HEITZMAN SIONS
  • No Sweat Sions 2025
  • No Sweat Sions Bright Future 2025
  • No Sweat Sions Winter 2025
  • No Sweat Sions Update 2025
  • No Sweat Sions January 2025
  • No Sweat Sions Summer 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • Spring 2024
  • January 2024
  • 2024 Breeding Season
  • Late Summer 23
  • Summer 2023
  • Spring 2023
  • 2023 BREEDERS
  • DECEMBER 2022
  • FALL 2022
  • SUMMER 2022
  • 2022 MATINGS
  • 2022 BREEDERS
  • Fall 2021
  • Nov/Dec 2021
  • Oct/Nov '21 SIONS
  • Aug/Sept '21 SIONS
  • June 2021 SIONS
  • 2021 RACING & BREEDING
  • SUMMER 2021 UPDATE
  • 2021 BREEDERS
  • 2021-2022 STATUS REPORT
  • 2020-2021 UPDATE
  • Nov/Dec 2020
  • UPDATE NO SWEAT SION PHOTOS
  • SIONS
  • Welcome
  • 2019 Breeders
  • 2019 Breeders
  • 2018 Breeders
  • 2017 Breeding Program
    • No Sweat
    • 2017 Cocks
    • 2017 Hens
    • 2017 Stock Birds
  • Racing Pigeons
  • 2017 Key Breeding Pairs
  • The Heitzman Story
  • About
  • Contact
  • Pigeon Gallery
  • 2016 Pigeon Stories
  • Pigeon Stories
  • Adventures
  • Archaeology
  • Edward W. Hawkins
  • Writing & Reviews
  • Chesteen
  • New Page
  • 2020-2021 UPDATE
  • UPDATE NO SWEAT SION PHOTOS
  • Great New Discovery

Edward W. Woolery, Ph.D. Review

2/20/2015

 
Unlike his first novel, NEFARIOUS, or the more recent collected short stories, BLACK BLUEGRASS, Earl Lowell “Robbie” Robbins Jr. pens THESE PRECIOUS DAYS (TPD) as the noirish two-year diary of an eastern Kentucky writer’s (NO SWEAT) existential observations during a period of his waning youth. Like most significant writers of the American South, bleakness is pervasive throughout the work, even down to the pseudonyms given to those that haunt the primary social strata of his realm (e.g., Black Hole, mentor, Dark Star, best friend, Black Widow, beautiful temptress, etc.). The more luminous names given to his beloved (e.g., Sensi, Bright Eyes, True, etc.) are themselves shadowed by their juxtaposition to the troubled and often tragic family dynamic.

Set in the hills of eastern Kentucky, the town of Aoephh is spatially, temporally, and culturally isolated; however, the author selects events from his adventurous experiences to demonstrate that it perfectly represents the human condition in all places and in all time. In many respects Aoephh’s isolation allows Robbins to probe deeper into reality and truth than those typical self-aggrandizing reflections made from the safety of the cosmopolitan salons and cafes. During this 2-year period of time, 1981 to 1983, No Sweat (NS) begins to confront his past, present, and future through the struggles of his mentor, Black Hole (BH).  BH is a West Point graduate who changed services to become a Cold War B-52 pilot, and finally Air Force Academy professor and intellectual who lived in what Eliot called the “shadow” that separates the idea and reality. Ultimately, human pain and darkness feed BH’s demons to demise. NS’s struggle, although never explicitly admitted, appears to be with the same demon attractions. Like BH, NS leaves Aoephh at every chance and had the physical and mental resources to stay away, but always returned. No one escapes Aoephh or life, but for death. 

Although Robbins’ has undoubtedly been influenced by many of the great writers, he has crafted a writing style that is unique. He keeps the dialog short and focused, but manages to accurately capture the local dialect without distraction. His wordsmith distills and concentrates the essence of the characters and their circumstance. The senses are completely captured in a grand impressionistic manner, and the reader is led through the entire bandwidth of emotion, whether it is the outrageous comedy of a moonshine purchase in the mountains or the haunting sorrow of his mother’s illness. Whatever the emotion, TPD is an implicit and explicit reminder of the pain-of-living each of us endure, but to our detriment bury within the chaos and insanity of daily affairs. Robbins’ challenges the reader to examine the fragile restraints on their inner demons, and provides a short respite through this well-crafted diary to breathe the pheromones and boldly walk in their tender shadow.


Edward W. Woolery, Ph.D.
Engineering Seismology and Geophysics
University of Kentucky
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
101 Slone Research Building
Lexington, KY  40506-0053

    Writing & Reviews

    No Sweat Robbie Robbins
    Writing, Books, Interviews, Reviews, and more...

    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Captain Lance: Nefarious
    Citizens Voice & Times
    Dinner With John Lovett
    Earl
    Hello 49ER !
    If Only A Dream: Chapter 42
    Lindy Yeager
    Nefarious
    Old Fret Review
    Ontario Review
    Press Release 2012
    Reviews
    Sara L. Griffith Review
    Self Portrait
    Short Stories
    These Precious Days
    Wendy Goldman Rohm
    Woolery PHD Review
    Writing Begins

    Picture

    Archives

    March 2015
    February 2015

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly