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A Sound Like Thunder
Approaching eighty, Rove MacNee sets out to write the story of his youth– “I will be forgiven, I’m sure, if I don’t remember things with stunning clarity.” What memories clearly remain resonate within him like rolling thunder and shower down like rain in Sonny Brewer’s superb and richly rewarding new novel of fathers and sons, family and betrayal.
Set in the small gulf town of Fairhope, Alabama, this lyrical coming-of-age tale begins in the winter of 1941. Named for his father’s drowned Labrador retriever, Rove is a strong-shouldered and self-reliant sixteen-year-old, an uneven match for his volatile father, Captain Dominus MacNee. Though he sometimes wishes the whiskey-soaked man would be lost at sea, Rove himself is in danger of sinking in the troubled waters of his home life.
Navigating between memoir and memory, past and present, Rove reflects upon the people and pursuits that have influenced his life: his passion for fishing, where the toss of the net is more thrilling than the catch in the bucket; his much-loved grandmother, who gives him a copy of Huckleberry Finn, saying, “Boys sometimes run away, you know”; and Anna Pearl Anderson, “the prettiest girl on the Eastern shore,” who ignites in Rove the first flickers of romance. Yet his greatest treasure, perhaps, is his twenty-five-foot sloop, the Sea Bird. Given to him as a gift, the Sea Bird brings with it both the possibility of salvation and the threat of disaster. As Rove dreams of escaping his tumultuous surroundings, it becomes apparent that he can never truly shake the hold of his seaside home unless he confronts, head on, a startling truth.
Returning to the setting of his much-lauded debut novel, The Poet of Tolstoy Park, Sonny Brewer, once again, gives a skillful performance in the Southern storytelling tradition. A Sound Like Thunder is a magnificently crafted tale of a man revisiting the crossroads of his life, connecting the fragmented keepsakes in his heart and mind, and reemerging with a clear understanding of his defining moment.
Set in the small gulf town of Fairhope, Alabama, this lyrical coming-of-age tale begins in the winter of 1941. Named for his father’s drowned Labrador retriever, Rove is a strong-shouldered and self-reliant sixteen-year-old, an uneven match for his volatile father, Captain Dominus MacNee. Though he sometimes wishes the whiskey-soaked man would be lost at sea, Rove himself is in danger of sinking in the troubled waters of his home life.
Navigating between memoir and memory, past and present, Rove reflects upon the people and pursuits that have influenced his life: his passion for fishing, where the toss of the net is more thrilling than the catch in the bucket; his much-loved grandmother, who gives him a copy of Huckleberry Finn, saying, “Boys sometimes run away, you know”; and Anna Pearl Anderson, “the prettiest girl on the Eastern shore,” who ignites in Rove the first flickers of romance. Yet his greatest treasure, perhaps, is his twenty-five-foot sloop, the Sea Bird. Given to him as a gift, the Sea Bird brings with it both the possibility of salvation and the threat of disaster. As Rove dreams of escaping his tumultuous surroundings, it becomes apparent that he can never truly shake the hold of his seaside home unless he confronts, head on, a startling truth.
Returning to the setting of his much-lauded debut novel, The Poet of Tolstoy Park, Sonny Brewer, once again, gives a skillful performance in the Southern storytelling tradition. A Sound Like Thunder is a magnificently crafted tale of a man revisiting the crossroads of his life, connecting the fragmented keepsakes in his heart and mind, and reemerging with a clear understanding of his defining moment.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
62 people want to read
About the author
Sonny Brewer
21 books34 followersSonny Brewer is the author of four novels, including The Poet of Tolstory Park and The Widow and the Tree. He edited the anthology series Stories from the Blue Moon Café and most recently, Don't Quit Your Day Job - Acclaimed Authors and the Day Jobs they Quit published by MP Publishing in 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 11, 2019
3.5, rounded down.
So this is my tale. The imperfect recollections of Rover MacNee--scenes from that winter when I was a boy just turned sixteen. I’ll help Rove to see with the eyes I’ve got now, but I can tell you this: growing older only put colors inside the lines I drew way back then. And old men have permission to color outside the lines.
Which is the premise of this novel...the recollection of an old man about a season in his life that changed it forever. Brewer is a strongly visual writer, and I enjoyed the details about life in a waterman’s town and the art of sailing. The story was well-written, but I never truly connected to a single character. It seemed more a story told from the outside looking in, than from the inside projecting out. Perhaps that is intentional, since there is an old man at the beginning of this novel telling us it is just his memory of what happened, but once the boy, Rove, took over, I would have liked to feel more connected to him.
Writers generally progress as they write, but I did not feel this book was nearly as good as The Poet of Tolstoy Park. Therein lies my disappointment, I think. It never pays to go into a book with too much expectation, and I have fallen prey to that once more. I’m betting if I had read this one first it would have gotten at least another half a star.
So this is my tale. The imperfect recollections of Rover MacNee--scenes from that winter when I was a boy just turned sixteen. I’ll help Rove to see with the eyes I’ve got now, but I can tell you this: growing older only put colors inside the lines I drew way back then. And old men have permission to color outside the lines.
Which is the premise of this novel...the recollection of an old man about a season in his life that changed it forever. Brewer is a strongly visual writer, and I enjoyed the details about life in a waterman’s town and the art of sailing. The story was well-written, but I never truly connected to a single character. It seemed more a story told from the outside looking in, than from the inside projecting out. Perhaps that is intentional, since there is an old man at the beginning of this novel telling us it is just his memory of what happened, but once the boy, Rove, took over, I would have liked to feel more connected to him.
Writers generally progress as they write, but I did not feel this book was nearly as good as The Poet of Tolstoy Park. Therein lies my disappointment, I think. It never pays to go into a book with too much expectation, and I have fallen prey to that once more. I’m betting if I had read this one first it would have gotten at least another half a star.
September 20, 2025
Here is a story of Fairhope on Mobile Bay. A boy comes of age. He falls in love with a girl and out of love with his parents who are struggling to get along. There is a German man who becomes his mentor and gives him a sail boat which needs work. This man isn't trusted because of his homeland at the time of the World War ll, but this man helps the boy on the boat and the boy likes him. Complications. Always there's the atmosphere of the watery landscape, Fly Creek, the beautiful fishing pier and the bay. Lovely prose.
July 31, 2018
Well-read audio “coming of age” adventure about Rove and his sailboat The Seabird. A few years prior to WWII until January 1942 Rove rebuilds a sailboat, worries over his father’s new 3-year drunkenness, recalls his father in better days, discovers a family secret that changes his perspective and experiences his first love. A great deal of sailing jargon that put me in the Alabama waters with Rove. Thoughtful, tender, educational and entertaining.
May 7, 2018
This is book is very average. The characters do not talk to each other the way people talk in real life. Very robotic. The book reads like someone TRYING to write a book instead of someone who has written a book.
March 15, 2024
Reading Sonny Brewer is like reading poetry written in novel form.
January 24, 2008
I listened to this on CD. Why so many books on CD all of a sudden? I have had a problem with my eye and since I need to do a lot of reading at work, I listen to books on tape to get my book fix with less eye strain.
This book was ok. Set in Fairhope, AL, it is a coming of age story set at the beginning of the Second World War. Sixteen-year-old Rove MacNee is given a boat by his elderly German neighbor. So it's partly a sailing book. There is some dysfunction going on in the MacNee family, which might spoil the book if I were to elaborate, so it's partly a dysfunctional family book. But it's mostly about growing up and coming to understand things that were not understandable before. The author writes some beautiful descriptions. You could almost see the seacoast, the sunsets and the wildlife.
This book was ok. Set in Fairhope, AL, it is a coming of age story set at the beginning of the Second World War. Sixteen-year-old Rove MacNee is given a boat by his elderly German neighbor. So it's partly a sailing book. There is some dysfunction going on in the MacNee family, which might spoil the book if I were to elaborate, so it's partly a dysfunctional family book. But it's mostly about growing up and coming to understand things that were not understandable before. The author writes some beautiful descriptions. You could almost see the seacoast, the sunsets and the wildlife.
April 3, 2020
Story of Rove McNee's (sp.?) coming of age told when he was an old man. Set in Fairhope, AL, it has characters from novel The Poet of Tolstoy Park (also by Brewer)--Anna Pearl Anderson, Katherine Anderson & Henry Stewart. Very compelling.
April 14, 2010
This is a sweet book but it is definitely written in a "male" voice, which kept me from becoming fully involved. I'm not sure why but certain books really reach me, whether written in a male or female voice. In reading Thunder I was clearly an observer of the narrator's experiences.
August 3, 2008
Half way through this read, I realized I'd read this book before. It's very, um...nostalgic.
January 17, 2009
Another book sited in Fairhope, AL. Great studies of characters.
June 20, 2009
The first paragraph grabbed me and then this book just wouldn't let go! If I lived in Fairhope, Alabama, I would be a regular at the Over the Transom Bookshop.
September 12, 2010
A coming of age story in a dysfunctional family. It was ok, a bit drawn out with the decriptions of the settings but some might enjoy that.
January 25, 2016
Loved this, very enjoyable. Would be even better understood by those who know all about boats and sailing. Good descriptions of nature, the sea, the sky the Alabama shore.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews