Snooker Glen [Kindle Edition]

We live in a world in which major media channels are

tightly controlled. This is especially true of

broadcast media and films, in which the major decision

making rests in rather few unelected hands. The big

exception is books-and for most people, books mean

novels. Until a topic is discussed in novels, it

simply isn't going to get broad exposure in US

culture.

Many folks need something with a story to start to

grasp an issue that isn't part of the "common sense"

of popular culture. Snooker Glen joins Fast Food

Nation as one the first books to seriously look at the

range of issues raised by mass immigration.

Snooker Glen takes the issue to a time upon which

many Americans have a bit of perspective of-and a

community that represents something that a lot of

America used to be a lot more like: town with a

strong sense of community and family wage union jobs.

The immigrants in Snooker Glen are more like the

original residents there than many other Americans

today (both groups are largely Protestant from

Northwestern Europe). Snooker Glen focuses not on the

issues of culture and language, but the effects of

immigration on economics, working conditions and the

disruption of an established community of people

who can't easily find another home like the one they

are in.

As a piece of literature, Snooker Glen deals with

things like the security ramifications of immigration

without coming off like a conspiracy theory. The basic

premise of the novel is asking how someone in the

American of the 1950's might view some major events of

the last 55 years if they could get a glimmer of the

future. Snooker Glen raises especially important

issues dropped from the contemporary political

debate-and does so in a way that folks from a wide

range of political perspectives might find thought

provoking and entertaining.

Wonderfully written book. DF Whipple is great at describing the social and economic environment through his characters. Also, DF Whipple uses humor throughout the book to keep your attention. Issue of illegal immigration is presented in the book, with much thought to the affect in a community held hostage by one employer.

I was taken away to Snooker Glen, Kentucky on the first page. At first, I thought it was a "light read", basically a book I could shut my brain off and get carried away. Well, carried away I was --- with an extraordinary plot and imaginative characters (all of whom I can say I met personally once or twice). I recommended the book to a few ladies at my church because it portrays a vivid and lively, and quite accurate account of a Southern woman and her family. Snooker Glen is a perfect book for a book club or discussion group - with so many issues intertwined. The author applies the concept of Biblical Esther to the way we live now, in a world threatened by bureaucracy and divided by language, aristocracy, money and religion.