Hearts in Atlantis
October 11, 2007
HEARTS IN ATLANTIS offers five novellas, each examining both childhood and the Vietnam War.
William Hurt opens the series with a absorbing narrative of a summer in the lives of three children and the adults who influence them in the small-town Harwich, Connecticut. His alternating narrative style clearly characterizes the images of childhood, and the perturbing ways of grown-ups, as well.
King takes over for the title story, which describes between 1960 and today, each beautifully interwoven tale is deeply rooted in the sixties, each is haunted by the Vietnam war.
In 1960, there’s a newcomer to the town, who introduces Bobby Garfield to the joy of reading and the horrors of ‘low men in yellow coats’;
By 1966, it’s bellbottom pants, pot, patchouli and peace-signs and at Maine University, Pete, who has fallen victim to the addictive game of ‘hearts in Atlantis’, will learn a lesson in humanity;
By 1983, ‘Nam vet ‘Blind Willie’ is paying penance;
In 1999, there are reunions, funerals, and the eternal questions - ‘why we’re in Vietnam’; a year later, Bobby comes home to where his heart is, where the past is always present, as ‘Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling’.
On Audado: Hearts in Atlantis