In the near future, we plan on posting a two-part review of the novel Rocket Man by author William Elliot Hazelgrove. In the interim, here are a couple of sample excerpts from the book, reprinted here with the permission of the author and Pantonne Press.
It occurs to me that failure on a spectacular scale is a bit like being a professional athlete. Only a few people know of the true isolation that thudding, redundant rejection on a colossal scale can bring. The athlete is immersed in his privileged cocoon of wealth and specialty, but few know what it's like to stare down a one-hundred-mile-an-hour fastball. There is insight in the extreme edge of failure or success. The privilege is the view afforded to those who can endure the pressure, the vagaries, and the threat of oblivion...
I turn and stare at the mass of angry people. They are the mob I avoided all my life. They are my secret horror, the majority, the conservative mainstream that I cannot come to terms with. And I had been foolish enough to think that I could hide out among them. We are separated by just yellow tape, but it is all the difference in the world - they believe in their lives. It is their frantic desire to get it all done. My brethren of khaki-clad men with five-hundred-dollar watches and cell phones and Blackberries and shaved heads and full bellies are taking a gamble on something as amorphous as a dream. I, on the other hand, believe in nothing, and that's why I do what will ensure my fate.
http://www.billhazelgrove.com
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