Reviews

Comet Review in The Free Lance-Star

Thanks to Andi Russell of The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.) for a glowing review of The Night of the Comet.

I’m honestly impressed when a reviewer can so neatly sum up a book and say “This is what it’s about,” as Russell does here. I know myself from trying to write book descriptions–of my own books, even!–how difficult this can be.

The Free Lance-Star

Sept. 1, 2013

Dad’s Head is in the Stars
BY ANDI RUSSELL/THE FREE LANCE–STAR

AUTHOR George Bishop paints an intimate portrait of an unraveling family as Comet Kohoutek comes crashing through their lives in his second novel, “The Night of the Comet.”

This nostalgic and heart-achingly relatable tale is told from the perspective of a high school freshman growing up in southern Louisiana in 1973.

Fourteen-year-old Alan Broussard Jr., or “Junior,” is experiencing his first serious crush. But just as he begins to navigate the mysteries of the heart, he starts to glean from his parents that love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Junior and the rest of his family’s conflicting feelings of hope and disappointment are prevalent through much of the story.

Junior’s dad, Alan Sr., is a high school science teacher whose fascination with what scientists are calling “the comet of the century” embarrasses Junior and his older sister, Megan. As Kohoutek gets closer, though, anticipation starts to build throughout the small town. Alan becomes a local celebrity of sorts, and the comet demands more and more of his time.

During the evenings, Junior looks out of his new telescope (a birthday gift from his dad) across the canal and into the home of his crush, Gabriella, and her high-society family. The new neighbors have also caught the attention of Junior’s mother, Lydia, an already-restless housewife who has always dreamed of a glamorous life.

Bishop’s lovely prose will likely bring readers to empathize with each member of the Broussard family. They will feel Junior’s confusion, Megan’s impatience, Lydia’s unhappiness and Alan’s isolation.

Part coming-of-age story, part family saga, “The Night of the Comet” is sweet and sad, heartbreaking and uplifting. It also provides a wealth of information on astronomy and the stars. The night sky looms in the background, like another character in the story.

Occasional and avid stargazers alike should relish Bishop’s take on the coming of Comet Kohoutek and how it affected one small town.

The release of the novel is timely, as many astronomy enthusiasts are currently tracking sun-approaching Comet ISON, which some reporters have already dubbed “the comet of the century.”

The scientific community appears to believe it is too soon to tell whether ISON will dazzle or be a dud. After reading this book, I know I will be paying close attention.

Andi Russell is a designer with The Free Lance–Star.
THE NIGHT OF THE COMET
By George Bishop
(Ballantine Books, $25, 316 pp.)

Wilmington Star New (NC) Review

Review of THE NIGHT OF THE COMET in the Wilmington Star News (NC). Thank you, Ben Steelman.

Eloquent Novel Explores Life After the Buzz Dies Down
By Ben Steelman

Published: Sunday, July 28, 2013 at 2:00 p.m.

The Night of the Comet Cover Final BW

 
In the world of spectacular fizzles, Comet Kohoutek ranks up there with the 1962 New York Mets, Rick Perry’s presidential campaign and the new “Lone Ranger” movie. Discovered in 1973, Kohoutek – named for the Czech astronomer who found it, not some ancient Egyptian god of doom – was hyped as “the Comet of the Century,” destined to outshine even Halley’s comet. Cults and preachers said it was an omen of Doomsday. Pink Floyd supposedly titled an early version of “Dark Side of the Moon” as “Eclipse Suite,” with Kohoutek in mind.

And then … nothing. Zilch. Kohoutek was barely visible to the naked eye. (Lots of people thought they saw it.) It was a major letdown.

Now, however, Louisiana writer George Bishop uses Kohoutek as a focus in his latest novel, “Night of the Comet.” Like Bishop’s earlier novel, “Letter to My Daughter,” it’s a coming-of-age yarn from a generation or three ago.

This time, the protagonist is 14-year-old Junior Broussard, just entering high school in Terrebone, La., in the fall of 1973.

The Carpenters and Three Dog Night are all over the radio; sensitive girls (like Junior’s hippie-wannabe sister, Megan) are up in their rooms playing Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” over and over. Everyone’s worried about the Arab oil embargo, which threatens to raise oil prices as high as $20 per barrel (Surprisingly, no one in Terrebone seems to care much about Watergate.)

For Junior’s dad, however, the top story is Kohoutek, front and center. The geeky science teacher at the local high school, Alan Broussard sees the comet as a sign of renewal, as a way to recapture the magic he felt when he dreamed of becoming a fulltime researcher.

Kohoutek, he’s convinced, will finally let him grab the attention of his listless freshman Earth Science students. He talks the local paper into letting him write a weekly “Groovy Science” column to spread the news. And for Junior’s 14th birthday, he gives his son the ultimate present: a Celestron telescope, the best for viewing Kohoutek.

Junior, however, prefers to focus his telescope on Gabriella, the impossibly beautiful blonde girl who just moved with her family into the big house just across the bayou. Gabriella normally wouldn’t notice Junior, who’s not a jock and has spent his school career blending into the background. With Kohoutek in the sky, though, maybe he can tempt her to check out his ‘scope.

Junior’s mom, meanwhile, is also focusing on the house across the bayou. She dreams of making friends with the Martellos, that nice couple from Shreveport (word is, he’s a big oilman) and breaking loose from the dreary routine of being a schoolteacher’s wife. With Barbara Martello, Lydia Broussard hatches the scheme for a “Comet Ball” (to raise money for her husband’s lab, of course) which would bring all the best people of Terrebone together for a glittering evening under the stars.

All of the Broussards, of course, are doomed to disappointment.

Except for one key point, “Night of the Comet” offers few surprises; we’ve all heard different versions of this story before. Bishop, however, proves eloquent at delineating teenaged angst and yearning. He does for acne what Herman Melville once did for whales.

He’s also acute on middle-age discontent, the realization that there’s no point in dreaming about what you’ll do when you grow up, because you’re already there, and that your life, miserable as it is, is as good as it’s likely to get.

Kirkus Review of The Night of the Comet

I don’t think this is up online yet, but here’s what Kirkus Reviews has to say about The Night of the Comet.

THE NIGHT OF THE COMET
by George Bishop

KIRKUS REVIEW

Filled with the kind of wistful longing that characterizes the coming-of-age novel, this latest from the talented Bishop brings stardust and domestic disillusionment to the bayous of Louisiana.

In 1973, when Junior Broussard blows out the 14 candles on his birthday cake, his wish takes the form of one word—Gabriella. Instead of her magical appearance, he receives a telescope from his father, the high school’s geeky science teacher, an amateur astronomer and author of the newspaper’s weekly Groovy Science column. His father has become obsessed with the sighting of the comet Kohoutek; the new telescope will provide a father-son bonding opportunity. Junior could care less and soon points his telescope across the bayou to Gabriella’s mansion. As his father is involved with Kohoutek, Junior becomes fixated on the wealthy Martellos across the water. Their life is like a television show—they dress better, look better, seem happier—and he watches them like an anthropologist and a lover and wonders what will become of himself, raised in a house of small dreams and missed opportunities. His mother, Lydia, befriends Mrs. Martello, and the two hatch a plan to throw a charity ball with a comet theme. Lydia is also bewitched by the Martellos (especially husband Frank) and begins to feel she deserves so much more than science teacher Alan Broussard can offer. Their meeting years ago—the beautiful pharmacy counter girl and the new science teacher—is a story Junior begs from his parents, as if the re-telling will provide some magic to keep them together. His father becomes dangerously unhinged, his mother runs away, harboring fantasies of a life with Frank Martello, and the comet will soon appear. Junior is sure it will bring both disaster and magic to their lives.

Coming-of-age novels examine youthful revelations about the world—filled with cynicism and wonder and rearranged expectations—and the quality hinges on the honesty of the voice, the truth of the observations, the handling of innocence lost; Bishop succeeds on all these fronts.

A fine story of everyday sadness and otherworldly joys.

Publishers Weekly Review of The Night of the Comet

PW

 

 

 

 

Bishop’s resonant follow-up to his 2010 mother-daughter themed
debut, Letter to My Daughter, is set in 1973 in a Louisiana town
eagerly anticipating a celestial event. Alan Broussard, Jr., a newly 14-
year-old bookworm who considers himself to have “no obvious talents,
no great looks, no exceptional humor or intellect or passions,” is
excited about entering high school, though his father is the school’s
resident science teacher and, therefore, a source of embarrassment.
Alan Sr. becomes incrementally obsessed with the impending arrival of
the “comet of the century” Kohoutek, but his son is more interested in
spying on “angelic” Gabriella, the beautiful girl across the canal, with
his new telescope. Bishop’s characterizations of young Alan’s mother,
father, and sister Megan are endearing and their relentless coddling of
their maturing son is wincingly accurate as Christmas Eve, the
projected date for the comet’s sighting, approaches. Meanwhile, the
boy’s infatuation for Gabriella ebbs and flows and ultimately both father
and son come to crushing realizations. More thematically developed
than Bishop’s first novel, this book explores the complexities of a
father-son relationship through science, astronomy, and the growing
pains of adolescence. Agent: Marly Rusoff, Marly Rusoff Literary
Agency. (Aug.)

Reviewed on: 06/24/2013
Release date: 07/30/2013