Featured books

Featured Websites

.: Reader Views Kids

Provides book reviews, by kids, for kids

.: Inside Scoop Live

Provides live author interviews for podcast

.: Authors Access

Provides interviews with experts in the publishing industry

.: Midwest Book Review

Provides post-publication reviews

.: Reader Views

Provides book reviews and author publicity

.: LR Communication Design

Provides professional website design and development

.: Blogging Authors

Provides a place where writers and readers meet

.: Review The Book

Provides 5 books reviews on 10 different sites

.: Best Sellers World

Provides book reviews and author features

.: Feathered Quill Book Reviews

Provides book reviews and author features

reviews

Contagion: A Novel

Patrick M. Garry
Inkwater Press (2007)
ISBN 9781592992805
Reviewed by Mary Durfor for RebeccasReads (3/09)

I have a confession to make.  I read this book, went into the hospital for some cardiac surgery, and when I got back to normal and picked the book back up, I completely re-read it again, for the pure joy of the story and the storytelling…

This book is the fascinating study of a bunch of misfits, drawn to each other through the illusions of Izzy Dunleavy, an elderly resident of Oakdale Nursing Home in Billings, Montana.  He is bound and determined to hoodwink young (38 year-old) Walt Honerman into chauffeuring him to his imagined former grand resort, The Blue Point, in Crawfish Bay, Maryland.  Everyone in Oakdale knows that Walt and his now deceased uncle, Henry Honerman, were supposed to take a car trip to Baltimore to see Cal Ripken play at an Orioles game, and obtain his signature on a baseball Henry had in his possession.  As Walt concedes to start this cross-country misadventure, Moira Kelly enters the picture.  She is a kind and funny misfit of a young woman, who spent her entire life caring for infirm parents, drawn to Uncle Henry in his last days in the hospital.  She wants a lift back home to Baltimore as well. 

The execution of the road trip is punctuated by a constant, almost nerve-wracking commentary from Izzy, who is an expert in all things genteel, abhors dining in establishments without cloth napkins, insists that men are treated with respect only when they are wearing a tie and jacket (regardless of the venue), and can charm the ladies, even while modestly confused.  Walt, who is the driver as well as the bankroll for the entire operation, finds himself drifting down memory lane, as he painfully recalls a drunken youthful prank that landed him in prison for seven lonely, humiliating years.  His memories are painful to contemplate, and help the reader become Walt Honerman, and feel his discomfort in social situations.  The reader pulls for him to let himself enjoy the moment, and to let himself get close to Moira.  The easy familiarity that spreads all around Izzy and Moira, and later, Jake, the son of another of Izzy’s believers of his imagined empire, envelopes the group as they begin to become part of Izzy’s crazy dream of reviving the now-dilapidated Sand Castle to its former glory as a beach-front diner, serving only prize-winning fish.  (As it turns out, Izzy only stayed at the truly fabulous Blue Point resort, and actually owned the Sand Castle, a local hangout and diner on the beach.)

Jake’s mother Emily, hardened by her own past, including an abusive relationship with Jake’s father, scratched to make a decent living cooking at the Methodist Retirement Home in Crawfish Bay, Maryland.  She becomes even more entwined with the crazy dream of the misfit group to bring to life the old Sand Castle.  This book is full of introspective reflection, dream weaving, and it offers us glimpses into the lives of those who live with a disregard of reality, and the consequences of such disregard.  Those who pursue life with the absolute faith and belief that things will simply happen as they need to occur to achieve seemingly impossible dreams, goals and desires – these people whom we dismiss as dreamers, crazy, insane – they also capture our rapt attention, they amaze us, and we find ourselves wanting to be like them, to believe… 

.: Blog
.: Publisher's website