William Elliott Hazelgroves’ Rocket Man Chronicles the Wide Lawns and Narrow Minds of Suburbia Novel Explores the Demise of American Dream
Oak Park, IL,, October 28, 2008 — Ernest Hemingway made a famous statement about his hometown of Oak Park, Illinois, summing up the Protestant enclave West of Chicago as the place of “wide lawns and narrow minds.” So it makes sense that another man who is working in Ernest Hemingways’s attic should write a novel that takes this concept one step further. That is exactly what William Elliott Hazelgrove did in his satirical new novel, Rocket Man, due to be published in December. The story revolves around Dale Hammer and his family struggling to keep their home in the conservative suburb they have just moved too. In one week, Dale is accussed of cutting down his subdivision sign, has to take care of his father who has just been thrown out of his house, and run the Rocket Day show for the Scouts of his nine year old son. All this comes to a head and we have the modern family in motion in the year 2008, complete with the threat of losing their home. But what makes this novel resemble Hemingways’ famous quote is the exposing of suburban values in the year of our demise. We see the perfect people with the large homes and the large cars and we see this family that does not fit in to that mold. In a broad statement on the state of the American Dream, Hazelgrove lets us experience his main characters social isolation, the utter futility of trying to keep up this super life and it is no suprise that he can’t make his payments. Sound familiar? It is. Rocket Man is a direct mirror of what is going on in America now. A population with a collective hangover from twenty years of massive consumerism. The chickens come home to roost for Dale and his family the way they are coming home to roost for us. The resolution of this novel is not surprising, yet it does offer hope and maybe a better way to live.
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