A Garden of Sand

by Earl Thompson

Book Overview

Destitution, hunger, cruelty, rootlessness-all the odds stand against Jacky Anderson, the young boy who struggles toward his adolescence in this powerful, popular American classic. Yet despite the hardships and hard times of the novel's Depression-era Kansas, Jacky prevails. Resourcefully, doggedly, on a journey that takes him from Wichita to Corpus Christi with his hapless mother and abusive stepfather, he nurtures his spirit of independence and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786709464
• ISBN13: 9780786709465
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.1" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

If Breughel had directed The Wizard of Oz

When the smoke of obscenity trials cleared in the 1960s, publishers were free to print well known novels like Joyce's Ulysses, Miller's Tropic of Cancer and Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. The new freedom to write about sexually explicit topics subsequently led not only to a spate of sexploitaton novels such as Grace Metalious's Peyton Place and Harold Robbins's Carpetbaggers but also to a handful of honest, forthright novels that focused on men and women in their teens and twenties, including Thompson's Garden of Sand, Agnar Mykle's Lasso Round the Moon, and R. V. Cassill's Pretty Leslie. The sexual frankness of these novels so overshadowed their merit that they were doomed to a sniggering relegation to the back shelf. It is time to redeem them. I doubt any American writer, including Mark Twain and J. D. Salinger, has ever got inside the head of an adolescent young man more than Thompson in Garden of Sand and Tattoo. There is sex, yes, but also the ethos and the degradation of poverty and the wild hopes and expectant dreams of people without money, privilege, or an Ivy League education. Clearly, Thompson lovingly worked and reworked his writing, piling up detail upon detail, observation upon observation, all of which results in a novel much like a Breughel painting: having naturalistic characteristics but an elegaic tone. He reminds us of what growing up REALLY was like.

Powerful and captivating

There are very few novels that have knocked me out of my chair as consistently as this one. Thompson's writing may seem crude to the uninitiated, but one cannot resist being swept up by his delightful tapestry of slang which peppers some of the most captivating prose I've ever read. It's about life in America, in it's underwear, up way past its bedtime, broke, beaten up, bombed out of its skull, with a tenacious hope running through it all like a river. No heterosexual American male in his right mind will be able to put this book down, and none should miss the chance to read it.

Garden Of Sand

A Garden Of Sand is representative of Wichita and the area in which Earl Thompson grew up. In an alley between the 15 hundred block on North St.Francis and Santa Fe streets. The moral decay of the 1930's was evident and compounded by the depression. People did what they could and grappled with a way of life that had been unknown in the U.S. up until that time. The characters in A Garden Of Sand were based on actual people and merchants in that area of town. This is a telling portrait of those times, and as other readers have mentioned it raises fear in ones heart to read this masterpiece. It should do exactly that! The lessons of the past often slip by those in the near future. The times change, and those times will come again to America. It may be different people and different authors, but history repeats itself in an unrelenting way. This book speaks for a community and time that can only best be described as "shattered". With the money and food gone, life and it's seeming gentleness often changes into an all consuming monster. A time that shall revisit us all. I think that this book is the definative primer of those times. It may run only second to The Grapes Of Wrath as a benchmark of the dirty thirties. But, it tells a far better story that the reader becomes entangled with. Earl Thompson gave us a lot during his short stay on earth. Somewhere, the spark of energy that drove this man is thinking and reacting to the surroundings he is in today. If you read this book and are unmoved by the characters and description of the times. Please get some help!

Life Is Not A Bowl of Cherries

I was overwhelmed when I first read "A Garden of Sand". I immediately rushed out to buy more of Earl Thompson's books, only to discover he had written but three. And then died. This hugely talented author somehow got lost in the shuffle and never attained the merit he deserved. "A Garden of Sand" is an epic novel of one boy's journey through the depression as well as coping within the ultimate dysfunctional family. Thompson sees, then translates in an unerring manner all the feelings, hopes and downfalls of the human experience. Each scene is chiseled in perfection. And I don't think I've ever read such achingly real sexual encounters before. I am truly amazed that any astute hollywood producer has not not bought the rights to this book and is filming an award winning production at this very moment.

One of the finest novels I've ever read.

Initially reading this book in 1974 caused me to feel very uncomfortable. I was 18 and unaware of the realities the book portrayed. It wasn't until many years passed and I experienced many walks of life that I reread "A Garden of Sand" and was overwhelmed by its simple and powerful statement about the things we do as human beings to "just get by". The depression era, the people,and their choices, are easily experienced by the reader. What you read can make you aware of the same happenings in American society today. Earl Thompson was a fine author and his untimely death in 1978 robbed the literary world of a talented contributer. Another excellent book by Mr.Thompson is "Tattoo" the sequel to "A Garden of Sand".