book. I got the point he was trying to make (I'm not really stupid and felt like it was being shoved down my throat), and I don't necessarily disagree with it, but I want to be entertained or at least interested in what I'm reading. I was bored, I did not like Dale the main character, it was depressing, and I couldn't wait for it to be over. The very very end was good, but what you have to go through to get...more

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Dec 26, 2008 Venessa rated it 3 of 5 stars

I couldn't relate to Dale Hammer at all, but did enjoy the book, which I thought was a decent, fast read. The writing is above par, which is few and far between in recently published books today. I also think the book provides its hero with the classic downfall heading for redemption role and borders on a happy ending with conditions: better than an outright happy ending and mirroring real life, which is fraught with anything but happy endings. Dale is far from perfect, but so is everyone, and t...more

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Dec 07, 2008 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

This book takes a hilarious look at the failed writing career of protagonist Dale Hammer. I was hooked just reading the "Preflight" as Hazelgrove calls his preface. It speaks of the protagonist's traveling salesman father and his childhood, both of which I could identify with. The novel follows Hammer as a father, husband, and lost character. The search for what he wants to do with his life seems to fit the struggle when we ask, "What now?"

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Mar 20, 2013 Beth rated it 3 of 5 stars

William Hazelgrove's novel, "Rocket Man", is reminiscent of Richard Russo's writing. Both portray the plight of the average man with irony and wit. Implicit in this shared motif, are the vagaries found within the American Dream. Broken men with disintegrating marriages, questionable parenting skills and diminishing incomes flavor their novels. How they depict this is unique to their individual and refined styles. Hazelgrove handles the subject eloquently. His adages are not a burden nor redundan...more

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Dec 20, 2008 Cassi rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

Okay, so I admit I fell for judging the book by the bad title/cover art, and just like I was very wrong on Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (another great book with an awful title and book cover), I was wrong on this.

I found myself at the beginning of the book thinking that I would never be able to relate or feel for the main "slacker" character or his father, but as the story started to progress, I found myself more much into the book. I think the turning point was the scene in Dr. Petty's home,...more

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Nov 10, 2008 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

Rocket Man was almost too painful to read. Given the current state of the economy and reasons for that state, it was totally believable. Ten years ago it might have served as a cautionary tale but today it could be a story on 20/20.

A few years ago Dale and his wife and kids left Chicago for the suburbs - land of big houses on big lots, no crime, and like-minded folks (well, maybe not). What they realize a little too late is that it's like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. All the trap...more

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About William Elliott Hazelgrove

I wrote my first novel out of college and didn't publish it until six years later. I gathered rejection letters like other people gather leaves and another three years passed before I published my second novel. I have been a janitor,waiter,real estate agent, broker, teacher, professor, construction worker, salesman...just about anything to keep on writing. Three years later I published my third no...more

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