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Title details for The Loop by Joe Coomer - Available

The Loop

by Joe Coomer
Richard Powers
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

Lyman, a thirty-year-old loner, is sipping coffee on the front steps of the trailer he calls home one morning, when a parrot suddenly alights on his screen door. The parrot arrives with a mysterious past and beak full of cryptic sayings, such as "That which hath wings shall tell the matter." Convinced that heeding the bird's wisdom will lead him to answers about himself that he so desperately seeks, Lyman combines his night job as a courtesy patrolman, circling the highway that loops around Fort Worth, with days in the library. Together with Fiona, the loquacious and sexy librarian, he traces his adopted pet's origins, and while what Lyman ultimately discovers may not help him piece together his own past, it paves the way for a future he never imagined.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 7, 2009

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481567787
      • File size: 212152 KB
      • Duration: 07:21:58

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Text Difficulty: 9-12

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Every night, devoted Texas Highway Department employee Lyman drives around the seemingly endless loop that surrounds the city of Fort Worth, helping stranded drivers, removing dead animals, and otherwise seeing that the road is clear. His is a life of monotony that serves to keep order and balance in his lonely existence--that is, until a chance encounter with a very intelligent parrot opens his eyes to the world around him. As Lyman, narrator Paul Michael Garcia speaks with the contented tone of a man who fails to recognize the isolation of his existence. But when Garcia assumes the role of Fiona the librarian, he slyly adapts Lyman's tone to that of a man who is being rapidly awakened to new possibilities. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 28, 1992
      The protagonist of Coomer's deliciously quirky and perceptive fourth novel (after A Flatland Fable ) is Lyman, 30, a lovable loner (he has never known his parents) who works nights for the Texas highway department, driving around the Loop that circles Fort Worth. In this dark, endless orbit--a subtly shifting metaphor for Lyman's own life--he aids stranded motorists, collects debris for his trophy collection and buries animals killed by cars. When an aging but spry parrot with a beakful of cryptic sayings barges through the screen door of Lyman's trailer and upsets his routine, Lyman's deeper humanity is oddly stirred. He decides that finding ``the owner behind the bird . . . would be akin to finding the message behind the universe.'' To this end he enlists the aid of Fiona, a sexy librarian at the college where he has enrolled in a potpourri of courses from French to furniture repair. Together, they research parrots and try to track the sources of the bird's perplexingly hieratic utterances. The quest turns up surprises, not always the answers Lyman thinks he seeks. Increasingly when he returns to the nocturnal exitless Loop, he sees his beloved highway in a new light as a place of ``aridity'' and estrangement. Despite a jarringly abrupt switch to Fiona's viewpoint late in the narrative, the denouement both heartens and satisfies.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Text Difficulty:9-12

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