Never Back Down

by Ernest Hebert

In this, Ernest Hebert’s most autobiographical novel to date, Jack Landry, haunted by dreams of a tragedy that occurred centuries before he was born, is introduced as a promising high school baseball player from the mill town of Keene, New Hampshire. A young boy when the novel opens in July 1953, Jack and his best friend, Elphege Beaupre, devise a motto to live Never back down, never instigate. It’s a rule of stubborn passivity Jack will follow to the end of his days.
Unconsciously burdened by his French-Canadian heritage, hemmed in by his working-class parents’ submission to authority, the church, and a life of hard work, young Jack still has big dreams. Yet his warring values and desires lead to two mistakes in his youth that will color the rest of his days. The first causes great harm to his first and only love, a half-Cajun Gulf Coast girl (and the boss’s daughter). In a world where one is asked to take responsibilities for actions but perhaps not suffer the consequences, Jack punishes himself. Following the tenets of Catholicism, he embarks on a lifelong penance to atone for his sin. The subsequent renunciation of his dreams appears to be Jack’s second mistake. But is it?
Hebert is a master storyteller who, in addition to creating memorable characters and gripping narratives, does not shy away from the big questions. In Never Back Down, he raises more than a At what price, success? Is redemption possible? Can one live by a motto? What does it mean to take responsibility? The portrait Hebert gives us of Jack Landry’s life of menial labor, joie de vivre, and a love that just won’t die not only raises these questions but answers them as well.

282 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2012

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one when I started it. I liked the clean style and the New-England-nostalgia-cum-good-Stephen-King ambiance. I was excited that it was going to be a baseball novel. Then it wasn't. But it was still well done. It bogged down at points, but I enjoyed it mostly, and it ended well.

The author is a writing teacher, and this felt a little like a Novel 101. But that's still not easy to do, and in the end I enjoyed it's strengths more than I was annoyed by its weaknesses.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ambitious, admirable novel.

[Barbara Lock · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Ernie Hebert has drawn such interesting, authentic, and touching characters, and placed them in situations both strange and familiar, that I felt that rare and elusive feeling: I entered the world of these characters and their memories have become mine. I absolutely loved the voice, loved the wry/stoic humor, loved the relationship of the protagonist with the other characters. I accepted that some scenes which might have been further developed for the sake of plot were left spare, because this was in character.

Even the scenes which might call on one to suspend disbelief are deftly negotiated, and emerged as products of the rich internal life of a character sympathetic to inner voices and past lives imagined or remembered.

[Godine Publisher & Black Sparrow Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Ernie Hebert's novels don't just capture New England; they've become a part of it."
—Jodi Picoult

"One of New England's best writers."
—Yankee Magazine

"He writes with a grace, precision, and humor that makes one feel he will do for the hinterlands what John Updike did for the suburbs."
—New York Times

[Gerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice simple story

[Marion · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good characters