Joy Eibling - glojo7@earthlink.net It was the cover of GIV that hooked me. The images reflected in the dog bowl -- the soldier in Iraq, Katrina, the Kennedys right before the assasination, the old motel sign. I thought what can this mean? How are all these connected? I read GIV and the cover has it dead on. Giv connects all of it.connects America, connects to my soul, healed all the love and conflicts I feel about my country. Giv is poetry, it made me cry, made me proud to be an American. Giv - The Story of a Dog and America, by the enigmatic, award winning author, Boston Teran.
"follows the story of a dog named Giv on his journey across the America of 9/11 and Katrina and Iraq, the America of music and movies, crime and beauty, love and pathos, god and goodness, and the eternality of human redemption and healing." It does that and so much more. A most unique, beautifully written and enriching book, it is to literature what the great murals are to painting and art. For that is what Giv is - an American mural. Murals have sweep and theme. They are a vison of life. A testament to ideas. This is Giv.
From the first moments at a motel in Arizona called St. Peter's to when the narrator of the tale - Sergeant Dean Hickok, a returning war vet from Iraq - finds Giv near death on a rainy backwoods road, the reader, through the dog, comes to experience the heart and soul of the nation. Giv and the Sergeant are two veterans of the world, and wars. They are survivors, struggling, looking for a place, a home. Their journey together is the journey of healing one's life. As in all classic and mythic tales there are dramas and confrontations, sorrows and joys. There are sequences in this book that will grab at your emotions like few books I have ever read, and there are sequences that are spellbinding in their visual power (the section on Katrina, that takes you right into the flood, will stand as one of the all time descriptions of an experience). In this book there are an extraordinary range of characters - Anna Perrina, Ian, Ruthie Ruth, Mz.
El, just to name a few. Through them and their stories, profound ideas and meanings are uncovered. Let me quote here from the book."He can feel it all the way down in the thread of his blood. Somewhere he will come upon a sunrise where he can be childlike and pure again. Where he will be given a chance, a means, a way, a home, a friend, and the emptiness and wear will mean nothing. The strong light of beauty will outshine everything." This is but one of the many gems in the grand mural that is Giv.
Experience it!http://fabulously40.com.