Announced on March 28, 2000
About the Book
Tawni O'Dell's heartbreaking and at times humorous portrayal of the Altmyers, and her dead-on description of rural Pennsylvania is sure to mesmerize readers.
Nineteen-year-old Harley Altmyer is trapped. Father dead, mother in jail for murder, three sisters to care for, and a firery aggressive libido that rages against his will - Harley's world is full of hormonal traps and emotional landmines. He is an honest and sensitive lost soul trying to take on the responsibilities of adulthood without really understanding what those responsibilities are. A glimmer of hope appears from his relationship with a lonely mother of two who lives down the road. But Harley's delicate balancing act of keeping his family together , pursuing his affair with a married woman, and keeping his own head above water, all comes tumbling down as family secrets rise to the surface and burst through.
About the Author
I was born and raised in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania, a beautiful ruined place where the rolling hills are pitted with dead gray mining towns like cigarette burns on a green carpet. My hometown is Indiana, PA, which was also Jimmy Stewart's hometown. Half the streets are named after him and we have a bronze statue of him in front of the courthouse that looks suspiciously like Henry Fonda. My roots: I'm half Pennsylvania redneck and half southern white trash. Growing up, I never really fit in, I always thought I was a freak because I liked books and living animals. All my childhood girlfriends wanted to be Farrah Fawcett or Christie Brinkley. I wanted to be Roald Dahl. This greatly concerned my family. Especially after I explained to them who he was. I'm the only member of my family to go to college. I have a degree in journalism from Northwestern University. My high school guidance counselor advised me against going there because they had a bad football team. Even after I explained to him that I wanted to be a journalist and NU had one of the best journalism schools in the country, he said, "Well, sure, but you'll still want to go to the football games." I went anyway and graduated with honors. All my life I have struggled with this particular identity crisis: being an educated woman saddled with a biker chick's name. A theme that often appears in my work is one of characters' struggling to define themselves among people who already defined them wrongly because of a stereotype, or their own inability to look past a person's surface and see inside them. I've frequently had to deal with the danger of being mislabeled.
Get more resources on Back Roads, an Oprah's Book Club selection.
View the Complete Oprah's Book Club List.
Tawni O'Dell's heartbreaking and at times humorous portrayal of the Altmyers, and her dead-on description of rural Pennsylvania is sure to mesmerize readers.
Nineteen-year-old Harley Altmyer is trapped. Father dead, mother in jail for murder, three sisters to care for, and a firery aggressive libido that rages against his will - Harley's world is full of hormonal traps and emotional landmines. He is an honest and sensitive lost soul trying to take on the responsibilities of adulthood without really understanding what those responsibilities are. A glimmer of hope appears from his relationship with a lonely mother of two who lives down the road. But Harley's delicate balancing act of keeping his family together , pursuing his affair with a married woman, and keeping his own head above water, all comes tumbling down as family secrets rise to the surface and burst through.
About the AuthorI was born and raised in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania, a beautiful ruined place where the rolling hills are pitted with dead gray mining towns like cigarette burns on a green carpet. My hometown is Indiana, PA, which was also Jimmy Stewart's hometown. Half the streets are named after him and we have a bronze statue of him in front of the courthouse that looks suspiciously like Henry Fonda. My roots: I'm half Pennsylvania redneck and half southern white trash. Growing up, I never really fit in, I always thought I was a freak because I liked books and living animals. All my childhood girlfriends wanted to be Farrah Fawcett or Christie Brinkley. I wanted to be Roald Dahl. This greatly concerned my family. Especially after I explained to them who he was. I'm the only member of my family to go to college. I have a degree in journalism from Northwestern University. My high school guidance counselor advised me against going there because they had a bad football team. Even after I explained to him that I wanted to be a journalist and NU had one of the best journalism schools in the country, he said, "Well, sure, but you'll still want to go to the football games." I went anyway and graduated with honors. All my life I have struggled with this particular identity crisis: being an educated woman saddled with a biker chick's name. A theme that often appears in my work is one of characters' struggling to define themselves among people who already defined them wrongly because of a stereotype, or their own inability to look past a person's surface and see inside them. I've frequently had to deal with the danger of being mislabeled.
Get more resources on Back Roads, an Oprah's Book Club selection.View the Complete Oprah's Book Club List.
Published 05/26/2000
