LeAnne Hardy, author and editor
  • Home
  • BIO
  • My Books
    • Children's and Young Adult
    • Historical Fiction
    • Non-fiction
  • Blog
  • Editorial Services

My ​Times and Places
​


​​

Hearts in Atlantis

1/29/2010

1 Comment

 
Picture

Don’t we look like something straight off Carnaby Street, London?  I’m the one in the tunic with bare feet.  My sister is in the hot pants.  The picture must have been taken about 1968--the year of the Tet offensive in Viet Nam, the Chicago riots, and assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.  My favorite singing group was Peter, Paul and Mary (not the Beatles.)

Hearts in Atlantis was my first Stephen King book other than On Writing (a wonderful memoir combined with writing advice.) 

I’m not a fan of horror—there is enough awful stuff in the world without making it up; just look at Haiti!—but I heard this wasn’t like his other books.  It was weird in places, but more like brilliantly-written speculative fiction.  The real story isn’t the supernatural, but the lives of the Viet Nam generation—my generation—and how the years between the deaths of John Kennedy and John Lennon affected us. 

We lost our way in free love and drugs.  We went from the idealism of longing for something more than what we saw as the trite suburbanism of our parents to something very similar and far more empty.  After all, our parents had found meaning in surviving the Great Depression and fighting the Nazis.  They are what Tom Brokaw calls “The Great Generation.”  And us?  We rejected God and tried to “do our own thing” and so rejected what would have given meaning to the experiences that history threw at us.  And after all our counter-culture talk and revolutionary acts we ended up buried in cell phones, microwave ovens and garden ornaments.  King has a scene near the end of the book when all these things and more come raining from the sky to crush the people in their cars stalled on the highway.  His symbolism is obvious, but effective.

There are those of my generation who didn’t fry their brains on drugs, strip their souls or throw away their bodies, jumping from bed to bed.  I have met them all over the world, building hospitals in Ethiopia, teaching school in Pakistan, distributing used clothing to the destitute in Mozambique and funding micro-industries in Indonesia.  Some of them are in Haiti, as you read this.  Their actions are not as flashy as spray-painting peace signs on the side of college dorms or throwing rocks at Chicago cops during the Democratic National Convention, but in the end they are far more effective at changing the world.  The people I met do it, not for the Age of Aquarius or for King’s lost Atlantis, but for the Kingdom of God.

Hearts in Atlantis is well worth the read.  I listened to the audio-book, read in part, by King himself.  But I’m glad it isn’t all there is.

My daughters are from a different generation.  Other events have impacted their view of the world and their place in it.  What events have most impacted your generation, and where have you found meaning in them?
1 Comment
LeAnne
1/7/2015 01:12:58 am

This post was moved from another site. All comments were lost.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    LeAnne Hardy has lived in six countries on four continents. Her books come out of her cross-cultural experiences and her passion to use story to convey spiritual truths in a form that will permeate lives.

    RSS Feed

    Add http://www.leannehardy.net/1/feed to your RSS feed.
    To receive an e-mail when I post a new blog, please subscribe.
    Subscribe to Blog

    Categories

    All
    Africa
    Author Interviews
    Current Events
    Devotional Thoughts
    Guest Blog
    Holidays Christmas
    Holidays Easter
    Holidays-Easter
    Holidays Other
    Holidays-Thanksgiving
    Missions And Missionaries
    Music
    My Books
    My Life And Family
    My Travels
    Non Fiction
    Orphans And Vulnerable Children
    Photos
    Publishers And Publishing
    Reading And Sharing Books
    Reviews
    Skating
    Theological Education
    Tributes
    Writing

    Archives

    June 2022
    March 2022
    December 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    March 2000

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • BIO
  • My Books
    • Children's and Young Adult
    • Historical Fiction
    • Non-fiction
  • Blog
  • Editorial Services