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I'm not one to usually read authors that have been on Oprah's Book Club list if only
for the fact that the titles haven't interested me. So when I received Robert Morgan's
latest, THIS ROCK, I honestly didn't have high expectations, as I knew that his previous
novel, GAP CREEK, was an Oprah selection. However, THIS ROCK is a fine novel.
Set in the Carolinas during the 1920s, THIS ROCK is a well drawn, well characterized, well
plotted story of two brothers, Muir and Moody Powell, and the mother that raises them.
Muir is a young man with big dreams but without the wherewithal to achieve them. He finds
something he wants to do, tries to do it, and when it doesn't go his way immediately, he
finds something else to occupy his time. He wants to know what his life's mission is.
Moody is Muir's older brother. Embittered by the death of their father and the
preferential treatment Muir gets from their mother Ginny, he bootlegs and gambles, always
ready with a smart remark for his young brother and always ready for a fight with anyone
who disagrees with him.
Their lives, even with all the separation they desperately try to create between
themselves, are entwined. What happens to one will have an impact on the other along with
far-reaching consequences. And in the end you pull for both brothers, even though you know
something terrible will happen to one if not both.
On the dust jacket it says that the brothers are "as different as Cain and
Abel." Immediately what comes to mind is John Steinbeck's EAST OF EDEN. Morgan has a
Steinbeck quality, giving life and humanity to the rough and tumble and the down and out.
The soul of the story is in the characters Morgan creates, and the characters live and
breathe throughout. THIS ROCK just might make me turn a page, so to speak, and start
reading a few more Oprah Book Club authors.
--- Reviewed by Jonathan Shipley
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