Review: Carrying Albert Home
When Elsie Lavender married Homer Hickam, Sr, Buddy Ebsen sent a baby alligator to them for a wedding gift. Elsie named the alligator Albert and loved the animal dearly. The feeling was mutual so Albert was quite tame for her. She soon realized, though, that West Virginia wasn’t the place to raise an alligator so she convinced her husband to take her to Florida to carry Albert home.
Most people know Homer Hickam as the author of The Rocket Boys, one of my all time favorite books. When I heard Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, His Wife, and Her Alligator was a prequel of sorts, I was very anxious to read it. What I didn’t realize is the book reads like one tall tale after another, a style that doesn’t appeal to me so I ended up liking the book instead of loving it the way I thought I would.
There’s nothing wrong with this book – it’s clever, witty, well written and is filled with great characters – but I struggled to suspend disbelief. I missed my book club’s discussion of Carrying Albert Home but I’ve heard everyone else loved it. If it sounds appealing to you, you should give it a try!
I thumbed through this book when it first came, as I loved October Sky/Rocket Boys! It seemed like a strange mix of fact and fiction, not really calling out to me, so I left it on the shelf. Sorry it didn’t work out for you, but I’m glad I moved on to something better.
Sounds a bit different but entertaining. Thanks for telling us about it because I hadn’t heard of it before.
I meant to try this one but, now I’m not so sure.
i really enjoyed Carrying Albert Home, I thought Homer’s love for his wife was so touching.
This was such an appealing looking book to me but I was worried about the alligator so I opted not to read it.
I never read The Rocket Boys. That sounds more like my style.
The description of this book never grabbed me.
I don’t think that writing style would work for me, either. And the alligator…well, not my favorite creature….lol. Thanks for sharing.
I haven’t heard of this one.
Thanks for sharing a few thoughts about this book, Kathy!
Aww too bad this wasn’t a hit for you.
Since Rocket Boys is a favorite of yours, I’ll check to see if my library has it. Carrying Albert Home sounds really interesting to me, especially since there were alligators in the pond behind the house I used to live in the pond was fed from a river). They’d come up to the bank, about 10 feet from our pool and sunbathe. Maybe the library will have them both.
should have been (in the pond was fed from a river)
sometimes this happens, glad you liked it as much as you did, sometimes I wonder why people “love ” books that are just ok for me.
I wanted you to love this! I didn’t think I’d enjoy this book based on the description, but I wanted you to change my mind!
I doubt it working for me either.
It sounds a little strange to me…
It seems pretty whimsical.
Sometimes when we go into a book expecting a certain “something” and the book doesn’t fit what we were expecting, it seems a sort of let-down. Maybe if you’d known what the book was like in general before you started reading, it would have been easier to take it on its own merits? I don’t know … I know I went to “Cats” on Broadway years ago expecting a story, but it was just basically a collection of song and dance, so I was disappointed. If I’d known that there was no real story, I might have gone in and been able to simply enjoy the musical numbers without looking for that story. 🙂