Author Meredith Sue Willis on Colin Preston Rocked And Rolled
Meredith Sue Willis's
Books for Readers # 139
February 10, 2011
MSW ON COLIN PRESTON ROCKED AND ROLLED
COLIN PRESTON ROCKED AND ROLLED by "Bert Murray" is a novel that does a wonderful job of capturing the voices and lives of a certain time and place. The use of music– both music contemporary to the characters and Colin's beloved Beatles (already, of course, at the time of the novel, classic)– works especially well. Instead of using words, Colin, when in the grip of a strong emotion, puts on an appropriate song. Overall, the compactness of the story and the ease with which one identifies with Colin and his situation create an inevitability about the events that has an almost tragic quality as well as a strong structure. I felt I experienced it all with Colin, and it was a pleasure to read.
About Meredith Sue Willis:
A well-known speaker and writer about the teaching of writing, her own novels include A Space Apart, Higher Ground, Only Great Changes, Trespassers, and Oradell at Sea. Her short story collections are In the Mountains of America and Dwight's House and Other Stories. Her work has been praised in periodicals like The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, The San Francisco Chronicle, and many other periodicals.
She has won major awards including literary fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the arts, and her fiction has won prizes like the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award and the West Virginia Library Association Award (1980), as well as the Chaffin Award for fiction.
Books for Readers # 139
February 10, 2011
MSW ON COLIN PRESTON ROCKED AND ROLLED
COLIN PRESTON ROCKED AND ROLLED by "Bert Murray" is a novel that does a wonderful job of capturing the voices and lives of a certain time and place. The use of music– both music contemporary to the characters and Colin's beloved Beatles (already, of course, at the time of the novel, classic)– works especially well. Instead of using words, Colin, when in the grip of a strong emotion, puts on an appropriate song. Overall, the compactness of the story and the ease with which one identifies with Colin and his situation create an inevitability about the events that has an almost tragic quality as well as a strong structure. I felt I experienced it all with Colin, and it was a pleasure to read.
About Meredith Sue Willis:
A well-known speaker and writer about the teaching of writing, her own novels include A Space Apart, Higher Ground, Only Great Changes, Trespassers, and Oradell at Sea. Her short story collections are In the Mountains of America and Dwight's House and Other Stories. Her work has been praised in periodicals like The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, The San Francisco Chronicle, and many other periodicals.
She has won major awards including literary fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the arts, and her fiction has won prizes like the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award and the West Virginia Library Association Award (1980), as well as the Chaffin Award for fiction.
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