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Counting for Thunder
When struggling actor Phillip Stalworth breaks up with his girlfriend, he returns home to the Deep South to care for his ailing mother and unexpectedly falls for a local carpenter. Working through his past with his complicated family, some old high school chums, and the desperate characters who grace his hometown, Phillip ultimately finds his own voice as his mother is finally regaining hers.
Already adapted for film, Counting for Thunder was inspired by writer Phillip Irwin Cooper’s personal experience and, like Augusten Burroughs, covers many of the universal themes of love, life, sex, and death with his own brand of gallows wit. Phillip’s three-year quest is a hero’s journey proving we truly can go home again to learn the lessons we should have mastered the first time around.
Already adapted for film, Counting for Thunder was inspired by writer Phillip Irwin Cooper’s personal experience and, like Augusten Burroughs, covers many of the universal themes of love, life, sex, and death with his own brand of gallows wit. Phillip’s three-year quest is a hero’s journey proving we truly can go home again to learn the lessons we should have mastered the first time around.
264 pages, ebook
Published May 19, 2019
2 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
dnf
April 18, 2019This isn't a bad book, it just wasn't for me.
What I loved most was that both the main and his sister had dated both men and women - something neither of them placed a label on, therefore I'm loathe to call them bisexual. It simply was and I loved that.
I really hope others love it. And this is the first time I've ever said this, but I'm sure the movie is so much better than the book.
Trigger warning - Recurring theme of Cancer.
What I loved most was that both the main and his sister had dated both men and women - something neither of them placed a label on, therefore I'm loathe to call them bisexual. It simply was and I loved that.
I really hope others love it. And this is the first time I've ever said this, but I'm sure the movie is so much better than the book.
Trigger warning - Recurring theme of Cancer.
July 7, 2022
The bones of this story are decent but the pacing and character explorations were very odd. Really I knew I was in for a bad time after reading the line, “Solomon Davidson was what I would later understand to be transgender, and not a very good one” in regards to a random throwaway character about 50-something pages in.
Moving along, we get to the random bits of racist microagressions. There’s a very a cringe-worthy scene in which our main character Phillip cannot understand an Indian man’s accent that for some reason must be demonstrated through dramatized incorrect spelling. Shortly after this we get a scene in which Phillip and his sister venture out to buy weed (to make pot brownies for their mother with cancer) in what is clearly the bad part of town, and get the following line: “…a hostile African American girl would sell you a nickel bag of inferior weed, but only after an older man, a paraplegic who looked just like Morgan Freeman, gave her the okay from his daybed.” As the two approach, Phillip’s sister describes the dilapidated house of these individuals as “fucking scary.” …and I don’t have time to unpack all of this but I mean. Come on.
I understand this book takes place in the late 90s / early 2000s, and in the deep South, but, yikes? The family dynamics had some potential, especially with Tina’s cancer journey and how it affected her husband and kids, but ultimately fell flat. I do appreciate the narrative of a middle aged queer man finding out more about his sexuality later in life, but it really wasn’t enough to make up for everything else.
Moving along, we get to the random bits of racist microagressions. There’s a very a cringe-worthy scene in which our main character Phillip cannot understand an Indian man’s accent that for some reason must be demonstrated through dramatized incorrect spelling. Shortly after this we get a scene in which Phillip and his sister venture out to buy weed (to make pot brownies for their mother with cancer) in what is clearly the bad part of town, and get the following line: “…a hostile African American girl would sell you a nickel bag of inferior weed, but only after an older man, a paraplegic who looked just like Morgan Freeman, gave her the okay from his daybed.” As the two approach, Phillip’s sister describes the dilapidated house of these individuals as “fucking scary.” …and I don’t have time to unpack all of this but I mean. Come on.
I understand this book takes place in the late 90s / early 2000s, and in the deep South, but, yikes? The family dynamics had some potential, especially with Tina’s cancer journey and how it affected her husband and kids, but ultimately fell flat. I do appreciate the narrative of a middle aged queer man finding out more about his sexuality later in life, but it really wasn’t enough to make up for everything else.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews