Boys life by robert mc cammon essay

Hunter Goatley Between and Robert McCammon published an even dozen novels and one collection of short stories, almost all of which contained overtly fantastic and horrific elements. This number is small indeed when compared to the output of such contemporaries as Charles Grant, Stephen King, and Dean Koontz, but it nonetheless distinguished McCammon as a consistently gifted and able writer, albeit one whose early works showed an occasional inability to create strong characters and who tended occasionally to sentimentality. Inat what would appear to be the peak of his skills, he retired from writing, citing variously depression, exhaustion from overwork, a desire to spend more time with his family, and frustration with publishers, who insisted he limit himself to writing genre horror fiction when he wanted to explore other literary forms.

The year is On a cold spring morning before the sun, Cory Mackenson is accompanying his father on his milk delivery route. Without warning a car appears in the road before them and plunges into a lake some say is bottomless.

Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon: Lesson Plans and Book Club Discussion Topics

Cory's father makes a desperate attempt to save the driver, but instead comes face-to-face with a vision that will haunt and torment him: The lake's depths claim the car and the corpse, but the murderer's work is unfinished as, from that moment, both Cory and his father begin searching for the truth.

The small town of Zephyr, Alabama, has been an idyllic home for Cory and his friends. But now, the murder of an unknown man who lies in the dark lake, his tortured soul crying out for justice, causes Cory's life to explode into a kaleidoscope of clues and deepening puzzles.

His quest to understand the forces of good and evil at work in his hometown leads him through a maze of dangers and fascinations: As Cory searches for a killer, he learns more about the meaning of both life and death. A single green feather leads him deeper into the mystery, and soon he realizes not only his life, but the sanity of his father may hang in the balance.

Welcome to the imagination of Robert R. McCammon, the New York Times bestselling author who now takes us on a whirlwind voyage into the realm where innocence and evil are on a collision course. Boy's Life is a tour de force of magic and wonder, a journey that is at once joyful, unrelentingly mysterious, and hauntingly poignant.

A Letter from Robert R. McCammon Dear Reader, I think that in everyone's life there is a time for looking back, in order to better judge the road ahead. Boy's Life is my backward look. It is more than a novel; Boy's Life is what I would call a "fictography," a combination of fiction and biography.

It is, in one sense, about me and why I became a writer; in another sense, I believe it is a universal story of a boy's awakening to dark forces in the world around him.

But Boy's Life is certainly not about darkness alone. It is not a celebration of evil, nor a paean to lost innocence. Rather, Boy's Life is a journey through a particular time when the world stood on the threshold of great changes and achievements.

Boy's Life is first and foremost about people, as seen through the eyes of a young Southern boy; some of these people I knew, some of them I wish I had known.

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This is where fiction and biography get all mixed and mingled, and what was real and what was wished share the borderland of imagination. I am probably prouder of Boy's Life than of any book I've ever done. All books are like children, and every child has a different personality.

Some are difficult, others companionable, some in a hurry to get where they want to be, others in no particular rush but just content to amble across the hills and meadows of a ripe young world. I hope Boy's Life has captured some of that young world—a world we all remember, and often yearn to return to in our secret hearts if but for a moment to catch our breaths and right our gyroscopes against the hard iron of reality.

I say Boy's Life is not about lost innocence, because I believe we all maintain the pool of innocence and wonder inside us no matter how far we get away from our childhood. I believe this pool can be revisited, and we can immerse ourselves in its healing water if we dare to take the risk of knowing again the children we used to be.

This is a risky thing, because once we look back—once we let that wonderful pool take us in again—we may not ever fully return to being the adults we are now.

This is part of what Boy's Life is about: Boy's Life is about the dreams and terrors in the life of a Southern boy inbut I hope it is more than that, too; I hope it is a universal key to yesterday, and by the opening of that door for a backward look we may all see today tomorrow in a much clearer, brighter light.

Reprinted with permission of the author. McCammon We ran like young wild furies, where angels feared to tread. The woods were dark and deep. Before us demons fled.This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion on Boy's Life by Robert R.

McCammon. Boy's Life is a novel by bestselling author Robert R. McCammon.

Boy's Life Critical Essays - benjaminpohle.com

In this novel, Cory Mackenson shares with the reader his experiences in the twelfth year of his life. The year begins when his. Boy's Life, by erstwhile horror fiction author Robert McCammon, tells the story of one summer in the life of year-old Cory Mackenson, a resident of the fictitious town of Zephyr, Alabama.

Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon, will interest teenagers and young adults who enjoy the elements of fantasy and magical realism in novels. The novel contains unique content, style and merit.

The. Boy’s Life is unlike Robert R. McCammon’s other novels and is a marked departure from his usual style, focused more on horror. The plot of Boy’s Life is more a series of incidents weaved. Boy\'s Life Robert Mccammon Essay In the book, Boy's Life, by Robert R.

McCammon, there are many realistic and fantastic events and ideas. Something that is realistic means that it . With Boy's Life (), McCammon not only accepted his southern heritage but used it as the basis for the story.

The novel begins in , in the small Alabama town of Zephyr, and is narrated by 12 year-old Cory Mackenson.