Friday, March 19, 2021

Cloudmaker by Malcolm Brooks, a coming-of-age novel about the frontier of flight in '30s Montana

Brooks (Painted Horses, 2014) evokes rural Montana’s magnificent beauty in his coming-of-age novel set during aviation’s Golden Age, an era marked by technical ingenuity and the allure of wide-open skies. 

In the small town of Big Coulee in 1937, fourteen-year-old Houston “Huck” Finn yearns to build and fly an airplane and has the chops to achieve it. With his Pop’s support and the help of a new machinist, “Yak” McKee, Huck works diligently while hiding the project from his overprotective, religious mother. 

His sophisticated eighteen-year-old cousin, Annelise, a pilot-in-training banished from California to preserve her reputation after a romantic liaison, arrives expecting dreary exile but instead finds her excitement rekindled by Huck’s enterprise. Danger and mystery enhance the plot when gangsters seek to reclaim an expensive watch Huck had pulled off a dead man found in a local creek. 

The cast and their interactions are wonderful, and digressions into their personal stories deepen the characterizations and historical backdrop. An entrancing tale about the challenges of pursuing one’s dreams and of American frontiers, old and new.

Cloudmaker was published this month by Grove.  I'd read the novel earlier this winter and wrote this draft for Booklist (the review ran in the 2/15/21 issue).

8 comments:

  1. Hi Sarah--many thanks for reading my novel, and for your kind words here! I have several virtual events coming up this week that may be of particular interest to historical fiction readers...I can pass along links if you like! All the best,
    Malcolm Brooks

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    1. Hi and thanks so much for commenting! Yes, it would be great to hear about the virtual events - feel free to post the links in another comment (or via email if you prefer). I'll hope to make it to one of them!

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  2. Thank you, Sarah! Tomorrow evening I'm on with Julia Whelan, the actor who read the audio versions of both of my novels. This event is hosted by Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi...here's a link:

    https://www.squarebooks.com/event/virtual-event-malcolm-brooks-conversation-julia-whelan-cloudmaker

    We're going to focus in part on the balance between research and writing in historical fiction...hope to see you there, and thanks again!

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  3. Also, I should send this--it's an Instagram promo for the novel that Julia dropped out of the blue last week...

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CMNFi34AG5j/

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  4. Hi Malcolm, thanks for both links! I'm signed up for tomorrow night's event with Square Books and just got the confirmation... I look forward to the discussion.

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    1. Me too, Sarah--I'm going to link your blog to my FB page as well!

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  5. This was an enjoyable event! For anyone who missed it, I thought I'd post the link to it on YouTube, which I just got over email. Not having read Painted Horses yet, I'm glad to know that Yakima appears in that book, too, and I'm looking forward to meeting him again there.

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