A college chum from half a century ago helped me with content research of 50 Shades of Grades, My Journey Through Wacademia. She just completed reading Three Lives of Peter Novak, and wrote the following review. Thank you, Marilyn.
“I have known the author for many years, though we only recently reconnected. Andy worked for my mother who was circulations librarian at the Brigham Young University. I was eighteen at the time. He contacted me when he was writing his delightful memories of his first book, 50 Shades of Grades, My Journey Through Wacademia, about his educational experiences. I gave him more information for the chapter about working for my mother. I know he carefully researches and provides accurate pictures of life as he remembers and then researches the accuracy of his memory. I am certain he tapped the resources of many of his relatives for this brilliantly written story.
I loved the first book, but Three Lives of Peter Novak was over the top for me. I received my copy a few days ago and finished it tonight, even competing with acting auditions and the Super Bowl. I found it intriguing and well written. I did not want to stop reading. Sometimes, I lose interest, even in great books, in the middle. I did not for this compelling story.
I think the idea of immigration is so important right now. My grandfather came from Norway. He died very young and before I knew him. I did not know his history, but often thought of the intrigue and the depths of experiences that came with his life that I would never know. My grandmother wrote about him being swindled out of his fortune by another Norwegian immigrant, but the story is loosely told and my grandfather’s perspective a complete loss. I am certain he left no memoirs that would have documented my grandfather’s life, so I connected with this story. I wanted it to be my grandfather’s history.
Language is so important. It was in the story of Peter, but somehow, Andy was able to recapture the life of his grandfather in a great way. He constructed a great tale, mesmerizing, and delightful. Fact or fiction does not matter; the story is wonderfully told and seemed so possible, so real, so heartwarming.
I know it is fictional, but it reads so well because of our own stories of our dearly departed who left us only a skeleton of their lives.”
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