Back to Wando Passo: A Novel

by David Payne

Book Overview

Hailed as the most gifted American novelist of his generation (Boston Globe), David Payne introduces us to Ransom Hill, a big-hearted, wild-man lead singer of a legendary indie rock group, who has... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060851899
• ISBN13: 9780060851897
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: William Morrow
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.5" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Masterful, brilliant, wonderful ... a pure joy

David Payne proves once again why his books are so highly anticipated. The parallel story lines in Wando Passo are utterly compelling; the intrigue the author leaves at the end of each transition precludes putting the book down. Simply put, another wonderful read by one of America's very best writers.

A Winner

If you read only one book this summer, read Wando Passo. It is the type of novel you will want to read slowly. Not because of any complexities, but because you will not want it to end. Payne paints his characters so vividly, you will think you've met them in person. I thought about Ransom, Claire, and Marcel, just to name a few, long after I had read the final page. David Payne is a gifted writer who has taken the time to know his characters, and because of this, his readers will know them as well.

A Couldn't-Put-It-Down Gratifying Ride

Talk about central character Ransom Hill having a journey...reading the two intertwined stories of David Payne's novel BACK TO WANDO PASSO was an absorbing, enlightening, entertaining, instructive, deeply intriguing journey for this reader with a thrilling concluding event in chapter fifty-nine. Mr. Payne demonstrated what the sages have been saying for eons -that life is an interconnected web of relationships in this corporeal realm as well as in other realms, whether we are aware of it or not. Shakespeare said as much in The Tempest, "what's past is prologue". Mr. Payne has thrown just about everything in this book - love, sex, marriage, violence, mystery, parenting, war, passion, a new twist on the proverbial kitchen sink - a pot.....and that always sensitive, ever-present, often explosive, confusing, emotional and frequently under-discussed topic, race - America's third rail and vulnerable solar plexus. The humanity in this novel is profound and his observations of human frailties are penetrating and beautifully, often poetically, expressed. Mr. Payne doesn't shy away from its dicey complexity and he articulates their many facets clearly. Most especially, I appreciated the spirituality running throughout his story and the questions he raises about how to live and how to treat "the other". He puts his finger right on the shame of the South's legacy and calls it by its first name. I'm from Massachusetts and my own brief seven-year experience living and working as a theater artist in the South in Richmond, Virginia (the belly of the beast?), Montgomery, AL, Southeast Florida and throughout North Carolina affirms what I believe Mr. Payne's novel lays out - that for many, black and white, the lingering imbalance in the regla (proper order) of the relations between them ruptured so long ago is still a live, pulsating thing needing to be addressed. Inferred in this novel is, I believe, a plea for a better way, a return to regla, perhaps no better expressed than in the words of poet Qwendolyn Brooks: "We are each other's harvest We are each other's business We are each other's magnitude and bond." BACK TO WANDO PASSO is a substantial work of artful storytelling and is a gem. Benny Sato Ambush Profesional Stage Director, Producer, Educator

A Brilliant Page-Turner

I stayed up all night reading this book for two days straight. BACK TO WANDO PASSO is the best novel I have read in years. Payne is a brilliant, accomplished writer who manages to be both literary and suspenseful. I could not stop turning the pages. The respective love stories had me hooked and the writing took my breath away. Ransom Hill breaks my heart. This will be your favorite book of the summer, if not the the year.

Splendid

If I'm lucky, I find one great novel each year -- a big meaty novel I fall upon and into, give up days of my life for, finish reading but never really emerge from. Think of novels like The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber, The Bone People by Keri Hulme. Now read Wando Passo, best described as two novels intertwined and two unforgettable characters: Ransom Hill, a hyper-charged 21st-century man desperate to regain his wife and reform his life; and Adelaide ("Addie") DeLay, a Civil-War-era Southern wife intent on finding what is forbidden, that is to say love. Mystery, love story, culture clash -- all that, plus Payne's gorgeous lyric prose, particularly, to my taste, in Addie's story. Wando Passo might cost you a week, and afterward more weeks if you've not read Payne's earlier novels, including my favorites, Ruin Creek and Early for the Dance. What a joy to know that American publishers can still recognize a great novel.