Comment tout a commencé

by Pete Fromm

Set in the stark immensity of the West Texas landscape, How All This Started portrays with strength and subtlety the heart-wrenching struggles of a family dealing with manic depression, and the visceral bond between a brother and his sister.

Author Biography: Pete Fromm is the author most recently of Night Swimming, a critically acclaimed collection of short stories (1999). He won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Awards for How All This Started (2000), the story collection Dry Rain (1997), and the memoir Indian Creek Chronicles (1994). He has published over a hundred stories, earning numerous honors, including nominations for the Pushcart Prize. How All This Started is his first novel. He lives with his family in Great Falls, Montana.

Genres: Fiction, Sports, Novels

337 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2000

About the author

Pete Fromm is a five time winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Literary Award for his novels IF NOT FOR THIS, AS COOL AS I AM and HOW ALL THIS STARTED, a story collection, DRY RAIN, and the memoir, INDIAN CREEK CHRONICLES. The film of AS COOL AS I AM, starring Claire Danes, James Marsden, and Sarah Bolger was released in 2013. He is the author of four other short story collections and has published over two hundred stories in magazines. He is on the faculty of Oregon’s Pacific University’s Low-Residency MFA Program, and lives in Montana with his family.

http://www.petefromm.com

Reviews

[Gaby · Rating 4 out of 5]

TW : Troubles bipolaires

Le base-ball était omniscient ds ce livre, c’est pas un sujet qui m’intéresse particulièrement et pour autant je trouvais ça très bien amené le parallèle entre la puissance des coups donnés durant une partie et l’impact que pouvait prendre la maladie et sa puissance grandissante
J’ai été très retournée par cette lecture parce que c’était un récit très violent avec des scènes parfois choquantes (qui se passe ds un huit-clos dans le désert renforçant l’étouffement)

Je pense que le pdv le plus dur au final était celui de son frère Austin, livre étant basé quasi que sur sa relation avec sa sœur malade. Il vit complètement à travers elle jusqu’à atteindre des situations où ni l’un ni l’autre ne veulent voir le problème.
Bref une énorme claque

[Clara Noetinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Première partie pas évidente a lire si on n'y connait rien au baseball comme moi mais la deuxième partie est vraiment beaucoup mieux avec une relation soeur / frère vraiment touchante. Le rythme est bien meilleur dans la seconde partie et finalement l'aspect baseball diminue et ce n'est pas plus mal!

[SAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certes il est question de base-ball, un sport dont je ne connais ni les règles ou la culture, mais c'est un peu comme la série "Friday night lights" qu'on peut aimer sans rien connaître du foot américain.
Ici un frère et une soeur passent beaucoup de temps à lancer des balles, l'aînée transmettant à son petit frère son savoir d'un sport où elle n'a pas pu percer.
Mais le sujet du roman est ailleurs, il est dans le comportement de plus en plus erratique de cette soeur, Abilene, qui souffre en fait de troubles mentaux qui prennent de plus en plus de place et qui vont profondément affecter sa vie, celle de ses parents et celle de son frère Austin.
C'est vraiment la relation entre ce dernier et sa soeur, face à la maladie, qui me feront garder un bon souvenir de cette lecture.

[Manon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coup de cœur. Immense. Violent.
Vous connaissez mon amour pour Pete Fromm, j'ai aimé chacun de ses livres.
Celui ci les surpasse tous.
Il va être question de bipolarité, de la façon dont une famille peut voler en éclat, mais aussi, et surtout, de l'amour qui lie un frère et une sœur.
Ce roman est d'une justesse incroyable, il n'est ni trop, ni trop peu.
Les personnages sont bouleversants, les parents, Austin et Abilene ont chacun leur vécu, leur ressenti, et ils réagissent tous différemment. Je pense que n'importe qui peut se reconnaître dans l'un de ces personnages.
J'ai été touchée, j'ai été poussée dans mes retranchements, j'ai été en colère, mon cœur c'est brisé, c'est recollé, pour mieux se rebriser plus tard.
Bref une montagne russe d'émotions.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une petite ville aride au fin fond du Texas. Austin, 15 ans, et sa sœur ainée Abilene, noient leur ennui et la monotonie du quotidien dans la pratique intensive du base-ball. Abilene n'en a aucun doute ; Austin sera bientôt le meilleur lanceur de tous les temps, même s'il faut s'entraîner jusqu'à l'épuisement. Mais les agissements d'Abilene se mettent à aller bien au-delà de l'exubérance, et derrière les cris et les disparitions se profile le spectre de la maladie. Austin ne veut rien entendre, sa grande sœur est unique, leur seul problème est cette vie dans ce trou à rat. Mais la bipolarité et les troubles maniaco-dépressifs d'Abilene fissurent petit à petit leurs liens indéfectibles et l'ensemble du cercle familial.
Je voulais lire Pete Fromm depuis un moment, et oh my, je ne suis pas du tout déçue. Malgré ma méconnaissance du lexique sportif omniprésent, j'ai été embarquée dans ce roman comme Austin dans le vieux camion pourri d'Abilene, prête à partir au fin fond du désert avec eux. Il y a beaucoup de tensions au fil des pages, de soupirs d'angoisse pour ceux qui se sentent impuissants face à la maladie d'Abilene et à ses conséquences, mais également des moments lumineux et intimes dans leur relation.

[Juliette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mon deuxième Pete Fromm après La Vie en chantier, et je pense que c’est l’un des auteurs américains les plus intéressants actuellement.
L’histoire est simple, centrée sur une poignée de personnages. Ancrer le récit au Texas est une belle idée, car l’atmosphère sèche du désert donne une impression d’enfermement qui pèse sur les deux héros. Surtout, j’ai beaucoup aimé l’univers du baseball, assez peu exploité en littérature.
Néanmoins la structure est parfois un peu répétitive, puisqu’elle est uniquement jalonnée par les fugues d’Abilene. J’ai apprécié ce personnage, mais paradoxalement, sa personnalité reste parfois un peu en surface. J’aurais aimé en savoir plus sur ce qui s’est passé au lycée, et pourquoi sa carrière de lanceuse s’est terminée si brutalement. Ça reste une très bonne lecture, assez marquante.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pete Fromm did it again -- he grabbed me from page one and dragged me deeply into a story that I didn't want to end. He so perfectly captured the angst of kids trapped in a nowhere town, and wove it into the narrative of a family dealing with a mentally ill daughter, Abilene. Abilene tears like a force through the book, and Fromm takes you through her highs and her lows as seen through the eyes of her devoted brother. Fromm's writing crackles with the tension of what will happen next, and he made me care so deeply about these characters.

[Joanne Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intense, haunting, and beautiful. This is a tightly drawn story of family, mental illness, and small-town aspirations.

At first I felt something lacking in the plot, as it really only involves one family with almost no outside characters, no secondary plotline. No friends, no school drama, no town events. Because of this the family seems to exist in a vacuum, and while it was frustrating to have a story so closed in, I do see how it intensifies the emotion of the book all the more.

The prose strikes the balance between raw and magical. The dread and horror of one sibling's very real descent into mental illness is contrasted beautifully with the other sibling's innocent, mythological view of his sister. Most of the language is stripped down in a way that reflects the starkness of the West Texas desert, but every once in a while, a line like "I suddenly wondered if this was what Abilene's world was like: her head filled with her very own stars; captivating at first, but finally terrifying when she realized that everything else that was light had gone dark." A few lines like that are sprinkled in at the perfect moment to hit that emotional chord.

While mental illness takes up so much space in the pages, ultimately this book is a stunning portrait of sibling devotion. I loved it.

[Della Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what write about this book. I consider it to have some major flaws and problems as a novel, but nevertheless, it was a page-turner.
It's a coming-of-age story, (presumably set in the 90s, though we're never told this) about a Texas teenager, Austin, and his volatile older sister, Abilene. Her own baseball career was arrested because of her gender, but she's determined to make him the next Nolan Ryan. But she has overwhelming personal problems of her own, which soon become apparent.
I think the problem with this book is that it's so focused on a handful of themes that it ignores questions the reader may want to know. For example, what does the father do for a living? Abilene isn't gainfully employed most of the time, but always seems to have gas for her vehicle, and money for whatever other things she needs or wants. Why are the kids so contemptuous of the parents and the small town they live in? Why does Abilene blame the parents for her mental illness? The mother is never really fleshed out as a person, but is mostly a generic "mother" figure. The novel seems to endlessly repeat certain themes, while ignoring other content that's needed to make it seem complete.

[Julie Corbett · Rating 4 out of 5]

My reviews don't include specifics about the books. I figure you can read the flap of the book to find out that much and I don't want to give away any spoilers.
But, overall I thought this was a pretty decent book. It's an interesting read as the author throws the reader into the daily life of a family dealing with bipolar disorder. There is so much stigma surrounding mental health illnesses still today, that I appreciate an author who isn't afraid to take on such an important issue in a creative format.
Without going into details surrounding the story itself, the only reason I didn't rate this book with 5-stars is that I think the author dashes from one chapter to another with a bit too much bumpiness. It just doesn't read as fluidly and so it takes away from the story a bit.
And towards the end of the book, I felt the ending could have been done a little better. But, that's just my own personal opinion.
Would I recommend this book to someone to read? Absolutely.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book long ago because it involved baseball. The reality is this story is so, so, SO much more. This is really a story about a family, specifically the sibling relationship between Abilene and Austin. It's about making someone else's unrealized dreams come true. It's about understanding the burdens we each bear. It's about that moment where we realize people are dealing with more than we knew. It's about trying to find truth, resilience and a way forward through it all. This is a read that is teeming with feels. Yes, there's baseball, too, but more than anything, it's about two siblings just trying to figure it all out.

[Emilie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lu dans la cadre du #challengegallmeister d’août, pour le thème « road trip ».

C’était le dernier Pete Fromm qui manquait à ma collection ; je peux désormais dire que je les ai tous lus !

Nous retrouvons les sujets de prédilection de Pete : la famille, la maladie. En ce sens, je lui trouve de plus en plus de similitudes avec David Vann. Voilà plusieurs romans (le lac de nulle part, comment tout a commencé) où la santé mentale est l’intrigue principale. Mais à la différence de David Vann, ça ne s’achève pas en bain de sang. Pete Fromm termine ses romans de manière positive, après 300 pages de tension où j’ai craint qu’il y ait un ou plusieurs morts.

Le fil rouge de ce roman-ci est le base-ball, présenté du point de vue du passionné, et à titre personnel j’ai trouvé amusant le décalage entre la façon dont est décrite cette activité, sous l’angle du sport, de l’épuisement physique, du dépassement de soi jusqu’à la blessure corporelle ; et mon expérience de matchs de baseball qui durent trois heures, où il ne se passe RIEN sur le terrain et où les joueurs enfilent des pulls pour ne pas prendre froid à force d’être immobiles. Je me serai moins ennuyée à assister aux matchs décrits dans ce roman, où il semble y avoir beaucoup d’action !

Note personnelle : Abilene est un prénom ravissant.

[Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exceptionally well written representation of manic depression. The parents are so well-drawn; despite the teenage son’s pov, we can still see through his teenage bitterness towards them to see their pain and suffering and work as parents and adults. My only criticism is that it is difficult to have sufficient sympathy for Abilene, as she is frequently cruel— even when she is trying to be kind. Thus, when change comes, it’s hard to celebrate. Or, that may just all be the function of Austin’s exceptionally well written pov and his ambivalence towards his sister

[Lise · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'aime toujours autant la prose de cet auteur, que j'avais découverte avec Lucy in the sky. Le thème de l'adolescence est toujours aussi bien évoqué. S'ajoute ici celui de la bipolarité que j'appréhendais un peu car j'y suis confrontée dans mon entourage. Je l'ai trouvé abordé avec justesse, et la relation entre Austin et Abilene est très touchante et intéressante. J'ai hâte de découvrir les autres titres de Pete Fromm.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book, even though it made me pretty anxious. I liked the characters and wanted good things for them, but they went through a lot of uncertainty and confusion. At first Abilene came across as a manic pixie dream girl, and while she has some elements of that, she is more something that Austin has to survive than a character who is only there to transform him.
Also, I like baseball stories.

[Bladelor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un bon roman, comme tous ceux de l'auteur, mais qui m'a cependant moins plu que les autres titres que j'ai lus.
Il faut dire que la thématique du baseball ne me passionne pas, cela a sans-doute joué dans mon appréciation de cette lecture.
Côté traitement des sentiments et de la psychologie des personnages, à l'instar des autres ouvrages de Pete Fromm, c'était un texte puissant et poignant.

[Suzanne Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual piece about a boy who tries to "save" his bi-polar sister from herself. Very realistic portrait of the wreckage, but hope, involved in fighting bi-polar disorder.

[Tabule Tabs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Déçu de ne pas voir le petit frère faire carrière dans le baseball. On apprend des choses sur cette maladie mentale ms je trouve qu'on reste à la surface.

[Marc Stergionis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spellbinding saga of devoted siblings torn by a sister’s mental illness in the rural West.

[Elise George · Rating 3 out of 5]

slow, good, a lil not great, a lil great

def a middle ground book

[Oscar Gomez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think about the ending from time to time, when she tells him meet my friends

[Xzs · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad I discovered Pete Fromm's books. This is the third book of his that I have read now, and as with the other two, it did not disappoint. In terms of subject matter, it's nothing that would normally draw me in. In fact, if it hadn't been written by Fromm, I would have passed over this one! My liking of this book is a testament to Fromm's ability to enrapture the reader with his storytelling. I raced through this book because I found myself eager to know more of the story and the characters. Fromm's writing transports you to that scorching, lonely Texas landscape and sucks you in with every pitch (who'd have thought a book involving baseball would hold my interest). Fromm's characters stay with me, long after I finish one of his books - a sure sign of a worthwhile read! It's a pity more people don't know about the talents of this author.

[Torii · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely fell in love with this book. Fromm's prose is beautiful, his story moves swiftly- I couldn't put the book down- and his characters are heartbreaking. The narrator's relationship with his sister, his father's relationship with his children, and the entire family coming to grips with Abilene's diagnosis- if what it means when someone you love is not themselves anymore- makes this novel compelling and emotional.

The conflicts were threaded expertly into every chapter, and you cared deeply about the characters from start to finish. I never expected to love a "baseball story" so much- but obviously this was much more than a story about baseball. Pete Fromm has easily become one of my favorite authors. I can't wait to read another.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book in a weekend... which says something and suggests I wasn't paying close attention to the kids. I still can't quite how I feel about this book which follows a young (15 year old) boy and his relationship with his bi-polar sister 5 years his senior. He suffers along with her and because she is pretty much his world it can be painful to read. I was often nervous for imminent harm to him, his sister, and their family... as if the disease didn't do enough harm. The book offers a glimmer of hope, but never really clears up how he deals with it (unclear if he finally gets friends his own age or girlfriends or whatever --hopefully at least in college right?).

[John Orman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abilene and Austin are named for the Texas towns of their birth, but are united in far more complex ways, especially after Abilene is afflicted with manic depression during her campaign to get Austin recognized as a first-class baseball pitcher on the order of local hero Nolan Ryan.

This blending of baseball with a tale of mental disorder is quite unique, and well-handled during the adventures of Abilene and Austin. Those adventures of course also wrap into the lives of their parents, as they struggle with guilt and blame about the course of their children's lives.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really interesting perspective on manic depression as it explores a younger brother's relationship with his manic older sister. It was at times sad, at times frustrating, and insightful throughout.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, there's so much depth in the characters, and I guess that the whole baseball thing reminded me of my childhood. I think the familiarity of the subject matter adds a lot, but it's still a great read.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richly enduring. The craziness seems to seep into my subconsious.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put this book down - compelling and heartbreaking.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very open look at manic depression and its impact on a family in nowhere-ville Texas.