All Summer Long - Softcover

Bestselling author Bob Greene's books include Duty, Be True to Your School, and Hang Time. He is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune and columnist for Life magazine.

A treacly fiction debut from veteran journalist and Chicago Tribune columnist Greene (Hang Time, 1991, etc.): the story of three former high-school chums who decide to take a last summer off together after attending their 25th reunion. Ben, Michael, and Ronnie have each made their way in the world from small-town beginnings in Bristol, Ohio: Ben as a roving TV correspondent, familiar across America if not exactly famous; Michael as a devoted English teacher in the high school from which they graduated; Ronnie as a Cleveland multimillionaire after having married into money. When Ben pitches the idea of a summer sojourn, it doesn't take long for the others to leave their families to join him, and they spend their days driving and jetting hither and yon. Connections in Chicago get them into the Cubs clubhouse and the skybox at Wrigley Field; a chance conversation reunites them with Michael's first love, happily married in St. Louis but willing to meet them in Dallas for a weekend; Ronnie has a liaison with a dental hygienist whose jaw-drop beautiful body has men salivating wherever they go; Ben falls sweetly in love with a graduate student half his age. Meanwhile, the three reminiscence endlessly, but the experience is reaffirming as well: When Ronnie is abruptly tossed out as corporate chairman, he can recover, and even work on rebuilding his marriage. Ben also finds new purpose, turning his back on years invested as an all-American journalist to move back to Bristol and write a book, with his nascent romance showing promise. Rose-tinted, high-rolling male wish-fulfillment: the answer to every man's mid-life crisis, but terminally tedious as a novel. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.