Helpful Score: 3
I've tried several of Mr. Waller's books and they all "play out" like low-budget sappy movies. I think I got through about 30 pages before losing interest.
Helpful Score: 2
From the author of "Bridges of Madison County" In his newest book, Robert Waller writes about men and women who have seen life, made hard choices, and yet still looking some something more. And in this multi-layered, powerful story, he lets us without qualification that the dreams we cherish are understood and valued...and the chance we can fullfill them is real.
Helpful Score: 2
Vividly romantic...Memorable...magical...an unforgettable story
Helpful Score: 1
I like a book that catches you immediately. This book didn't do that. It took me until chapter 2 to really get interested. That said, I ended up really liking the book and having a rather melancholy feeling upon finishing it, wanting more. I loved the characters. Robert Waller gives them soul. No plot persay, but a story is there with a beginning, middle and ending. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed.
Helpful Score: 1
From the author of Bridges Of Madison County--I didn't think i'd like anything he wrote more than Bridges--but this is wonderful--powerful--moving, and such a wonderful read. I am really glad that i tried one more of his books, now i want to read some others he has written. As inner covers says, Mr Waller's novel is about men and women who have seen life, made hard choices, and yet are still looking for something more, and that you can make your dreams come true. Very worth the time i spent with these pages.
A heart-warming and heart-breaking story by Robert James Waller.
Texas Jack Carmine is a freeborn soul, rider of the summer roads, traveler of far places--a man with secrets that stretch back to Vietnam and hungers that keep him from settling down. Long-legged Linda Lobo is ready to ride with him, but they're not just headed back to his one-horse Texas ranch. They're headed for a high, hard passion that only happens once...and breaks your heart when it ends.
I really enjoyed this one. Texas Jack Carmine is the man who makes wage slaves long for the open road. He is the man you have always wanted to be friends with.
I like all of Waller's stuff, this included. but nothing tops "Bridges.."
This is a story set in Texas and the midwest about Texas Jack Carmine, a freedom-loving hardscrabble rancher, itinerant wheat-harvester and Vietnam vet and several people who were, it seems, unforgetably linked with him at some point in their lives. The books moves back and forth in time and is more reflective than action-packed. At the end, Jack's lifestyle choices seem to be made less from a love of freedom than a tragic and lonely flight from past traumas. Waller provides some beautiful moments but overall I found the story unsatisfying and the writing too cliched.
Did not like this book,.....could not finish it.
The lead sentence of Waller's potential bestseller is a first line that may turn up in quizzes, though not of the literary variety. "When this nameless piece a' shit tore off Linda Lobo's G-string instead of sticking money in it... Texas Jack Carmine went crazy-over-the-edge...." But make no mistake about it: while Texas Jack Carmine is neither as well-educated nor as well-spoken as Robert Kincaid or Michael Tillman, the protagonists of Waller's previous novels, he is equally intelligent, sensitive and romantic under the facade of his raunchy, beer-guzzling persona. With a twang in his voice matched by the low-down grit of Waller's prose, Jack is a restless man who lives "sweet and free... a rider of summer roads, traveler of far places." After he impulsively rescues long-legged, "high-assed" Linda from her job in a Minnesota bar, he discovers that she is the woman of his dreams. Jack takes Linda home to his one-horse ranch in Texas where they enjoy an idyllic year, doomed to end, however, as readers realize immediately, since Waller applies foreshadowing with a sledgehammer touch. Jack's "spells," flashbacks to the killing he did in Vietnam, are the reason that the lovers eventually part. But Jack assumes legendary proportions in the lives of everyone whose path he crosses; all eventually realize that "'he set us free... he loved us in a special way and in doin' so taught us to think better of ourselves."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW
Two strangers take off together...Waller is good with unusual romances.
A nice romantic read from the author of Bridges of Madison County.
A novel by the author of The Bridges of Madison County. A novel that writes about men and women who have seen life, made hard choices, and yet are still looking for something more. He lets us know that the dreams we cherish are undersood and valued...and that the chance we can fulfill them is real. A discontinued library book.
Most people dont run out the back door of a place called The Rainbow Bar in Dillon, Minnesota, with someone they don't even know, get in a pick-up truck, drive all day, and end up in a motel room. But that's exactly what Jack Carmine and Linda Lobo did. Texas Jack Carmine was God's only freeborn soul, rider of the summer roads, traveler of far places.. Where he was headed with dark-haired, long-legged Linda Lobo was somewhere he had never been before: face-to-face with his own heart and the wild things that live there.
after his first few, they have lost my appeal
Another great story by this author that scans several states and families. It is funny and touching. A good evening read.
This is the love story of Texas Jack Carmine and Linda Lobo.
Most people don't run out the back door of a place called the Rainbow bar in Dillon, Minnesota with someone they don't even know and drive all day and fall in immediate love, but that's what Texas Jack Carmine did with Linda Lobo. Known by his friends as "God's only freeborn soul," he heads back to his one-horse Texas ranch and comes face-to-face with his own heart and the wild, strange things that live there.
