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Loading... July, Julyby Tim O'Brien
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  infogirl2k | Oct 14, 2009 |  It is July of 2000, and the members of the class of 1969 at Darton Hall College are having their 30-year reunion, one year too late. In this novel we meet several of those not-so-gracefully aging flower children, now shopworn and wondering what their lives were really all about. And as the reunion progresses, we journey back into each one’s life, to other Julys in other years, when important choices were made and paths were taken that could not be reversed. While the story and its characters are a bit confusing at first, jumping from person to person so it’s difficult to keep straight who is who, who loves who, who is married to whom, that is all intentional, and its meaning comes clear as each person’s story unfolds. Because that’s what memory is like, not a smoothly unfolding continuum but a jumble of moments, the most important moments making up a patchwork of a life. The book feels uneven from time to time, or rushed, or as if some characters get short shrift while others – particularly David, who represents the Vietnam experience – appear far too frequently, but none of that really matters. Because these perfectly ordinary people are, in the end, completely compelling, and so are their perfectly ordinary lives. Breast cancer, Vietnam flashbacks, jiltings, divorces, affairs, the stupid mistakes we all make and we all can relate to, are lovingly detailed. And these characters, despite their many, very human faults, are our friends, our spouses, ourselves – and all the more endearing for it. (  ) sturlington | Sep 27, 2009 | So here's the thing: there was this war, and lots of people didn't like it, and they all wore clothes with psychedelic flowers on them and believed in high ideals. And then they got older and, while staring at their navels, noted the absence of said psychedelic flowers, and lamented their lost youth and banjaxed ideals. And they thought this was all tremendously important, because it had something to do with their navels, at which they spent a great deal of time staring, and anything that so many people spend so much time staring at simply has to be important. You can't possibly wear out this particular cliché, even if the navels are getting a little flabby with age. Except, of course, that you can, and you have. In July, July, Tim O'Brien gives us a collection of short character-driven stories, some successful and others less so, mostly set in the late 60s, and unified (without much success) by the device of their class reunion. The result is a novel that reads like patchwork. O'Brien is a fine writer and his skills are often on display here, but he can't overcome a certain "so what" factor. You're sure you've seen a movie just like this, and that's because you have -- sometime in the late 1980s, no doubt. The best of O'Brien's writing in this novel simply can't compensate for the feeling that it's a rehash. 1  ajsomerset | Jan 13, 2009 | Like The Big Chill, National Book Award winner O'Brien's latest novel is about a group of college students from the radical days of the late 1960s. Assembled years later, the friends and acquaintances go through the usual motions of reminiscing, regretting, lusting, laughing and crying. Unlike the gang from that 1983 movie, though, this group is not brought together to mourn the death of a mutual friend but rather a 30-year class reunion. Yet they're still mourning, lamenting their lost youth, vibrancy, ideals, looks and health. Among the ruins, however, they find old friends, common struggles and rekindled passions. Although this is more a group of interwoven short stories or character studies than a traditional novel, O'Brien (The Things They Carried) fully fleshes out each character with aplomb. Actor and experienced audiobook reader Sanders offers a smooth and knowing delivery. His cynical, dry, yet humorous tone perfectly matches O'Brien's prose. The surface of this comic tale seems jaded and despairing, but sympathy, camaraderie, solidarity and love run deeply throughout. (Publisher's Weekly)  CollegeReading | Jun 17, 2008 | I really like these stories combined into a novel. I assign it as one of my options to LS students with the comment -- "if you want to know what your parents were doing by the end of the Vietnam war" read this -- of course, now for some of them, it is what their GRANDparents were doing. ( ) medievalmama | Jan 22, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
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(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400)
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Wikipedia in English
Like The Big Chill, this book is an ensemble piece. None of the characters truly seem to dominate it, although the story starts off with Amy Robinson and Jan Huebner – two women, both divorced, both alone and both getting drunk and looking to get laid. The women provide a somewhat detached perspective on the reunion (although the reader gets to hear their individual stories and personal problems, too). Their comments about the others help set the stage for what's to come.
Those others – at least seven, along with some minor (but still significant) characters – have various relationships with one another, harbor old secrets and grudges, and suffer broken hopes and dreams, as well as unrequited love. Although this sounds cliched, the story gives a fresh spin on the old reunion formula by telling the story in shifting perspectives and time frames, showing how the characters' lives have intersected and delving deeply into their personalities and situations, thus compelling one to find out how each makes out in the end.
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