Coyote Weather: A Novel of the 1960s

by Amanda Cockrell

Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, when everything is drought-stricken and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967 and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war. Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he doesn’t think that, in the shadow of Vietnam, the Cold War and atomic bomb drills, there is going to be one. Ellen is determined to have a plan, because nothing else seems capable of keeping the world from tilting. And the Ghost, who isn’t exactly dead, just wants to go home to a place that won’t let him in, the small California town where they all grew up.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Book Club

363 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 24, 2023

About the author

I grew up in Ojai, California, a wonderful place where you could ride your horse down Main Street and there was a hitching post outside the library. It was a bedroom town for Hollywood, full of writers and actors and directors, so there was always something going on, and famous people’s discarded trousers tended to end up in the local thrift shop. Ojai also had a branch office for every philosophical and religious movement to arrive in California since the 20s. I loved it and it became the template for Ayala, the setting for several of my books.

My father, Francis M. Cockrell, was a screenwriter, and my mother, Marian Cockrell, was a screenwriter and a novelist. I first began to write, badly, in high school, where I created characters that my high school English teacher, J. B. Close, of blessed memory, told me were shallow. He was, alas, right, and the rightness of his assessment was knocked into my head in creative writing workshops at Hollins College (now Hollins University) a school which had, and has, a wonderful writing program with the goal of teaching students to write like themselves, and not like the creative writing professor. (This is rarer than you would think.)

Since the only thing I actually do well is write, I have managed to make a living doing so in one form or another for most of my life. Besides my novels, I have written a lot of other things. I have written radio commercials for Custer’s Last Sandwich Stand, featuring the Singing Pickles. (“Oh, you must be a lover of your landlady’s daughter, or you don’t get a second piece of pie!”) I have written ads for panty girdles. I have written the text for a book of very bad paintings of California missions. I have written local history, book reviews, obituaries, wedding stories, and a paperback plantation saga under a name that will forevermore be secret. Also, I have received fiction fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

I have a master’s degree in English and creative writing from Hollins and am currently the managing editor of that university’s literary journal, The Hollins Critic, and director of its graduate program in children’s literature. I teach writing and children’s literature.

I live with my husband, Tony Neuron, and a substantial assortment of dogs and cats, in Roanoke, Virginia.

Amanda Cockrell also publishes under Damion Hunter.

Reviews

[Leslie aka StoreyBook Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set during the late '60s and the Vietnam War, there are a variety of characters with different beliefs/views of the war and what is happening around them. There was no right or wrong viewpoint, just different ones.

The book was slow but interesting. I felt like it was a true representation of the times and what was happening in California, especially with the hippie movement and such.

[Betsy Ashton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cockrell's COYOTE WEATHER presents a story about life in California in the 1960s as it was, not as it was idealized. Following a group of friends divided by the Vietnam War. One leaves for Canada, only to be damned by his family for being a coward. One enlists and doesn't come home. Another tries several ways to avoid the draft, from filing for a Conscientious Objector status to showing up for his physical high to telling the truth to the draft board that they don't want him in the Army because he's a troublemaker. And the women try to support the men's decisions while searching for their own identities.

For anyone who grew up in Southern California in the '60s, this is a tour de force of memories. From driving up Pacific Coast Highway to wildfires in the hills surrounding many valleys to trying to set up a new world order in communal living, this book is a wonderful addition to capturing a past lost in memory and myth.

Brava to Amanda Cockrell. You took me home again.

Book clubs, order this one now. It should be on your reading list.

[Claire Arbogast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starting in 1967, it's a story of how the Vietnam War shaped coming of age for a set of young people in Southern California. A deft hand at dialogue and setting, infused with a light touch of mystical dreaminess. Has a young adult feel to it, and Cockrell does a great job of teaching history as an aside to a fast paced story. Flawlessly edited. Lots of side characters to keep track of.
Here's a nice excerpt: "To Jerry, the books began to take on a certain life as well, particularly at closing, when they settled on their shelves like chickens, roosting. He would run his fingers along their spines, lightly straightening, feeling all that information stilling itself, dozing in dim moonlight, but ready to wake if he needed it, to tell him how to sail a boat or mend a wall or make bourbon. He stayed later than Mrs. Levine knew, doors locked, lights off, stretched on his back on the rug in the children’s corner, behind his head, thinking, waiting for the books to tell him something. They had something to say he was sure of it, but the words were always filtered through the Portuguese dictionary or encoded in the Fibonacci Numbers."

[Kathy Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author of this book uses descriptive language to use the characters to enact the climate of the 1960's, the protests, the women's liberation movement and the hippie generation. She describes commune living to a "T". I believe there's a stigma about the 60's era. It's romanticized when truly, it was a tulmutuous time for lots of reasons ...especially for the Viet Nam War Vets who came back absolutley traumatized and even for the draft dodgers who did horrendous things to avoid the draft. Although the author's writing style isn't a style I would actively seek out, I liked the story and some of the historical facts were things I remembered growing up in that era. I was a hippie wannabe.......not really knowing what the lifestyle truly was like. I highly recommend this book!

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of the 60s when the Vietnam War divided the nation. There were those who were drafted, those who volunteered, and those who objected. This is the story of a community that was affected by the war and the men who were drafted to serve. It also explored the volatility of the time - feminism rising, fighting for women's rights, birth control, cults, and drugs.
I enjoyed the book as it helped me re-visit the time and get a perspective of this era. However, I didn't like the characters.

[Bill Glose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Coyote Weather intertwines stories of teenagers affected by the Vietnam War and shows the overarching effect of the Draft on their lives. Anyone who has lived through the 60s will enjoy the numerous cultural references.

[Jgcapizzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every major event or issue from the 1960’s is mentioned.

[Leslie Nagel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost too tragic to use words like enjoyed. The author searched for catharsis or meaning within all the death, misogyny and political blame shifting of the Era, but there isn't much to be found.

[Carla Barrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good historical account of the many people for and against the Vietnam War, focusing on two characters, but describing a variety of them throughout some of this period. I also enjoyed the mystic-feeling she gave to one of the characters, and the coverage of protests and the 1968 Democratic convention. The author grew up in California during this time, so much of the book is based on her experiences. Great story of this time period!

[John C. Brewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm overdue in praising "Coyote Weather."

I, too, am a Boomer (1965 Upland High School (in Southern California) graduate). "Coyote Weather" spins a great plot, there's great character development that builds gradually; the book is very enjoyable but also realistic and emotion-provoking. It sticks with you.

This book is pitch-perfect about the mid/late 1960s -- the Jerrys and Ellens we all knew, the all-hovering draft, the protests, college life, Hare Krishna, communes, the sexist establishment of those times (including the newspaper world that I was part of).

I'm also a fan of Amanda Cockrell's Roman books and am especially looking forward to the third book in her new Borderlands series. All of her books are page-turners from start to finish. And like only a few other authors, she makes me care about her characters and what happens to them.