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Title: The Dewsweepers: Seasons of Golf and Friendship by James Dodson ISBN: 0-452-28353-1 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: September, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.89 (9 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Great writing, horrible editing and proofreading!
Comment: Wow. I have read some of James Dodson's previous novels, namely Final Rounds and Faithful Travelers, and once again he paints a charming and smoothly-flowing story about his life between his divorce and trip with daughter Maggie (as described in Faithful Travelers) and the not-yet-occurring adventure in Europe with his son Jack (in The Road to Somewhere). This period of his life finds him rekindling his passion for golf and love while undergoing more trials and tribulations within his family... and not the somewhat-expected kind he dealt with in Final Rounds. What surprised me greatly about this book was the shoddy editing and/or proofreading I discovered. Three different golfer's names were mispelled, and on several occasions a double letter turned into a triple lettter (yes, just as I demonstrated). I suppose if I didn't expect books to be grammatically perfect it wouldn't be such a big deal, but come on... the guy shouldn't settle for such sub-par post-writing work on what is another great story. In fact, it's the lack of proofreading that keeps me from giving it the five stars this book probably deserves.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Jewel!!
Comment: "Golf, and sometimes life, are full of new beginnings." So starts one of the most charming books on the subject of golf and life that I have read in quite some time. For this is not a "golf book" any more than Seabiscuit was about a horse race. The author, a former 2 handicap realizes as he advances into his 40's that "I wasn't just losing my ability to play the game the way I once had...Golf was ceasing to be fun."
Dodson discovers the group of guys that become The Dewseppers when he is enveigled to travel to Syracuse to speak at a charity fund raiser. The fellow doing the inviting had read his previous book "Final Rounds" and thought the author might have something worth listening to about golf forging lasting relationships. One thing leads to another and the antics and follys of The Dewsweepers become a thread which runs through the book, but the story is about much more than them.
It is about relationships of all kinds. A son and his mother. A boy and his father. A lovely lady named Wendy. Arnold Palmer. Aging friends. A chance meeting on a magical golf course. Brotherly love gone sour. And so many more.
Dodson has the most interesting way of making how we relate to each other, the humor, the sorrow, the mundane and the magificent all come alive in a very real way. I found the book enthralling.
Those who have reviewed this book and sniffed about some of the name dropping that occurs in it are missing the point entirely. People like Arnold Palmer just happen to be a real part of Dodson's life. To leave out the "names" is to fail to tell the story to it's fullest.
In the end he finds that the joy he had gotten from golf during his life was not lost. As he puts it, it was "merely waiting for me to catch up..."
There is a lot to learn about life and relationships in this book and I doubt there are any of us who could not benefit from that.
Rating: 5
Summary: Well above par!
Comment: I cast my vote with the reviewers here who loved this book. Those that are sniffing about the "name dropping" and other such distractions have missed the point of the book entirely. "Golf, and sometimes life, is full of new beginnings," Dobson writes as the first line of the first chapter. And that is what this book is about. His love of the game has started to dry up; he is living in Maine while his girl friend lives in Syracuse (or Zerocuse as those who golf there call it for part of the year), his dear mother (Mrs. Congeniality) is slipping deeper into dementia; his brother has betrayed his trust and his ten year old son, after his final losing hockey game of the season looks at his father and says, "Dad, would you mind if I took golf lessons?" As Dobson then noted, "When you least expect it, the sun suddenly emerges from the gloom."
That is what this book is really about.The "Dewsweepers", while a real bunch of golfing nuts from Zerocuse, are really the prisim through which the author sees his life and deals with it, piece by piece as he finds that the joy of life has not been lost. It was merely waiting for him to catch up with it.
This slice of the author's life is told with humor and insight. Many doors have been opened to Dobson during his life experiences that are not easily open to most of us. Yet, he takes us through them with the supreme talent of an accomplished story teller and leaves you feeling better for the experience of having been there. That's a fine recommendation for any book and this is one not to miss.
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Title: Final Rounds : A Father, A Son, The Golf Journey Of A Lifetime by JAMES DODSON ISBN: 0553375644 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 October, 1997 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Faithful Travelers by James Dodson ISBN: 0553378880 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: Billy Boy : A Novel by Bud Shrake ISBN: 0743224809 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 25 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: Open: Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black by John Feinstein ISBN: 0316170038 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Who's Your Caddy? : Looping for the Great, Near Great, and Reprobates of Golf by RICK REILLY ISBN: 0385488858 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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