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Rock
When ROCK was first published in 1958, future Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Larry McMurtry wrote “this novel deserves a wider reading than it will likely get,” and he was right. Now this searing, hard-boiled classic is finally back in print.
It is 1958. Max Fallon, fleeing the wreckage of his marriage and career, returns to his lakeside home town and a job as a beach lifeguard. He discovers that his old neighborhood, beneath its seemingly unchanged veneer, is seething with violence, ruled by a brutal group of young men, including his own teenage brother, that is led by a hard woman who uses her ruthless sexuality as a deadly weapon.
“Wagoner makes an ambitious attempt to deal with the children of our present rock-and-roll generation and, in some respects, he is depressingly successful. The book is a testament of lovelessness, the compassionate record of a warping that has touched a whole generation. It is strong, serious writing about a serious subject.” Larry McMurtry, Wichita Falls Times
“Engrossing, beautifully capturing the tensions beneath the surface of present-day American life. He writes with sincerity and clarity.” Pittsburgh Courier
“A well-constructed, excellently-written novel of great significance… a vivid picture of a restless segment of modern society. “ Los Angeles Mirror
“The book is beautifully-written. It contains some shrewd and thought-provoking observations.” GreensboroNews and Record
“Wagoner surpasses The Blackboard Jungle…written with force and understanding.” Hartford Courant
“A fast-moving novel, a vivid picture of a violent world.” Newsday
It is 1958. Max Fallon, fleeing the wreckage of his marriage and career, returns to his lakeside home town and a job as a beach lifeguard. He discovers that his old neighborhood, beneath its seemingly unchanged veneer, is seething with violence, ruled by a brutal group of young men, including his own teenage brother, that is led by a hard woman who uses her ruthless sexuality as a deadly weapon.
“Wagoner makes an ambitious attempt to deal with the children of our present rock-and-roll generation and, in some respects, he is depressingly successful. The book is a testament of lovelessness, the compassionate record of a warping that has touched a whole generation. It is strong, serious writing about a serious subject.” Larry McMurtry, Wichita Falls Times
“Engrossing, beautifully capturing the tensions beneath the surface of present-day American life. He writes with sincerity and clarity.” Pittsburgh Courier
“A well-constructed, excellently-written novel of great significance… a vivid picture of a restless segment of modern society. “ Los Angeles Mirror
“The book is beautifully-written. It contains some shrewd and thought-provoking observations.” GreensboroNews and Record
“Wagoner surpasses The Blackboard Jungle…written with force and understanding.” Hartford Courant
“A fast-moving novel, a vivid picture of a violent world.” Newsday
297 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1958
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March 25, 2025
Rock, Wagoner’s 1958 novel, once again features an out-of-place and awkward young man, Max Fallon, whose awkwardness reminds one of Ben Braddock from the 1963 novel, the Graduate, later played in 1967 by Dustin Hoffman. Max, here, should be a little older than Ben, having served in the Army and been married for three years. But Max now has a failed marriage and numerous failed careers behind him. He wanted out so bad he signed everything over to the wife and returned on a bus to his mid-western hometown to inhabit a bedroom in his parent’s home while trying to figure out what to do next.
Max is depressed and out of sorts. He tells his mother he does not have any brains at all. His brains, he says, are like jello when you leave it too long in the icebox. “He felt like a would-be suicide who had tied so many weights on himself that he couldn’t climb over the bridge railing.” Wagoner does so well at showing angst and depression. Max tells us at another point that he feels as if he is “inside, with the bugs and darkness, and somebody had shut the lid, shut it hard and fast. He walked, and didn’t like where he was.”
Max gets a job at the local city beach as a lifeguard based on his father’s city hall connections. Much of the story takes place on the beach as Max meets local characters there. He has a slightly awkward relationship with an older divorcee (Kate Morley Franklin) who has a young daughter, although his dinner date is cringe-worthy in his world of awkwardness as if he doesn’t think he really fits into this part. Indeed, when Max reveals his current philosophy on dating, it does not sound as if he is coming from a happy place. He says that people don’t love each other and, instead, “They jam their bodies together and stand around hoping for the worst. And they get it, and then they spend the rest of their lives boring each other to death with their hot insights about marriage being a trap, and women being bitches, and love being a bunch of baloney.”
The other side of the story is the changes that have come to this small town and indeed to just about every small town. The youth are wearing their hair long in ducktails and hanging out in clubs and in packs on the beach where they race hotrods. It is the dawning of the era of juvenile delinquency and Max is too old to be a part of it. To them, he is “daddy-O.” That is, until he crosses their limits by absconding with one of their girls (Della Kelso) and tossing her aside the next day.
Wagoner shows that he understands what motivates the juveniles. Max muses that his brother “Timmy and the kids in the hangout were like himself: they were in trouble and scarcely knew it. The air of boredom made them feel safer, hid the fear that was rattling around inside them like hornets in a can.”
The penultimate scene in the story is all the hot-rodders gathering late at night on the beach and taking on Max, who is all on by himself, and it is a vicious scene that would have played quite well as a movie scene had this been made into a movie. Until that final explosive scene, though, the novel often moves a bit slowly and you can feel Max’s sense of rootlessness and hopelessness and sadness.
Max is depressed and out of sorts. He tells his mother he does not have any brains at all. His brains, he says, are like jello when you leave it too long in the icebox. “He felt like a would-be suicide who had tied so many weights on himself that he couldn’t climb over the bridge railing.” Wagoner does so well at showing angst and depression. Max tells us at another point that he feels as if he is “inside, with the bugs and darkness, and somebody had shut the lid, shut it hard and fast. He walked, and didn’t like where he was.”
Max gets a job at the local city beach as a lifeguard based on his father’s city hall connections. Much of the story takes place on the beach as Max meets local characters there. He has a slightly awkward relationship with an older divorcee (Kate Morley Franklin) who has a young daughter, although his dinner date is cringe-worthy in his world of awkwardness as if he doesn’t think he really fits into this part. Indeed, when Max reveals his current philosophy on dating, it does not sound as if he is coming from a happy place. He says that people don’t love each other and, instead, “They jam their bodies together and stand around hoping for the worst. And they get it, and then they spend the rest of their lives boring each other to death with their hot insights about marriage being a trap, and women being bitches, and love being a bunch of baloney.”
The other side of the story is the changes that have come to this small town and indeed to just about every small town. The youth are wearing their hair long in ducktails and hanging out in clubs and in packs on the beach where they race hotrods. It is the dawning of the era of juvenile delinquency and Max is too old to be a part of it. To them, he is “daddy-O.” That is, until he crosses their limits by absconding with one of their girls (Della Kelso) and tossing her aside the next day.
Wagoner shows that he understands what motivates the juveniles. Max muses that his brother “Timmy and the kids in the hangout were like himself: they were in trouble and scarcely knew it. The air of boredom made them feel safer, hid the fear that was rattling around inside them like hornets in a can.”
The penultimate scene in the story is all the hot-rodders gathering late at night on the beach and taking on Max, who is all on by himself, and it is a vicious scene that would have played quite well as a movie scene had this been made into a movie. Until that final explosive scene, though, the novel often moves a bit slowly and you can feel Max’s sense of rootlessness and hopelessness and sadness.
Displaying 1 of 1 review