Homer Hickam

Homer "Sonny" Hickam grew up in a coal mining company town in West Virginia. He was 14 in 1957 when the Soviets launched their first Sputnik satellite. Like many people, he was deeply affected by that event, but unlike most, he immediately become convinced that building rockets was what he wanted to do with his life. He would eventually realize this dream in a career with NASA, but his path to that career started with a small group of boys and series of homemade rockets, which they built show more with very little knowledge but a lot of willingness to experiment.

I was interested in this book mostly because I was interested in rockets -- well, that, and I remembered liking the movie version -- but there's a lot more to this memoir than rockets. It's also a coming of age story, a memoir about family life with a workaholic father, and a glimpse into a way of life that was already vanishing even then. It's told extremely well, in a novelistic style, with a little touch of nerdiness and a lot of folksy charm. You really don't have to be interested in rockets at all to enjoy it. Although, seriously, how can you not be interested in rockets? show less

Well, this was a hoot. Before marrying Homer Hickham, Sr., Elsie Lavendar wanted out of Coalwood, West Virginia. She did not intend to spend her life as the wife of a coal miner. So she accepted an invitation from her once-rich Uncle Aubrey to visit him in Florida, where she met a handsome young dancer with Hollywood aspirations, named Christian Ebsen. She developed quite a crush, but his intentions did not include a romantic entanglement just at that time, and he took off for New York, to show more seek fame and fortune, which he found. (You may have heard of him under the name of Buddy.) Elsie finished a secretarial course, and found a job in Florida, but she was lonely, and eventually she got back on the bus, ended up in Coalwood, and somehow found herself agreeing to marry a coal miner after all. To her surprise--and that of her new husband--one day the postman delivered a wedding present from Buddy Ebsen, a tiny alligator Elsie named Albert and came to adore the way some of us do our cats. A growing alligator has no business trying to live in West Virginia, however, no matter how well-loved and pampered he maybe. Elsie, and even more so Homer the Elder, soon realized that the only thing to do was to take Albert back to Florida where he belonged. Hence, this "somewhat true story" of a long journey to carry Albert Home.
Homer the Younger spins this out in a series of episodes he sets up as tales told to him by one or the other of his parents at various points in his life, explaining what-all happened on that epic road trip during the Great Depression. Like I said, it's a hoot. It features John Steinbeck, Ernest and Pauline Hemingway, bank robbers, union organizers, a hurricane, a mysterious rooster and some other fanciful stuff. Oh, and Buddy Ebsen shows up again too. If you can imagine a mash-up of Paper Moon, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Grapes of Wrath written by Fannie Flagg, you'll have the idea. But if you read it, watch out for the ending. Like Albert's tail, it could hit you a serious wallop. show less

I read this as part of the Pikes Peak Library District's 2009 All Pikes Peak Reads program, having already seen the movie based on it, October Sky. The first paragraph of the book really caught my interest:

Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didn't know my hometown was at war with itself over its children and that my parents were locked in in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live our lives. I didn't know that if a girl broke your heart, another girl, show more virtuous at least in spirit, could mend it on the same night. And I didn't know that the enthalpy decrease in a converging passage could be transformed into jet kinetic energy if a divergent path was added. The other boys discovered their own truths when we built our rockets, but those were mine.

Homer (Sonny) became fascinated by rockets when he first learned of the launching of the first Sputnik by the Russians in 1957. He and his friends formed the BCMA, Big Creek Missile Agency and set off to discover how to build rockets in attempts that would now likely put them in court for theft at best and their parents in court for child endangerment. Things were really different in the 50's, and Homer's mother admonished him mainly to not blow himself up.

It is more than a story about building rockets. It is about life in a coal mining town, Coalwood, where everything is owned by the company. There was little hope for the boys in Coalwood, little chance that they could do anything other than following their fathers into the coalmines, little chance that they would go to college. The outlook was even bleaker for the girls who would most likely be stay-at-home wives trapped in a company town and married to coal miners, hoping they wouldn't lose their husbands in a mining accident and their homes two weeks later when widows had to leave the company housing.

It is also a story about relationships, Homer Sr.'s love of and dedication to the mine, of his stoicism and the rift between his younger son and himself, of his hope for his older boy's potential football career. Of the strained relationship between Homer's parents, between Homer and his brother, of friendships, and of a very special teacher who never let Homer give up his dream. The book is a touching and inspiring memoir of what a boy with dreams can accomplish, against all odds. show less

I enjoyed the movie before I read the book. Now, well... Reading the book makes the film incredibly disturbing at best.

It was oddly compelling for a book featuring such backward sexist, homophobic thinking throughout. I think part of the reason is because it's a lot closer to the truth than the film ever got. The things the film did in reaction to this telling of the 'story', such as it is, of the Rocket Boys, are rather creepy. The film made the book!protagonist's cat into a love interest. show more The film made women prizes. True, Book!Homer still thinks of women in a stereotypical young adult male fashion, but it's better than what the film did. Book!Homer at least acknowledges that women aren't these stereotypical cheerleader/pretty things that are only good for dances. They have their own lives and get down and dirty and have their own investments in life.

Homer's mother is much more of a character. She's got chutzpa. His father is much more of a sexist, homophobic prick. His brother is a sexist prick.

I also really don't like how they stuck to Hollywood formula for the gang of protagonists. Homer and Co. are far more intellectual in the book. I don't get what the problem is with showing a protagonist who is stereotypically nerdy in some ways who is also interested in stereotypically non-nerdy things like football and roughhousing. Not that either of those are good things, but it would have helped people see that the definition of a 'nerd' as we see it today has quite the range.

I also think it's odd that Homer got something of a reputation boost in the film among the school crowd. Thinking logically, even in the film logic his original position in the social hierarchy before he spoke to Quentin the first time makes no sense. He's still the son of the guy most kids' parents dislike. His brother is a big football star who doesn't really like him who should be a subject of envy. It doesn't work.

Honestly, the movie's kind of shit in light of that. It's a feel-good film that does so many things wrong and sticks to formula too much to sacrifice other things. Even if some parts are more realistic to fact that others, the film just isn't good. And it's still pretty sexist, although the book tries pretty hard to put that to shame.

Overall it was a quick read and showed a better understanding of the town and local history and gave Homer and Co. a lot more credit for their work. Don't watch the movie. Read this. show less