Tracks

by Jim Black

Book Overview

It's 1968 in the small Texas town of Archer City. The average price of a new car is twenty-eight hundred dollars. Gasoline is thirty-four cents per gallon. A postage stamp costs a nickel. And people... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1598583573
• ISBN13: 9781598583571
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

BACK TO ARCHER

We liked Jim Black's first novel,River Season, so much that we'd have been happy to hear about any new book he'd written. But we were especially happy that he chose to return to the same characters and the town of Archer City, TX for his follow up. The boys--Jim, Gary and Charles--are a couple years older now and more concerned with girls and such than they used to be, but they're still up to plotting elaborate hijinx and the sorts of youthful male bonding that placed the first so squarely in the tradition of Dandelion Wine. Both the romantic travails and the pranks provide some laugh out loud moments and the relationships are enjoyable and even moving at times. This entry does lack the gravity that the Sam character provided last time around, the older black man who befriended the boys and taught them some important lessons. But the story acquires depth later on as we get to see how this idyll represents a time i life many of us will be familiar with, of last years with fast friends who we'll have trouble staying close to as life sends us on separate ways. I remember after my last year in High School I opted not to go to Camp Sankaty Head so I could caddy with my two best friends. But then we had fairly minimal contact through college and for several years after. I was fortunate enough to grow close to them again later on in life and Jim Black (or the Jim Black character in the book at any rate) seems to have done the same. There's something peculiarly satisfying in such a roman a clef that manages to strike home in this way, something reassuring about the universality of the particular. It's a fine book and a worthy sequel to its even better predecessor.

Small town homerun

With so much chaos in today's world, reading about the antics of the characters in "Tracks" is such a wonderful trip to simpler times. Mr. Black spins quite a tale as three teenage boys deal with girls, sports, cars, and pull some of the best practical jokes ever told. If you want to escape back to the better days of small town Texas living, grab a copy of "Tracks" and prepare to make people turn your way as you laugh out loud at the antics of Jim, Gary, and Charles.

Couldn't Put It Down

TRACKS is another warm and wonderful novel by Jim Black - the author of River Season. This is the continuing heart warming story of Jim, Gary and Charles as they face all the complicatations of life encountered by fifteen year old boys entering high school in a small town in Texas. Black,again, demonstrates his exceptional skill as a storyteller as he weaves an engaging tale that will keep the reader hooked. These buddies are engaging and real,warm and funny as the story unfolds. The surprises that Black includes are unusual and unexpected. Could not recommend more highly.