Robert M. (shotokanchef) reviewed The Valley of the Moon (California Fiction) on + 813 more book reviews
This quasi-memoir of his farming days in Glen Ellen, CA, begins in the early 1900s in Oakland, CA. Tarzana teamster and boxermeets Janea laundry workerat a dance. (The names have been changed to ) They fall in love and after about 100 boring pages get hitched. Restless for the agrarian life, they migrate to the valley of the moon. Book 2 picks up the pace. Oakland is rife with labor strikes; virtually shut down. Its unions versus scabs, street fights, murders, police brutality; it has it all. So Tarzan ends up in the hoosegow and Jane fends for herself. With no work after jail, they trek the countryside in search of their Eden: the Valley of the Moon. Thus begins a travelogue of central and northern California and southeastern Oregon. Along the way the meet the ever-accommodating telephone linesman, the widow entrepreneur, several happy farmers, and, in the middle of several nowheres, just about everyone they have ever known or met. Then after all this they end up finding their Valley of the Moon in Sonoma County, just about back where they started, but on the road to prosperity. If you need something to put yu to sleep, and havent a Henry James on hand, try this one.
Gerhard O. (nccorthu) reviewed The Valley of the Moon (California Fiction) on + 569 more book reviews
A Classic by Jack London. Somewhere in the line of Kerouac or Steinbeck. It takes a great voyage of discovery from the "hinderlands" of Oakland through the Carmel and finally to the Sonoma Valley. A romance by London? Not his usual dog sled and mad sea captain story.
