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Rocket City
Reminiscent of such modern classics as Cowboys Are My Weakness and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, with a touch of Geek Love thrown in for good measure, Rocket City is a deliciously original and strangely moving novel of alienation in America's Southwest.
- GenresFictionScience Fiction
364 pages, Paperback
First published March 13, 1995
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117 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
September 24, 2020
What a bummer to find out my new favorite author died a decade ago. She published this novel and some short stories, none of which I’ve found online. There is little to find, outside of a barebones website and an introduction by Jonathan Lethem for the novel Big Bang (by another great, dead author) that mentions her in passing. It’s too bad, Alpert has a slightly askew sensibility that captures oddballs in narratives that are funny and engaging in ways they don’t teach in MBA programs (even though I think she’s a graduate of one). I’ll miss her weirdness.
January 16, 2017
"Three melons and a dwarf sat in the front seat of Marilee's '72 Dodge but the cop was not amused."
If you think that the book will ever make any more sense than the first sentence did, you're going to be disappointed. However, if you don't mind an book that makes you ask again and again, "What did I just read?" then you're in for a wildly delightful treat. It's hard to describe what the book is about because it's about a lot of different people, events, concepts, and themes. There are a lot of twists and turns, a lot of unusual and unexpected characters, and a lot of downright strange events. I'm a "read a book in one sitting" kind of girl and I had to restart this book several times before finishing it. I was satisfied with the ending.
The comparison to Geek Love (by Katherine Dunn) was spot on.
If you think that the book will ever make any more sense than the first sentence did, you're going to be disappointed. However, if you don't mind an book that makes you ask again and again, "What did I just read?" then you're in for a wildly delightful treat. It's hard to describe what the book is about because it's about a lot of different people, events, concepts, and themes. There are a lot of twists and turns, a lot of unusual and unexpected characters, and a lot of downright strange events. I'm a "read a book in one sitting" kind of girl and I had to restart this book several times before finishing it. I was satisfied with the ending.
The comparison to Geek Love (by Katherine Dunn) was spot on.
June 22, 2012
I read the new release which will be published later this year. I don't know if it is different in any way from the original.
What a fun book! I believed in the characters and their quirks, their dialogue, their lifestyles. This was the perfect book for me to have read at the beach.
We meet Marilee and Enoch first. Marilee is driving from California to New Mexico to surprise her maybe-fiancee, Larry. She picks up Enoch on the side of the road because, I think, she feels sorry for the hitch hiking dwarf. They immediately have a surprising and intelligent banter that delighted me, so I was in for the long haul right there.
In the simultaneous unrelated story, we get to know Figman. He is hiding out in New Mexico after an accident he had in California. His new home, the new people in his life, what he left behind, are all unveiled in chapters that alternate with the Marilee/Enoch chapters.
The stories are so good that I never wondered why they were both in one book. I went with it. I went with all of it because it was smart, well written, engaging, and I cared about everyone on the pages.
What a fun book! I believed in the characters and their quirks, their dialogue, their lifestyles. This was the perfect book for me to have read at the beach.
We meet Marilee and Enoch first. Marilee is driving from California to New Mexico to surprise her maybe-fiancee, Larry. She picks up Enoch on the side of the road because, I think, she feels sorry for the hitch hiking dwarf. They immediately have a surprising and intelligent banter that delighted me, so I was in for the long haul right there.
In the simultaneous unrelated story, we get to know Figman. He is hiding out in New Mexico after an accident he had in California. His new home, the new people in his life, what he left behind, are all unveiled in chapters that alternate with the Marilee/Enoch chapters.
The stories are so good that I never wondered why they were both in one book. I went with it. I went with all of it because it was smart, well written, engaging, and I cared about everyone on the pages.
July 17, 2019
I have mixed feelings about this book. The plot was a little unclear, so I wasn't sure how I felt in the beginning. I liked the character development. They were characters on the verge of fantastical, but they were very relatable in their emotions. I gave it 3 stars because there were a few times where I wasn't sure if I wanted to pick it up again, but I did, and I ended up really liking some of the characters. I didn't give it 4 stars because there were some things left hanging that seemed like they would be resolved in the story. For instance, Figman's court case- I thought they'd at least have him make a definitive decision about staying away or going back home, but it doesn't get addressed outside of the letters from his mom and coworker. The headaches that Marilee and Figman got were made to seem like they had something in common, but that's never addressed. I liked that when Marilee crossed paths with Figman, she thought he was a jerk, because I thought he was a jerk through the entire book. The ending was not a fairy tale type ending; it was pretty real. At first, I was frustrated that it didn't end how I wanted it to, but then I thought about it, and I was glad that it ended how it did. It ended exactly how it would've ended in real life; Marilee and Enoch didn't get together, but she was strong enough to leave Larry. That's as good of an ending as I could've asked for. Maybe I'd re-read it after some time has passed and I've forgotten what happened in the book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 31, 2025
I read this eons ago. And then I read it again. Really fun and entertaining as all get out. And the opening line is one of the best ever written: "Three melons and a dwarf sat in the front seat of Marilee's '72 Dodge, but the cop was not amused."
Sad that Cathryn Alpert died before she wrote more - very sad.
Sad that Cathryn Alpert died before she wrote more - very sad.
January 8, 2020
This book was a wonderful surprise. Flipping back and forth but tying together very small in the end. It was fun and light. Loved that I picked it up at a thrift store IN New Mexico and read it while on vacation there.
January 13, 2024
This book is really hard to rate. Part of me wants to give it 5 ⭐️. Part of me wonders why I stuck with it to the end. A quirky cast of characters, many of them terribly flawed, doing things that you might find terribly flawed, quirky characters doing with and to each other.
September 17, 2019
Great characters and interesting, captivating story line. Not for everyone, there are some disturbing moments, but I loved reading this book!
August 4, 2020
Best damn book in the history of all literature. Read it.
August 9, 2023
Weird and wonderful! Loved it!
December 2, 2013
Rocket City, Cathryn Alpert
Three and a half stars, really, as there are some very nice moments. The publisher billed this as a “road novel.” Well, in part, I suppose. It’s really two novels, and therein lies a problem in my opinion. The novel shifts between Marilee, a young woman travelling from CA to marry her sweetheart in NM, and Enoch, a dwarf who does indeed supply much of the “road” aspect of the novel; and Figman, a fugitive claims adjustor, and his landlady Verdie, and his nymphette lover, Oma. SEMI-SPOILER ALERT: While these pairings do meet, it’s not in any substantial way. In a sense Alpert’s novel mimics Faulkner’s The Wild Palms in this sense. We are to take Figman’s and Marilee’s differing epiphanies about love as a connecting thread, I suppose. Both of their love problems get resolved—in vastly different ways. Figman’s financial problem, however, never gets resolved—and it is a rather pressing problem. I guess another thing that detracted a bit was that I found both main characters—Figman and Marilee—wobbly in their presentation. Marilee grows mundane as the novel continues, nearly disintegrating; Figman’s main charm—his continual linking of his past claims experiences with present day happenings—also disintegrates. Lots of fun scenes in the novel. And New Mexico’s weirdness is nicely realized. I liked the novel well enough that I’m checking for Alpert’s other work.
Three and a half stars, really, as there are some very nice moments. The publisher billed this as a “road novel.” Well, in part, I suppose. It’s really two novels, and therein lies a problem in my opinion. The novel shifts between Marilee, a young woman travelling from CA to marry her sweetheart in NM, and Enoch, a dwarf who does indeed supply much of the “road” aspect of the novel; and Figman, a fugitive claims adjustor, and his landlady Verdie, and his nymphette lover, Oma. SEMI-SPOILER ALERT: While these pairings do meet, it’s not in any substantial way. In a sense Alpert’s novel mimics Faulkner’s The Wild Palms in this sense. We are to take Figman’s and Marilee’s differing epiphanies about love as a connecting thread, I suppose. Both of their love problems get resolved—in vastly different ways. Figman’s financial problem, however, never gets resolved—and it is a rather pressing problem. I guess another thing that detracted a bit was that I found both main characters—Figman and Marilee—wobbly in their presentation. Marilee grows mundane as the novel continues, nearly disintegrating; Figman’s main charm—his continual linking of his past claims experiences with present day happenings—also disintegrates. Lots of fun scenes in the novel. And New Mexico’s weirdness is nicely realized. I liked the novel well enough that I’m checking for Alpert’s other work.
November 13, 2011
Rocket City is a love story unlike those I've read before. Its unique cast of characters instantly hooked me-- a young woman named Marilee running from her home, too scared to run to her boyfriend and a surprisingly likeable dwarf named Enoch she meets along the way. The novel is split into two separate stories, the second's main character a lonely man named Figman who is growing closer by the day to his elderly landlady. The strange turns of events and constant suspension as to what will happen next for these characters keeps the reader involved. The dwarf, Enoch, becomes the strongest person in the novel, with a mysterious past he won't reveal to Marilee even after days of intimate travel time on the road. Over halfway through the novel, the author still does not reveal Enoch's past, even in a close restaraunt scene between the two. Her ability to make such a remarkable character, even without knowing his ins and outs, is a great writing trick I will try on my own stories. Although the other story about Figman within the larger novel was interesting, Marilee and Enoch's relationship outshined his story and made it seem out of place in the novel, especially since the two stories never intertwined in any way. That would be the only negative aspect of this book, which has aspects of travel, new and old love, and much more.
July 13, 2016
Sometimes A Dwarf Is Just A Dwarf
In 1965 the film "Ship of Fools" used Michael Dunn as the dwarf/narrator/observer of the drama on an ocean liner voyage that was an allegory of the rise of Nazi Germany. While the movie was quite an accomplishment for its time it established always and forever the immutable law that dwarfs must be used as symbols of conscience and as speakers of truth against oppression. This book finally rebalances the equation; Enoch is a dwarf and he is a fully realized character, perhaps the most fully realized character, in a book that celebrates the idiosyncratic, the confused and the almost unbearably human. He is just Enoch - smart, funny, complex, sardonic and confident. He is freed from being a symbol.
You can read this is a clever entertainment; you can mine it for deep insight and symbolism. You can treat it as mainly a love letter to New Mexico that follows the same dictum as travel photography - the photos are more interesting if you put people in them. However you care to approach it this is engaging, wise, and carefully crafted storytelling. There is not a lot of "business"; there are no writerly conceits or showing off. The tale is restrained, honest and filled with humor, generosity and good spirits. This is a nice find.
In 1965 the film "Ship of Fools" used Michael Dunn as the dwarf/narrator/observer of the drama on an ocean liner voyage that was an allegory of the rise of Nazi Germany. While the movie was quite an accomplishment for its time it established always and forever the immutable law that dwarfs must be used as symbols of conscience and as speakers of truth against oppression. This book finally rebalances the equation; Enoch is a dwarf and he is a fully realized character, perhaps the most fully realized character, in a book that celebrates the idiosyncratic, the confused and the almost unbearably human. He is just Enoch - smart, funny, complex, sardonic and confident. He is freed from being a symbol.
You can read this is a clever entertainment; you can mine it for deep insight and symbolism. You can treat it as mainly a love letter to New Mexico that follows the same dictum as travel photography - the photos are more interesting if you put people in them. However you care to approach it this is engaging, wise, and carefully crafted storytelling. There is not a lot of "business"; there are no writerly conceits or showing off. The tale is restrained, honest and filled with humor, generosity and good spirits. This is a nice find.
January 1, 2011
This is the sad and ultimately unfulfilled story of Figman, Enoch and Marilee: Three lost souls wandering the desert towns of New Mexico.
I work in the nuclear industry so the settings of Rocket City and the Trinity site were interesting and the descriptions of the locations were wonderful. I have occasion to travel to Arizona and New Mexico and I wouldn't mind searching out some of the locations described in the book.
The book started with an enticing scene, and some interesting characters, but while I felt sorry for all three of main characters I did not connect with any of them. Ms. Alpert has no doubt spent more time in the heat and the dust of these small, personal towns than I have, and perhaps this is a true "Americana" story; but I don't think so.
I work in the nuclear industry so the settings of Rocket City and the Trinity site were interesting and the descriptions of the locations were wonderful. I have occasion to travel to Arizona and New Mexico and I wouldn't mind searching out some of the locations described in the book.
The book started with an enticing scene, and some interesting characters, but while I felt sorry for all three of main characters I did not connect with any of them. Ms. Alpert has no doubt spent more time in the heat and the dust of these small, personal towns than I have, and perhaps this is a true "Americana" story; but I don't think so.
February 9, 2009
This book is truly funny at times, but the technical flaws spoiled it for me. Two completely separate stories that seemed to have no reason to intersect and don't, in any unforced way. (So why make the effort?) Quirkyness for quirkyness' sake. (Ouch.) A lead character who's smart voice doesn't jive with her idiotic page-bound activities. The usual plot-sag-in-the-middle-problem. Ultimately less than the sum of its parts.
December 22, 2011
**** 1/4
Really fantastic book and I knew as I was reading it that it reminded me of *something* but I couldn't think of what. When I came back to Goodreads and read the description, I realized it was Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.
Sad, flawed characters who still have a lot of hope. What more can you ask for? And at the end of the day, we are all freaks....
Really fantastic book and I knew as I was reading it that it reminded me of *something* but I couldn't think of what. When I came back to Goodreads and read the description, I realized it was Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.
Sad, flawed characters who still have a lot of hope. What more can you ask for? And at the end of the day, we are all freaks....
May 21, 2014
What a silly book. I surprised myself by sticking with it. There were two stories intertwined ... but why? What did it really add to the picture? Nothing. I guess the only direction the author tried to take was that the dwarf in the story was such a free-spirited and independently happy soul. Not sure why he wasted his time with such a silly woman, though ...
February 23, 2013
First read this 15 years or so ago, and recently found it in a box and read again. Funny and sweet with just the right amount of cynicism. A witty take on the age-old road trip with lots of interesting detours. Great fun to read.
January 2, 2014
Cathryn Albert's quick wit and expansive imagination makes this novel a page turner. The characters are life size. Even after having read the last page, I find myself going back to the story and wondering how their lives may have continued.
August 6, 2007
Surprisingly interesting at times. Love comes in many forms, and this book contains one of its most interesting expressions. Overall it's bad.
June 4, 2009
It's been a long time since I read this. I do recall liking it very much. You've got a dwarf and some beautiful women. Sex in a cave. Being on the run in the Southwest.
Want to read
June 7, 2012From BEA12 (the new release is not on goodreads yet!)
Read
June 30, 2012A blind purchase that, like so many others, became a reading adventure. A great book to read on the beach, on the bus or on the way to Alamogordo.
November 3, 2012
It was rather depressing.
February 9, 2013
Definite southwest character. Parallel intertwining stories with some pretty unique characters. I enjoyed this, but found its final connection contrived.
June 8, 2013
New Mexico, a girl, and a dwarf. What more can I say?
June 7, 2017
What a hot mess the main character was and yet so believeable. I know people who would do what she did.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews