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Five Skies
Beloved story writer Ron Carlson's first novel in thirty years, Five Skies is the story of three men gathered high in the Rocky Mountains for a construction project that is to last the summer. Having participated in a spectacular betrayal in Los Angeles, the giant, silent Arthur Key drifts into work as a carpenter in southern Idaho. Here he is hired, along with the shiftless and charming Ronnie Panelli, to build a stunt ramp beside a cavernous void. The two will be led by Darwin Gallegos, the foreman of the local ranch who is filled with a primeval rage at God, at man, at life. As they endeavor upon this simple, grand project, the three reveal themselves in cautiously resonant, profound ways. And in a voice of striking intimacy and grace, Carlson's novel reveals itself as a story of biblical, almost spiritual force. A bellwether return from one of our greatest craftsmen, Five Skies is sure to be one of the most praised and cherished novels of the year.
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
About the author
Ron Carlson
70 books117 followersRon Carlson is an American novelist and writer of short stories.
Carlson was born in Logan, Utah, but grew up in Salt Lake City. He earned a masters degree in English from the University of Utah. He then taught at The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut where he started his first novel.
He became a professor of English at Arizona State University in 1985, teaching creative writing to undergraduates and graduates, and ultimately becoming director of its Creative Writing Program.
Carlson also taught at the University of California, Irvine.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Carlson
Carlson was born in Logan, Utah, but grew up in Salt Lake City. He earned a masters degree in English from the University of Utah. He then taught at The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut where he started his first novel.
He became a professor of English at Arizona State University in 1985, teaching creative writing to undergraduates and graduates, and ultimately becoming director of its Creative Writing Program.
Carlson also taught at the University of California, Irvine.
For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Carlson
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 277 reviews
September 22, 2020
Three men with differing backgrounds and ages work together on a construction project in the middle of the Idaho desert. They live in a tent on the job site and occasionally visit a small town about 20 miles away. Each is harboring an emotional wound from a traumatic experience. They form close bonds over the course of the project. They are able to forget their troubles for a while, as they lose themselves in their work, feeling pleasure in doing the job well.
This book is beautifully written. The prose is sparse. The plot is low key. The characters are deeply developed. The tone is melancholy. The scenery of southern Idaho is pained in words. It is a stark landscape, filled with sagebrush and rabbits. A river lies at the bottom of a gorge. There are many conversations related to engineering and building construction. The novel is structured such that dialogue is used to gradually reveal their character traits and backstories.
The narrative is propelled by the sense of wanting to know what is initially unknown. What are they trying to avoid by getting away from the world for a while? What is this project intended to accomplish? What will the men do after the project is finished?
Eventually, all is revealed, and it leads up to an intense conclusion. The dramatic ending is surprising after the laid-back pace in the early parts. I very much enjoyed this book of inner turmoil in the midst of natural beauty.
This book is beautifully written. The prose is sparse. The plot is low key. The characters are deeply developed. The tone is melancholy. The scenery of southern Idaho is pained in words. It is a stark landscape, filled with sagebrush and rabbits. A river lies at the bottom of a gorge. There are many conversations related to engineering and building construction. The novel is structured such that dialogue is used to gradually reveal their character traits and backstories.
The narrative is propelled by the sense of wanting to know what is initially unknown. What are they trying to avoid by getting away from the world for a while? What is this project intended to accomplish? What will the men do after the project is finished?
Eventually, all is revealed, and it leads up to an intense conclusion. The dramatic ending is surprising after the laid-back pace in the early parts. I very much enjoyed this book of inner turmoil in the midst of natural beauty.
March 30, 2014
Five Skies is a lovely, focused work about men, western men trying to cope with their demons, sharing hard physical work and coming to be friends and to help each other through this imposed closeness.
Carlson is known mostly as a short story writer. It has been decades since his last novel. Unlike the work of other writers who straddle forms, this does not seem like a collection of stories, but a pointed, purposeful novel. Darwin Gallegos is a contractor charged with constructing a special facility for an Evel Kneval stunt in a mostly-unspoiled Idaho wilderness. He hires two day-laborers to help with this summer-long project. Arthur Key, an expert at devising one-of-a-kind constructions for use in films, has fled his Los Angeles home, smitten with grief and shame after the death of his ne’er-do-well brother and his (Art’s) affair with the brother’s wife. Ronnie Parnelli is a young man on the run from a work-release program, a petty criminal who aspires to accomplishment and a straighter path. The three share work, play and some of themselves with each other over the course of this project. Darwin cannot or will not get over the death five months prior of his beloved wife. How they grow, communicate, accomplish is at core here. Carlson must know plenty about the reality of hard labor and the technical aspects of putting things together. The book is replete with details on how this or that is done. The detail can get a bit painful at times, but it does serve to highlight the value in doing work that produces actual, as opposed to virtual, stuff. People suffer grave injustice to their bodies in doing such labor and that is shown. Sometimes the work is for a less-than-excellent purpose, but there is still value in doing work well. That value is a shared one here, and serves bind the three men together.
The skies of the title are concrete, and beautiful, the actual changing skies of Idaho. Carlson has a gift for describing nature with a deft and uplifting touch. There is a counterpoint here between the physicality of the labors in which the three are engaged and the emotional changes, the emotional work each must do to complete their personal projects. Each has a gap across which they must jump to get from here to there and they help each other construct their personal ramps.
Does the scene in which the guys indulge in local hot springs imply a baptism, a rebirth? Does their fishing have religious connotations? I don’t know. Maybe a hot spring is just a hot spring. But without fishing too much for metaphors intended or not, I can say that Five Skies was a pleasure to read, well-crafted and poetic. It takes you from here to there in style.
Carlson is known mostly as a short story writer. It has been decades since his last novel. Unlike the work of other writers who straddle forms, this does not seem like a collection of stories, but a pointed, purposeful novel. Darwin Gallegos is a contractor charged with constructing a special facility for an Evel Kneval stunt in a mostly-unspoiled Idaho wilderness. He hires two day-laborers to help with this summer-long project. Arthur Key, an expert at devising one-of-a-kind constructions for use in films, has fled his Los Angeles home, smitten with grief and shame after the death of his ne’er-do-well brother and his (Art’s) affair with the brother’s wife. Ronnie Parnelli is a young man on the run from a work-release program, a petty criminal who aspires to accomplishment and a straighter path. The three share work, play and some of themselves with each other over the course of this project. Darwin cannot or will not get over the death five months prior of his beloved wife. How they grow, communicate, accomplish is at core here. Carlson must know plenty about the reality of hard labor and the technical aspects of putting things together. The book is replete with details on how this or that is done. The detail can get a bit painful at times, but it does serve to highlight the value in doing work that produces actual, as opposed to virtual, stuff. People suffer grave injustice to their bodies in doing such labor and that is shown. Sometimes the work is for a less-than-excellent purpose, but there is still value in doing work well. That value is a shared one here, and serves bind the three men together.
The skies of the title are concrete, and beautiful, the actual changing skies of Idaho. Carlson has a gift for describing nature with a deft and uplifting touch. There is a counterpoint here between the physicality of the labors in which the three are engaged and the emotional changes, the emotional work each must do to complete their personal projects. Each has a gap across which they must jump to get from here to there and they help each other construct their personal ramps.
Does the scene in which the guys indulge in local hot springs imply a baptism, a rebirth? Does their fishing have religious connotations? I don’t know. Maybe a hot spring is just a hot spring. But without fishing too much for metaphors intended or not, I can say that Five Skies was a pleasure to read, well-crafted and poetic. It takes you from here to there in style.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 26, 2012
Well into this novel, I was ready to give it six stars for the beauty of its vision and the strength of its characterization - in particular the way it describes exactly how men work together and guardedly learn to trust each other. The gentle needling humor in the sparse exchanges of dialogue and the focus on work to be done, plus the soul-satisfying nature of work well done, accurately represent a quiet masculine world that is seldom seen in fiction. I instantly recognized the three men in this story because I know them from life. Carlson has captured them, the way they deal with pain and loss of pride, and the way they slowly recover from both, in a way that is utterly believable.
Placing his three characters for a summer on a work site in southern Idaho, 20 miles from the nearest settlement, Carlson adds the healing effects of a vast, isolated environment under a big sky. The only thing that compromises the men is the dubious nature of the work itself - their time, energies and intelligence (though well paid for) serve the wasteful and ephemeral appetites of popular culture and its willing promoters. The river gorge that runs near their campsite eventually exacts a kind of toll for the hubris that drives the entire enterprise.
I haven't read a book so well written and so gripping in its portrayal of men since James Salter's "Solo Faces," which pursues similar themes in a world of physical extremes (alpine mountain climbing). And almost never does one read of the simple process of an older man taking under his wing a lost and troubled younger man and with gentle humor and mentoring setting his life back on track. By the end of the novel, a line like "Don't feed the rabbits, Ronnie," carries with it volumes of emotional meaning that can shake a simple reader like me to the core. I'm still struggling with the ending of the novel and not sure about those six stars anymore, but Ron Carlson has won me as a fan, hands down. My hope is that he is found by the many readers he deserves and who deserve him.
Placing his three characters for a summer on a work site in southern Idaho, 20 miles from the nearest settlement, Carlson adds the healing effects of a vast, isolated environment under a big sky. The only thing that compromises the men is the dubious nature of the work itself - their time, energies and intelligence (though well paid for) serve the wasteful and ephemeral appetites of popular culture and its willing promoters. The river gorge that runs near their campsite eventually exacts a kind of toll for the hubris that drives the entire enterprise.
I haven't read a book so well written and so gripping in its portrayal of men since James Salter's "Solo Faces," which pursues similar themes in a world of physical extremes (alpine mountain climbing). And almost never does one read of the simple process of an older man taking under his wing a lost and troubled younger man and with gentle humor and mentoring setting his life back on track. By the end of the novel, a line like "Don't feed the rabbits, Ronnie," carries with it volumes of emotional meaning that can shake a simple reader like me to the core. I'm still struggling with the ending of the novel and not sure about those six stars anymore, but Ron Carlson has won me as a fan, hands down. My hope is that he is found by the many readers he deserves and who deserve him.
November 30, 2015
A short spare story as quiet as a whisper- you have to pay attention or you'll miss something. Three men battling their personal demons are thrown together for a project of hard work in an secluded environment. I didn't like the ending but it felt fitting.
January 15, 2018
Wow. Great read. I stopped and started several times in the first few chapters. It really is a guy book about 3 damaged men looking to hide themselves in the wide open spaces of Idaho. They come together accidentily as a crew building a ramp for a motorcycle jump across a river gorge. Its the writing and the characters that hold you. A novel that builds slowly and remains in ones mind, wondering what happens after the last page. Highly recommended.
May 26, 2008
Five Skies follows what should be a fine formula for a short novel: the characters are familiar; the setting is dramatic; the issues are those that have been sounded in a number of novels of the American West. The problem is that the genus of brooding Western men is an overplayed type; while publishers may not get enough of them, perhaps readers can. We have met these men — whose pains are buried, whose losses are great, whose relationships with women are muted, awkward, and transparently affectionate — through Wallace Stegner, through Larry McMurtry, through Ivan Doig and Kent Haruf, and not all of these introductions have been fictional. Five Skies does nothing to elevate the type out of redundancy, and the structure of the novel — as carefully measured as the construct at the center of its plot — makes the exercise feel mechanical, and the grand horizon of its setting appear false, painted, and flat.
November 19, 2014
I'm so glad I read this NPR Pick from 2007. This is would make a great movie! I picture Will Farrell as Art and Lucas Black (the "Slingblade" boy) as Ronnie. This is a book that you need to talk about with someone!
February 4, 2011
As I read Five Skies I realized I was learning something about my father, that I had never thought about before. That's the way it is with novels that rise above the ordinary. Literature teaches us something about the people we know, as well as bringing to life places and people we don't know.
"Measure twice, cut once," my father would say. His strict father, a tin smith who worked on furnaces and ductwork, insisted he do things right. "Live so that the world will be a little better when you leave." Although my father never had formal training as an engineer, he had the soul of an engineer. I remember him making diagrams for how to plant a vegetable and flower garden. I remember the care that went in to getting a home improvment project built well.
The main character inFive Skies, Arthur, is called an engineer, because that is the way he approaches his work. Idaho Author Ron Carlson could have been describing my father when he wrote this passage:
"It cut across his grain to use a tool for the wrong purpose. Arthur Key had never used a wrench as a hammer once in his life or a pliers as a hammer or a pliers where a fitted wrench was the right tool."
Any time I am tempted to hit a nail with the handle of a screw driver, I hear my father cautioning, "Always use the right tool for the right job." And these similarities between Arthur Key and my father got me thinking about the "why" of this concern with doing things right, and I realized that like Arthur, things had gone terribly wrong at one point in my father's life, and he felt compelled to keep things as orderly as possible, to keep life under control.
The novel Five Skies itself is crafted like a careful workman's project, using words instead of wood and metal. Nothing is wasted. It all fits perfectly. Just like the project they are working on, the life stories of the three men slowly take shape. They talk plainly like working men would, but the speech is purely poetry. A family grows as the three strangers fill their roles, the young man, the middle-aged man, and the older man. For all of them, work is the center of attention. The work provides solace, it provides a sense of worth, and it provides something to fill empty spaces and shut down thinking about the unpleasant past. Arthur says, "I believe in work."
Arthur's profession before he took this pick-up job on the rim of a canyon in Idaho, involved creating illusions for movies. But even illusions take careful craftsmanship.
"He hated magic. It made people careless and hopeful, and he had a low tolerance for anything that disregarded cause-effect."
I remember my father's disdain for jazz music. "How do they know when they are finished?" All three men are here working on this project in order to shut out something in their past, and Ron Carlson reveals the stories slowly. We learn about them as they learn about each other, and the young man, Ronnie, gains confidence as the others become father figures teaching him about work and life.
Idaho--with its mountains, cliffs, rivers, weather, and, yes, the skies-- becomes a character in this novel. The men learn to read its story, too, and it alternately charms them and betrays them.
The go for a picnic in the canyon:
]The river came through this park winding in a perfect S and the sand and willows and twenty gigantic cottonwoods were half in the shade. The air rode down the river fragrant with water and willows.
That is the kind of description that makes you want to see Idaho yourself.
(Entire review at A Traveler's Library.com)
"Measure twice, cut once," my father would say. His strict father, a tin smith who worked on furnaces and ductwork, insisted he do things right. "Live so that the world will be a little better when you leave." Although my father never had formal training as an engineer, he had the soul of an engineer. I remember him making diagrams for how to plant a vegetable and flower garden. I remember the care that went in to getting a home improvment project built well.
The main character inFive Skies, Arthur, is called an engineer, because that is the way he approaches his work. Idaho Author Ron Carlson could have been describing my father when he wrote this passage:
"It cut across his grain to use a tool for the wrong purpose. Arthur Key had never used a wrench as a hammer once in his life or a pliers as a hammer or a pliers where a fitted wrench was the right tool."
Any time I am tempted to hit a nail with the handle of a screw driver, I hear my father cautioning, "Always use the right tool for the right job." And these similarities between Arthur Key and my father got me thinking about the "why" of this concern with doing things right, and I realized that like Arthur, things had gone terribly wrong at one point in my father's life, and he felt compelled to keep things as orderly as possible, to keep life under control.
The novel Five Skies itself is crafted like a careful workman's project, using words instead of wood and metal. Nothing is wasted. It all fits perfectly. Just like the project they are working on, the life stories of the three men slowly take shape. They talk plainly like working men would, but the speech is purely poetry. A family grows as the three strangers fill their roles, the young man, the middle-aged man, and the older man. For all of them, work is the center of attention. The work provides solace, it provides a sense of worth, and it provides something to fill empty spaces and shut down thinking about the unpleasant past. Arthur says, "I believe in work."
Arthur's profession before he took this pick-up job on the rim of a canyon in Idaho, involved creating illusions for movies. But even illusions take careful craftsmanship.
"He hated magic. It made people careless and hopeful, and he had a low tolerance for anything that disregarded cause-effect."
I remember my father's disdain for jazz music. "How do they know when they are finished?" All three men are here working on this project in order to shut out something in their past, and Ron Carlson reveals the stories slowly. We learn about them as they learn about each other, and the young man, Ronnie, gains confidence as the others become father figures teaching him about work and life.
Idaho--with its mountains, cliffs, rivers, weather, and, yes, the skies-- becomes a character in this novel. The men learn to read its story, too, and it alternately charms them and betrays them.
The go for a picnic in the canyon:
]The river came through this park winding in a perfect S and the sand and willows and twenty gigantic cottonwoods were half in the shade. The air rode down the river fragrant with water and willows.
That is the kind of description that makes you want to see Idaho yourself.
(Entire review at A Traveler's Library.com)
September 21, 2009
If I could give this book a zero, I would.
Billed as an award winning tale of redemption and manliness (or something), this is actually a book that is largely about three guys avoiding conversation while constructing a ramp in the Idaho wilderness. Sure, there's some character development here and there. But by the end, you aren't even sure which one of them, as the back of the book put it, "rises above his dark nature" and which "falls beneath the weight of it."
I'm pretty sure the only thing I learned from this book was that one can write procedurally about construction and have it win fiction awards. Now that is an amazing fact.
Billed as an award winning tale of redemption and manliness (or something), this is actually a book that is largely about three guys avoiding conversation while constructing a ramp in the Idaho wilderness. Sure, there's some character development here and there. But by the end, you aren't even sure which one of them, as the back of the book put it, "rises above his dark nature" and which "falls beneath the weight of it."
I'm pretty sure the only thing I learned from this book was that one can write procedurally about construction and have it win fiction awards. Now that is an amazing fact.
July 2, 2008
I read all of Five Skies, and I really wanted to like all of it, but mostly I liked none of it. Carlson's short stories are great, but this, his first novel, seems off pace and off focus. I was intrigued by the premise of three sort of "construction dudes" coming into their own and forming some important relationship. Ultimately, though, the writing seems to focus more on endless descriptions of, like, cranes and backhoes. The relationships among the men struck me as inconsequential...maybe I'm missing something, but I just couldn't find the heart in this.
January 13, 2008
This book is a slow-paced story of labor among strangers. By the end, you willwish that Ronnie, Darwin, and Arthur Key were your real life friends. You will be sorry to let go of them. This is a story of pain and loss and past regrets, of atonement played out through hard labor. It is an engaging story about real people.
March 28, 2022
This is my second exposure to Ron Carlson. There are similarities between this and The Signal, but my impression is that this one is more powerful, despite its somewhat muted storyline. And I thought The Signal was great.
For much of the first part of the narrative, there is scarcely a story at all. Carlson brings together three characters, all men, all of them reluctant to divulge much about their pasts. Darwin Gallegos is the foreman of an unusual construction project. Having driven into Pocatello, Idaho to recruit a pair of laborers, Arthur Key and Ronnie Parnelli, he takes them back to the work site at the top of a cliff above a river gorge, far, far out in the back country. Weeks and months pass as they live and work together there, gradually shedding their mutual suspicion and developing respect and affection for one another.
A great deal of attention is given to the details of each task before them: building a table, drilling holes in the ground and setting utility poles, grading a strip of land where an asphalt road will be poured, repairing the grader when it breaks, and finally constructing a carefully engineered ramp. Each of those tasks leads naturally to "the next big thing." The work is deeply satisfying in its own right, and the men throw themselves into "the challenge of the moment." Ronnie is young and ignorant, but enthusiastic, quick to learn, and anxious to be accepted. It turns out that Arthur previously designed and built custom sets for movies in Hollywood. He's uniquely qualified for this work, and he becomes a wonderful mentor. At about the midpoint of the story it becomes clear that the ramp will be used by a stunt person on a motorcycle to sail across the gorge and (hopefully) land on the other side. (Arthur calculates that if there is no wind, and the bike attains sufficient speed, it will get across—but that the rider will break a lot of bones upon landing.)
The wasteful, perhaps degenerate purpose of the ramp is at cross-purposes to the purity of the work involved in building it. On the other hand, it's a kind of metaphor for what each of these men needs. Both Darwin and Arthur had been emotionally incapacitated by recent personal tragedies, and Ronnie is trying to get a fresh start in life after misadventures with the law. It's a story about seeking purification, very much like what I remember of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories.
For much of the first part of the narrative, there is scarcely a story at all. Carlson brings together three characters, all men, all of them reluctant to divulge much about their pasts. Darwin Gallegos is the foreman of an unusual construction project. Having driven into Pocatello, Idaho to recruit a pair of laborers, Arthur Key and Ronnie Parnelli, he takes them back to the work site at the top of a cliff above a river gorge, far, far out in the back country. Weeks and months pass as they live and work together there, gradually shedding their mutual suspicion and developing respect and affection for one another.
A great deal of attention is given to the details of each task before them: building a table, drilling holes in the ground and setting utility poles, grading a strip of land where an asphalt road will be poured, repairing the grader when it breaks, and finally constructing a carefully engineered ramp. Each of those tasks leads naturally to "the next big thing." The work is deeply satisfying in its own right, and the men throw themselves into "the challenge of the moment." Ronnie is young and ignorant, but enthusiastic, quick to learn, and anxious to be accepted. It turns out that Arthur previously designed and built custom sets for movies in Hollywood. He's uniquely qualified for this work, and he becomes a wonderful mentor. At about the midpoint of the story it becomes clear that the ramp will be used by a stunt person on a motorcycle to sail across the gorge and (hopefully) land on the other side. (Arthur calculates that if there is no wind, and the bike attains sufficient speed, it will get across—but that the rider will break a lot of bones upon landing.)
The wasteful, perhaps degenerate purpose of the ramp is at cross-purposes to the purity of the work involved in building it. On the other hand, it's a kind of metaphor for what each of these men needs. Both Darwin and Arthur had been emotionally incapacitated by recent personal tragedies, and Ronnie is trying to get a fresh start in life after misadventures with the law. It's a story about seeking purification, very much like what I remember of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories.
November 15, 2009
Someone said to me that Ron Carlson is a “writer’s writer.” And I believe it. I first heard him give a reading at the Napa Valley Writer’s Conference in 2008. He was funny, grounded, and just the kind of guy you’d want around if your car broke down, or if you’d lost a mattress off the back of your truck on the way to a fancy function. Which happened to be -the plot of a wonderful story he read that night.
I gave Five Skies to my father last Christmas, and I will most certainly circulate it to my uncle and brother. For if Ron Carlson is a writer’s writer – this book is best appreciate by a man’s-man-kind-of-guy – and ladies of a rough and tumble ilk. It features gorgeous prose that details the tools and material specific to a contractor’s bailiwick. And as I barely know the difference between an allen wrench and a monkey wrench – a lot of it was, sadly, lost on me.
His poignant narrative takes place on a construction site out in the wilderness/ ranch lands of Idaho and tells the story of three men from different generations who have all recently suffered a blow of some kind. Together, they work their dark nights’ journeys and find life’s richness. We all know the trope, but like a family photo, his is rendered just so, and worth close attention.
His characters are vivid, likeable, and deeply believable. But the joy for me is in lines such as “The sound of the river came to them in ribbons, sometimes a hollow rush, and sometimes an echo.” OR “They had woken to the sky a prefect trick, a magnified color well beyond cobalt. Tangible and tender, the air and the earth after the rain seemed minted, some rare promise in the leverage of the early sunshine.” ‘Nuff said.
I gave Five Skies to my father last Christmas, and I will most certainly circulate it to my uncle and brother. For if Ron Carlson is a writer’s writer – this book is best appreciate by a man’s-man-kind-of-guy – and ladies of a rough and tumble ilk. It features gorgeous prose that details the tools and material specific to a contractor’s bailiwick. And as I barely know the difference between an allen wrench and a monkey wrench – a lot of it was, sadly, lost on me.
His poignant narrative takes place on a construction site out in the wilderness/ ranch lands of Idaho and tells the story of three men from different generations who have all recently suffered a blow of some kind. Together, they work their dark nights’ journeys and find life’s richness. We all know the trope, but like a family photo, his is rendered just so, and worth close attention.
His characters are vivid, likeable, and deeply believable. But the joy for me is in lines such as “The sound of the river came to them in ribbons, sometimes a hollow rush, and sometimes an echo.” OR “They had woken to the sky a prefect trick, a magnified color well beyond cobalt. Tangible and tender, the air and the earth after the rain seemed minted, some rare promise in the leverage of the early sunshine.” ‘Nuff said.
April 14, 2022
A screaming rabbit had woken him, the cries thin and shrill in their extremity sounding only like a woman to him, only like a crime.
When I read that sentence on page one, I thought: I'm not going to like this book.
I kept thinking that the reason I didn't really get it must be because it is so "manly". None of the characters was very talkative and so we only get the parts of their backstories that they felt like sharing. Even when we're right in the middle of something important, we only get part of the story. Also, it felt like the author had personal experience in construction with all the detailed descriptions of backhoes and comealongs (I had to look that one up).
Maybe Sam Elliott would understand it better.
When I read that sentence on page one, I thought: I'm not going to like this book.
I kept thinking that the reason I didn't really get it must be because it is so "manly". None of the characters was very talkative and so we only get the parts of their backstories that they felt like sharing. Even when we're right in the middle of something important, we only get part of the story. Also, it felt like the author had personal experience in construction with all the detailed descriptions of backhoes and comealongs (I had to look that one up).
Maybe Sam Elliott would understand it better.
February 8, 2008
I really like Ron Carlson. His stories are full of memorable characters acting memorably, they exist in small interactions and come to grips with the world around them. After 50 pages I had to check the book flap (and I am still not entirely convinced) to see if I was reading some other Ron Carlson. This book is fragmented, the charecters are fine, but under drawn, It is almost as if he had 1,000 pages and cut them down to the 250 he put in the book. The book was an exercise in one of his strengths--focusing on minute detailed action in order to give insight into human character-- but unlike everything else i have read of his, it was not interwoven with the rest of his ability.
May 18, 2020
Three men team up to undertake a specialized summer-long construction project at the precipice of a river canyon in the mountains of Idaho. Team leader Darwin is fleeing his grief over the recent death of his wife. Engineer Arthur Key has left behind a career in construction for the movies, along with a fresh grief of his own. And young Ronnie doesn't know much beyond petty theft, juvie, and jail, but over the course of the project, the two older men take him under their wings, steadily teaching him all kinds of hands-on construction skills.
This is not a bad story, but it wasn't my cup of tea. The narration spends a lot of time on the details of the three men's construction work, which gets a little boring/mystifying for readers who haven't done much carpentry or road blading. I'm not a stickler who insists that all stories need to pass the Bechdel test, but this one doesn't even come close. To me, it seems like a book about men and for men. Even so, I did like the mentoring relationship between the two older men and Ronnie. Unfortunately, that dynamic takes a pretty heartbreaking turn before all is said and done.
This is not a bad story, but it wasn't my cup of tea. The narration spends a lot of time on the details of the three men's construction work, which gets a little boring/mystifying for readers who haven't done much carpentry or road blading. I'm not a stickler who insists that all stories need to pass the Bechdel test, but this one doesn't even come close. To me, it seems like a book about men and for men. Even so, I did like the mentoring relationship between the two older men and Ronnie. Unfortunately, that dynamic takes a pretty heartbreaking turn before all is said and done.
August 17, 2010
You may have seen Janie's review, so I will keep this short. This is our second Ron Carlson book -- we also greatly enjoyed "Signal." We listened to this one on a CD driving back from Minnesota. Carlson is a great story teller with a knack for character development. He also does a wonderful job of capturing the feeling of living and working in the mountains, in this story, an Idaho construction site far away from civilization. I've often thought of trying to write a book someday. I can't think of a better author to emulate than Carlson who combines a compelling narrative with a description of people you care about.
December 3, 2021
Couldn't get into this, dull, dry. Three mismatched men working on a project out in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, making tentative efforts to get to know each other but back peddling as fast as they could, each throwing more of themselves into work to avoid dealing with themselves and/or their pasts. Just seemed to be no point or plot to it. But judging from other reviews, some people really liked it. To each their own.
Of course, I didn't really read the whole thing. After the first third of the book, I began skimming though it..... faster and faster. So maybe there was a good piece I missed. Then again, maybe not.
Of course, I didn't really read the whole thing. After the first third of the book, I began skimming though it..... faster and faster. So maybe there was a good piece I missed. Then again, maybe not.
August 18, 2009
Someone told me this book was dreadful (it was the Read Across Rhode Island selection for 2009) so I did not look forward to reading it for our discussion group. I ended up liking it very much. The writing, especially in the descriptions of nature, was very poetic. The central people were NICE and I was happy to meet them. I liked the way we only got to know back-stories of characters in bits and pieces over time the way you find out about people in real life. Friendships earned, respect, honor, duty and a-job-worth-doing-is-worth-doing-right philosophy. A quiet, thoughtful, beautiful book.
May 19, 2018
We're told that this is a novel about 3 men building a large structure over a river gorge during an Idaho summer. They are tortured men, each suffering from their own personal pain. Sounds like a great story, right?
Wrong! The novel is really about building things and cooking meals. It's true. We read about every stage of the construction process and the cooking of almost every meal over a whole summer. Occasionally the author would insert a sliver of story, maybe out of guilt, but then he would go right back to what he really relished, which was construction and cooking.
Wrong! The novel is really about building things and cooking meals. It's true. We read about every stage of the construction process and the cooking of almost every meal over a whole summer. Occasionally the author would insert a sliver of story, maybe out of guilt, but then he would go right back to what he really relished, which was construction and cooking.
December 17, 2017
Why in the world would I care about 3 guys building a launch ramp at a canyon’s edge? Ron Carlson knows why and shows his readers what to treasure in the men brought together for the project.
They are finding their way out of grief and trouble and learning again how to once more be able to “do the next thing”. As the layers of each man are peeled away, the reader cares more and more for each one of them until, finally and regretfully, it’s time to say “good bye” and let them get on with it.
They are finding their way out of grief and trouble and learning again how to once more be able to “do the next thing”. As the layers of each man are peeled away, the reader cares more and more for each one of them until, finally and regretfully, it’s time to say “good bye” and let them get on with it.
May 24, 2019
This read was so unsatisfying. I finished with a feeling of 'that's it?' The detail and description of the setting was stunning but the character development was lacking. I agree with another reviewer that it seemed as though a few hundred pages were taken out a much bigger novel to create this piece.
July 28, 2013
There's a lot of emotion in this book for something that is, at least on the surface, about three guys building a ramp in nowhere Idaho. I love the lines too. Quiet, strong, and nothing that isn't needed. I do like me some Ron Carlson.
April 8, 2010
I enjoyed my dive into this beautiful world I know so little about... construction, Idaho and three very different men's lives.
April 14, 2015
I'm devastated. that it's over and that I read it at all. this one knocked the wind out of me.
June 19, 2017
I was engaged with the three major characters--their past lives into the present, their growth, their comradeship. At the same time, the style--the precise physical details, the dialogue enjoyable in and of itself--kept me at a distance. Or it may be that the precise detailing of construction, landscape and skyscape, became a sort of personality, a presence sharing the foreground or bringing the humans into this context. One believes in the detail because unless one is wholly familiar with the tools and machines used, one has no choice. I expect some may skip over such step-by-step description, but that would diminish the characters and the impact when mistakes are made. Carlson has been compared to Hemingway in his focus on males finding their worth through outside effort that has risks. OK, but I appreciate that he doesn't load in the codes and fatalism I associate with Hemingway.
I expect to read it again and perhaps have different reactions.
I expect to read it again and perhaps have different reactions.
January 16, 2021
“The river came through this park winding in a perfect S and the sand and willows and twenty gigantic cottonwoods were half in the shade. The air rode down the river fragrant with water and willows.”
Three men get together for a construction project in Idaho. That is the gist. I love reading stories set in the modern West and Carlson seems to be the kind of author I enjoy but this was an uneven narrative and I am not sure I needed a description of building a ramp in painstaking detail. I still found plenty to admire. I like these three, flawed, rugged, characters and Carlson can certainly describe the great outdoors with a sense of beauty and serenity. The author is known as a short story writer and I wonder if I would appreciate him more, in that format. I will definitely give him another try.
Three men get together for a construction project in Idaho. That is the gist. I love reading stories set in the modern West and Carlson seems to be the kind of author I enjoy but this was an uneven narrative and I am not sure I needed a description of building a ramp in painstaking detail. I still found plenty to admire. I like these three, flawed, rugged, characters and Carlson can certainly describe the great outdoors with a sense of beauty and serenity. The author is known as a short story writer and I wonder if I would appreciate him more, in that format. I will definitely give him another try.
October 22, 2017
Guy lit. Set in southern Idaho on a ranch overlooking the Snake, this modern western is all about work and the proper care of tools and how to do big jobs in wide open places. Three guys bond by working together. As with the best of Hemingway, process is key and there is a right way for everything. Not much is said. Questions are seldom asked or answered. Somehow each man manages to heal what's broken or, failing that, learns how to walk it off.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
June 27, 2019
Profoundly moving story of three men, each separated by a generation, haunted by past mistakes, who come together in unlikely fashion to build an even more unlikely structure in the middle of absolute nowhere, Idaho. Carlson's writing, and treatment of ostensibly mundane subject matter, is transcendent, though I suppose it reminds of certain Western writers, the idea of the West as a state of mind, something that's still very much untamed for all our efforts. Like, say, Cormac McCarthy, his dialogue is honest, his prose crunchy, and he's a highly skilled dramatist, more so than you might give him credit for since not a whole lot happens in Five Skies, just a lot of construction work, a drive into a canyon, a fight, a fall, a fire. More so than McCarthy, Carlson enjoys taking his time marveling at the simple and timeless majesty of the environment, he's a miniaturist at heart: the descriptions of the sky, plateau, gorge, and the town as well, are among the most sublime I've ever read ("The poles and the neat stacks of lumber and the tent were clear on the vast expanse. Again it was a different view and made their efforts small. Key was sobered by the panorama, and the vastness smothered his notions that the project might succeed."). It's a book that I know will assume a special place in my memory, one of those novels you read at a certain time in your life which seems to speak to you directly, to have fallen into your hands for the sole purpose of guiding you through the present. It concludes with the searing statement that we can neither run from our past nor repair it; to do so is death and destruction. We can only try to shoulder it as we move on to the "next thing."
December 16, 2008
My first encounter with Carlson, and I liked the terrain of this novel a lot –– three strangers who are brought together to complete a construction project on a windswept plateau in Idaho. The three men are diversely compelling, but Carlson portrays with too heavy a hand the personal/emotional setbacks (two deaths and an affair with a brother's wife) they're fleeing. He also has a really curious way of handling "big" urgent scenes, of which there aren't actually very many (and not to the book's detriment––the best moments are quiet ones, involving complicated technical descriptions of the job, or coyotes breaking across a field at night). Very early on, for example, one of the characters is injured in an accident, and Carlson describes the ride into town for medical attention before circling back to explain what happened. It's an unusual approach, and one that he repeats a couple of times––it makes you certain that you've missed something important, rifling back through pages until you realize that he just has this way of advancing the plot almost retrospectively. All in all, a tough and appealing novel––I only wish that Carlson had allowed the fact of what's eating these men to reside more fully off the page. There's an overly convenient cause-and-effect there that doesn't match the complicated relationships the men strike with one another (what is essentially the heart of the book).
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