About book The Honk And Holler Opening Soon (1999)
SRP (Summer Reading Program) Why Bite: This is a well told story of an untraditional family of broken individuals that help each other heal.I enjoyed Where the Heart Is so much that when I came across Letts’ second novel at the library, I immediately checked it out. The Honk and Holler Opening Soon has a lot of the qualities I enjoyed in her first novel. The characters are as unique and colorful as their names. Letts gives even minor characters depth and interest, and the major characters are so well developed that the reader develops a relationship with them. The story seamlessly flows from humor to tragedy, and all the emotions in between. Although Where the Heart Is had its harsh moments as it focused on Novalee’s story, Honk and Holler is far grittier as it follows the course of four main characters. The language and subject matter seems harsher, possibly due to one of the main characters and several of the minor characters are war vets. It’s primarily a love story between Caney and Vena, but also tells of Bui finding a home and Molly O finding solace. Reading the acknowledgements, I learned that Letts did quite a bit of research to write this novel. She took great pangs to bring realistic detail to Caney being a wheelchair bound Vietnam vet, the passages in Vietnamese as well as the lengths some must go through to immigrate to this country, and the wounds inflicted on a dog, a horse and several humans. She also stays true to the time period, as the story takes place in the mid 80s, when prejudices, particularly against the Vietnamese, were still rather predominant. I must admit to wincing when I read the word “gook.” Her hard work paid off, as the realistic details really brings the reader into the story. The story takes place in a diner that is really home to most of the characters, not just those who work there. Vena and Bui, much like Novalee, are transients who find that they too are at home at the Honk and Holler. They find a place to belong and a family to be a part of. All the characters are flawed, broken. Through the course of the novel, they help each other mend. Vena helps Caney live more fully and let go of the past. Caney helps Vena let people get close enough to care for her, and Life, a regular customer enamored with her, helps Molly O come to grips with her wanderlust daughter. By the end of the novel, nearly every strand of the story is concluded save for one. The reader is never told what becomes of Molly O’s daughter Brenda. It is hinted at that she may be pursuing her music aspirations, but Molly O doesn’t hear from her directly. Normally an unresolved subplot would bother me, but in this case it seemed appropriate given what Life had said to Molly O. It takes time, but eventually Brenda will get her act together. Letts shows Molly O able to get on with her life despite her wayward daughter’s absence. At the end of the novel, everyone is still broken, but they are all in a better place thanks to each other. Everyone is a work in progress.While not as much of a feel good read as Letts’ first novel, her second delves deeper into human frailty. It’s a portrait of an untraditional family that finds each other and gives each other the help, love and understanding they need to heal and move on from the past. Each of the main characters finds a way to keep going, and is able to start anew. The end of the novel is really a new beginning for each of them, even the three legged dog. It will make you laugh and it will make you cry, but it will also make you consider the human condition and how fragile and uncertain we really are.
Ahh--now here is the type of book I've been waiting to sink my teeth into since summer rolled into town! I feel like every time I write a review, my main focus is on characterization, but for me, the characters and how I feel about them are what really make a book for me. An author can write with the most elegant prose on the face of the Earth, but if I can't feel a connection to the characters, I can't get into it. This is the first time I've ever read anything by Billie Letts, but I'm already anxious to read more. I have "Where The Heart Is" on my shelf, and I know I'll be reading that soon! There is something about the way she writes her characters--they are so authentic and real. This is a fiction novel that I would not have a hard time imagining actually taking place. Actually, it's kinda weird to think that Molly O isn't out there waiting on Brenda or that Caney isn't wheeling around the Honk somewhere. Letts fills you in about her characters in such subtle ways, too. It almost brings to mind how you get to know people in real life--you don't sit down and hear their life stories all at once (usually). Bits and pieces here and there are dished out to clue you in on a person, and that's how Letts writes her characters. Even her minor characters were paid due attention so that even the regular Joes who came to the Honk had a voice. The dialogue was to die for--I could "hear" each of the characters as they spoke. I just loved it. I was also kinda surprised by how fast of a read this was. I'd sit down and look up 150 pages later shocked that I had read that much in seemingly so little time. This is an incredibly "readable" novel. Letts is not heavy on the descriptive language--hers is a more straightforward style. But certain passages really did take my breath away, such as the part where (without giving too much away) Caney finally faces his demons and sees the world around him. I loved flipping back to those pages again and again to immerse myself in that simple and yet poignant writing. Overall, Billie Letts has given us a story that everyone can relate to. It is a story about regular people living their lives and yet discovering the meaning behind it as they go along.
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It's the tale also told in the movie Bagdad Cafe. The world is a not-doing-well eatery and people show up with their lives and their needs and their personalities and everything is changed by the end. I started this book in the middle of the evening and just read it until 2am-- a function of how good the book was maybe, but also probably because I had a dentist appointment and that always makes me crazy and in need to major distraction. It is a nice book, a sweet book. But there was a cast of characters that never got developed, that you really have no clue who those people are. And the ones who did get developed, I'm just not all that sure their transformations are fully believable.
—Trish Perkins
This book was recommended to me by a good friend. I wasn't sure about it at first as it started off rather depressing!"The Honk and Holler Opening Soon" chronicles the lives of four main characters in the small town of Sequoyah, Oklahoma over the course of a little over a year, starting at Christmas. The "Honk" as it is commonly referred to is the restaurant which serves as the main setting for the book and is the stomping grounds for several of the locals. The story starts off with the revelation that Honk owner an operator, Caney Paxton, is paralyzed and wheelchair bound due to injuries he sustained in the Vietnam War. Caney's best friend, surrogate mother, caretaker, waitress, etc, MollyO, is overcompensating with fake Christmas cheer to try to mask her sadness that her only child, 17 year old Brenda, has run off to make it big in Nashville and won't be home for the holidays. Drifter Vena, while at a truck stop with the long haul driver she's hitched a ride with sees something in the road and discovers it's a barely alive dog who has been hit by a car and is in need of a leg amputation, struggling to revive her litter of dead puppies. Rounding out the main characters is Bui, a Vietnamese refugee who is on the run after getting into a car accident in Houston, not understanding what he's supposed to do because he barely speaks English.As I said, not a very cheery start! When I read the part about the dog, I almost put the book down. But I'm glad I kept reading it. Vena (and the dog, ultimately named Spot,) wander into Caney and MollyO's lives when she comes into the Honk to inquire about the carhop job posted in the window-a sign, it turns out, that's been there for 10 years. She convinces Caney to let her work for tips: he's got nothing to lose if she has no customers, now does he? Naturally, she immediately intrigues Caney and butts heads with MollyO. Bui comes into their lives when he sees Caney has an opening for a cook. It turns out he can't cook the simplest of breakfasts so he ends up more of a handyman at the restaurant, earning money to send back home so his wife can eventually join him in America. In the end, he's revealed to be an excellent cook: of Vietnamese food.One of the complaints I have about this book is I couldn't really tell when it took place. I even looked to see when it was published at one point. It was published in 1999, but references lead me to believe it takes place in the mid-1980's. The other complaint I have is I had a hard time keeping the secondary and tertiary characters straight, especially two with similar names. There were also a couple of places where I had to go back and see if I missed something because the continuity was off (for example, MollyO working in the restaurant in one sentence but the next indicating she'd been in the back of the restaurant where Caney lives at the same time). But I'm glad I stuck it out as it is a very heartwarming story that does a great job of depicting life in a small town. There is a section towards the end where the story does fall off a bit-everything had been detailed so nicely but then a portion of the year is summarized rather than spelled out-it reminded me of the scene in "Notting Hill" where Hugh Grant is walking down the street with the seasons changing around him, only without the annoying song in the background. The ending of the book was much happier than the beginning, thankfully!, and if there was a sequel to this, I would read it to see what happens next to these characters.
—Heather
This was a book that took me on a nice, winding journey. "Nice" being the optimal word. I didn't find it particularly amazing but there was SOME character development and the bad guy got his/her comeuppance. The Brenda storyline left me unsatisfied though, and while I released that not everything can be tied up in a nice tidy package, there were bits that didn't ring true for me - for example, the introduction and picture of my mind of Vena really didn't match up with eh outcome at the end of the book.I found Bui delightful though! Fav character by far.
—Miz
