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MWSA Review
Route 66 Déjà Vu by Michael Lund is a story of life and change in America during a unique period in American History. The story is tangentially tied to the most famous American highway in recent history, the fabled Route 66. In this story, the old Route 66 is used as a backdrop to a man’s discovery that his early perceptions of life were wrong, and that the life that he had thought he had enjoyed was different and more complex than he had realized.
The author places most of the action in the novel in Fairfield, Missouri, a town that sits along a segment of the Missouri portion of Route 66. The main character of the story, Curtis, is tasked with helping to arrange his 50th high school class reunion. The story follows Curtis as he works with the reunion committee to rewrite the High School Annual and bring it up to date after 50 years. As a side project, Curtis wants to restage a weekly Bridge game that he held most weekends with some of his classmates. In addition, Curtis tries to encourage his classmates to donate to a new scholarship fund. In the course of the story, Curtis makes visits to Route 66 and some of its iconic cafes, motels, and tourist attractions. The real story here appears to be Curtis’s travails in trying to bring about a perfect 50th Class Reunion for his high school when many of his classmates have different points of view and experiences than he does after graduation.
The author, through Curtis, touches on several important issues, like race relations, misogyny, and service in the military, in the course of his attempts to convince other classmates to support his ideas for the reunion. Who knew that arranging a 50th reunion could be quite such an adventure?
Review by Larry Sharrar (March 2024)
Author's Synopsis
Route 66 Déjà Vu explores the confirmations and revisions of individual and collective history for a generation that grew up in the '50s and '60s in a small town on The Mother Road. The occasions are a 50th high school class reunion and the 100th birthday of one classmate's mother, the matriarch of her family and a representative of the Greatest Generation. The stories of the class's male and female Vietnam veterans are integrated into the longer narrative and present a distinctive perspective on the American Dream.
Michael Lund’s five-volume novel series chronicles an American family during times of peace and war from 1915 to 2015.
Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle
Review Genre: Fiction—Literary Fiction
Number of Pages: 239
Word Count: 64,469