The Flamingo Rising

by Larry Baker

Book Overview

In this touching, hilarious novel of the heart and mind, of dreams and memory, of desire and first love, Abe Lee comes of age in the 1960s, living with his unforgettable family at the Flamingo... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375400508
• ISBN13: 9780375400506
• Release Date: August 1997
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 310 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.6" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Drive Ins Never Looked So Great--A Keeper

All I can say is: read this book. If you're an adult who was lucky enough to have a drive in to go to, you'll love it. If you have never been to one, you'll still love it. The descriptions about the running of such a place is worth the price alone. You'll meet a family who's father decides to make his neighbor's life a living hell--all using the giant screen and fireworks. The fact that the neighbor runs a funeral home is even more delicious. There are great characters all along the way in this tale including a dog that lives in the attic, a tic-ridden airplane pilot, a nympomaniac and a lady that dies on the toilet. A great coming of age story set in the '60's that you'll think about long after you're finished. The ending is both poignant and heartfelt. Like I said, A Keeper!

Insane, funny, romantic, innocent

I absolutely adored this book. I took my time reading it because I felt like I was a part of it. It has characters in it that anyone can relate to. You must know from the beginning that a tragedy does occur but it is not what the book is all about. Don't look for this to happen. Just enjoy the book as it unfolds and the tragedy will not ruin it for you. It's just wonderful. It all works. It is America with all it's cliques, colorfulness and newness.

A Reflective Voice

Rita Mae Brown with a little more scope, Tom Robbins stopping before the exaggeration is bigger than life, John Irving's thoughtfulness--with a touch of early, fresh, lean John Updike. The prose on page 1 of The Flamingo Rising is strikingly good, and the story that starts there is unfailingly fascinating: funny, simple, metaphorical, true. These crazy Southern parents are much loved, fully human, and never mere caricature (I have crazy Southern parents: I know). The young man coming of age is also a Korean-adoptee narrator whose sense of himself and life is reflected both in the story's larger metaphors (e.g., Frank the dog, the giant image-tower, a graveyard by the sea, a house of images) and in a thoughtful narrative voice old enough to give one a sense of life and life's passing but true to its youth--also offering a cool but undistanced contrast between its simplicity and life's glorious exaggerations.I recommend this book for anyone interested in: a contemporary boy's coming of age; the problem of being one's parents' child; humor and profundity where unusual life shows you life at its heart; a very moving, very funny story; how to run a drive-in. And not least for the voice of the narrator. There are a couple of sermons underlying the thoughtfulness, but it's good to have folks like this in the pulpit. (The prose continues to be good) Thanks to Mr. Baker for a deeply moving and delightful work of art.

You've never read anything like it

Larry Baker's "The Flamingo Rising" provides a remarkably insightful look into a time period often characterized as "dull." His characters resonate with deft depictions of memorable individuals. You will identify with the eccentrics who populate this entertaining novel, and you will eagerly anticipate the publication of his second novel. If no other follows, it would still stand on its own much as "Catcher in the Rye" would have guaranteed Salinger his permanent place in American literature.

Terrific reading experience! Wonderful first time effort...

This is a delightful book with vivid characters that you want to meet! In fact, this book is so original and fun to read, I had to keep looking at the picture of Larry Baker and wonder -- how does he come up with these people and situations? It's easy to try and compare Baker with John Irving...since both have Iowa City roots...but I'd compare this book more to "The Shipping News" -- you actually LIKE the characters and care about what happens to them. Yes, yes, yes -- give it a try! Let's encourage MORE first time authors like Larry Baker.