Rocket Man by William Elliott Hazelgrove is a
'BLAST'!
Countdown to launch 10- 8- 9
In his new novel ROCKET MAN,
Publisher: Pantone Press (ISBN-10: 0615213073), author Bill
Hazelgrove launches a fresh and humorous
look at suburbia America. Dale Hammer, novelist/writer/father/REBEL,
moves his family from the crime ridden city to the safer suburbs
only to find it difficult to conform to his new straight laced
'go-by-the-rules' neighbors.
In less than week Dale is accused and investigated for cutting down
a neighborhood sign and threatened to be written up by his son's Boy
Scouts Troop for taking an illegal U turn in traffic with an SUV
full of bushy headed boy scouts.
Also weighing Dale down is a father who will be living over
his garage and the 'responsibility' of doing or not doing
'Rocket Day' for the Boy Scouts. Along with making ends meet
(finances) and middle age we have a Rebel looking for a
cause. Dale is a modern man with a blackberry and an ipod and laces
his V8 juice with vodka for little 'self medication.' He is a good
father who cares that his children are happy, healthy and confident.
7- 6 - 5
ROCKET MAN is the perfect look at ourselves, our families, our
friends and their families. This is a story about many things but
Bill Hazelgrove, a skilled and seasoned author, dissects the meaning
of choices and being an individual right down to the
nitty gritty bone. Standing up to conformity at all
costs and taking the 'road less traveled.'
"But before you decide to take that road less traveled,
if you decide to become an actor, the musician, the painter,
the writer, then you will find a hard road, no doubt, but
you will be very lucky because you will know who you are,
and no one can take that from you..."
4 -3
With ROCKET MAN, Hazelgrove stretches his literary canvas and show's
his own rebellious streak as a writer that is dead on. In a recent
interview Bill Hazelgrove says, "I did want to do something
different and for a novelist this requires breaking with the past
and becoming somebody new. I went through hell trying to write this
novel because I hadn't become the person I needed to be to write it.
And at the same time I am trying to be a good dad and survive and
grab my piece of the American Dream and I realized something my
father had said to me long ago was true, that I had to get myself in
the book somehow. I did with this book and I put all my cards on the
table."
2 - 1 LIFT-OFF!
ROCKET MAN by William Hazelgrove is the finest and most compelling
novel of the year. Character, setting, fresh dialogue and a solid
plot are all loaded and ready for BLAST OFF! ROCKET MAN will
challenge you and entertain you. This is one heck of a ride.
John Weaver, book reviewer for Page One
Literary Book Reviews
www.PageoneLit.com
"Every Book begins with Page ONE."
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About the Author: Born in Richmond, Virginia, and
carted back and forth between
Virginia and Baltimore, I blame my rootless, restless
personality on my father. He was and is a traveling salesman
with a keen gift of gab, great wit, a ready joke, and could
sell white tennis shoes to coal miners. It was during these
sojourns up and down the east coast I soaked up the stories
that would later be Tobacco Sticks and Mica Highways. I
think authors should exploit their family history before
raping the rest of the culture for material. Dad finally got
tired of the east and moved to the Midwest when I was
fourteen. We settled outside of Chicago. It is here I came
of age and went off to college for seven years -- two
degrees and one novel later I returned to Chicago and lived
in many different apartments, trying to get a little two
hundred page manuscript called Ripples published. When a
local printer said he would take a chance on my book, I
jumped and had my first novel published by a man who had
never published anything. Great reviews and moderate sales
put me back to my jobs as a janitor, baker, waiter,
construction worker, teacher, real estate tycoon, mortgage
broker, professor, security guard, salesman -- anything to
make a buck and keep writing. The printer lost his mind and
published my second novel, too. That landed me with Bantam
after some rave reviews and a paperback auction for my
second novel, Tobacco Sticks. A third novel, Mica Highways,
was sold on less than one hundred and fifty pages to Bantam
and then I did a strange thing -- I settled down to writing
in Ernest Hemingway's birthplace in Oak Park, Illinois. I
have since been looking for the Great American Novel up in
the old red oak rafters and I think I might have finally
found one... we'll see. Visit Bill online at
http://www.billhazelgrove.com &
http://www.pantonnepress.com
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