HUNTING OLD SAMMIE
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Three years after glass and steel plunged from a morning sky, suicide bombers and IEDs kill American soldiers in Iraq. Al Qaeda kidnaps aid workers, translators, and journalists, then beheads them. In Afghanistan, the hunt for Osama bin Laden has stalled amid the caves of Tora Bora. In Ithaca, New York, Armand Terranova monitors America's wars even as he hides from them—a practice he shares unknowingly with his neighbor, Luke Robideau, who has stocked a sniper's nest in anticipation of fighting terrorists head-on. Luke and Armand have never exchanged a word and distrust each other on sight. Luke's cats and dogs roam freely and foul Armand's lawn and patio. Stalking the animals with a BB-gun, Armand feels his neighbor as a threat: an unmarried, ill-kempt big man with gray-streaked beard and ponytail who lives with his elderly mother. To Luke, Armand is a usurper, a immigrant peasant who has gotten lucky in America at Luke's expense. Armand has everything Luke can only dream of: a beautiful wife and two children, a renovated house, enough money. Luke himself depends on Mother's Social Security and siblings' checks to live in his worn-down childhood home. When small-animal excrement begins to fly across the property line, their mutual antagonism escalates into a confrontation only one man can win.
This is a moving, powerful and haunting novel about what we don't know about each other, and of what happens when we tell ourselves stories in our own minds about what we think we see—and how sadly, tragically wrong those versions of the world and of others can be. Mr. Lauricella has written an elegant, unforgettable book about the things that divide us in this lonely, Balkanized world. -- Amazon review by Ithacan
John Lauricella's Hunting Old Sammie holds appeal far beyond the environs of Cornell University and Ithaca, NY, where this reader resides. In a post-9/11 world, the story metastasizes around the disease of suspicion that pervades the relationships of spouses, neighbors, coworkers, communities, cultures and nations. Lauricella's intense writing style, exacting details, and unexpected plot twists make this novel a page-turner, but maybe not one for Grandma (unless you suspect that Grandma has a dark side!). -- Amazon review by Matt Conway
This a GREAT read! While the synopsis does a very good job of exposing the plot all the way to the end without disclosing details and spoiling it for potential readers; it DOES whet a desire to read the entire book. (It worked for me!) While vacillating between Armand and Luke, the story also brings in episodes in the lives of Luke's mother, and Armand's wife and son. While the last three people have almost nothing to do with the escalating feud between Luke and Armand, their episodes give the over-all story a depth of realism seldom experienced in literature. -- Amazon review by Dr. John T. Webb
Hunting Old Sammie is a powerful book limning a specific moment in our culture. It is dark and lyrical, artistically wrought and emotionally fraught. -- review by Tilia Klebenov for IndieReader