by Jim Lehrer
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Product Description
Ever reliable and responsible, Otis Halstead is a father, a husband (one half of a “well-dressed couple of substance”), and the CEO of Kansas Central Fire and Casualty. He has never done anything out of the ordinary. Until now.
The change in Otis starts with an antique toy fire truck, the exact model he had pined for at age ten but never received. Though it is now a collectible costing $12,350, he will buy it–because he can. Next comes a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, ordered from the Nostalgia Today catalog. A Kansas City Chiefs regulation NFL helmet follows. But Otis’s real coup is the purchase of his one true childhood passion: a red 1952 Cushman Pacemaker motor scooter. For his baffled wife, Sally, this is the final straw. She insists that he see a shrink–a sloppy man with flowing hair who uses terms like “mature men in crisis” and “second childhood syndrome.” Otis is unimpressed–and extremely insulted–by the doctor’s insinuation that his baldness is to blame for his sudden interest in toys.
But it’s not until tragedy strikes uncomfortably close to home that Otis decides he wants out of his sensible, safe life in Eureka, Kansas. And so, a few weeks before his sixtieth birthday, Otis leaves town, heading west on old U.S. 56, a corporate CEO wearing a football helmet, riding a forty-year-old motor scooter, and with a BB gun strapped to the side. One might say he was in for an adventure. Otis would say he was finally about to experience life.
Jim Lehrer has created an acute, laugh-out-loud, and endearing portrait of American middle age. With abundant wit and a sharp sense of the lives most of us lead, Eureka takes us on a journey through the unfulfilled dreams of childhood. In Otis Halstead, Lehrer has created his most brilliant and winning character to date.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 The work of an amateur, 2008-07-12
The promotional material for this book made it sound great, but that's because professionals write (and likely carefully edit) promotional material. Not so for this book. It's clearly the work of an amateur writer. The writing is clunky (I guess it's true that publishing houses have done away with editors), the characters are uninspiring, and the plotting is weak. Reading this book makes one realize that writing is difficult: not just anyone can do it. If the author were not a celebrity (of sorts), this ms. would never have been considered for publication. But the book does have one virtue: it's short.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Good For A Rainy Day, 2008-02-18
Jim Lehrer's Otis Halstead suffers the midlife crisis many of us are expecting. The difference is, he acts out all the impulses most of us suppress, which makes this fun for those who live vicariously through their reading. Full disclosure: I bought my bb gun when I turned 50.
The quiet, prosperous life of a Kansas insurance executive isn't particularly scintillating. Otis breaks away from the humdrum sometime before his 60th birthday when he dons his KC Chiefs football helmet and putters off into the sunset on his motor scooter with his trusty bb gun strapped to the seat.
His adventures and mis-adventures make for a good rainy Sunday afternoon read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Who says this is fiction?, 2008-01-04
For Otis Halstead it's an antique toy fire truck, a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, a Kansas City Chief's regulation NFL helmet and a 1952 Cushman Pacemaker motor scooter...and a yearning to escape the responsibilities of adulthood. For me, it's a collection of handsigned studio photos of the cowboy stars I grew up with on the black and white screen, also a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, a Lone Ranger lunch box, a 1949 Ford pick-up truck and a sailboat in which to sail into the sunset. The difference is, Otis acts on his desire to shed the trappings of approaching senior citizen status while I, like probably most, refuse to take that risk. But the very story line, like William Least Heatmoon's, Blue Highways of two decades ago shows man has maintained his yearning to escape, if only temporarily. This book is for the dreamer in all of us.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Poignant - perhaps. Pathetic - probably, 2008-01-04
I like Jim Lehrer and I wanted to enjoy this book.
I've tried hard, and I cannot finish this book without feeling like I am betraying some kind of trust if I cheer for the protagonist, Otis.
The story does have a charming lilt, but there is an unavoidable pathetic thread that runs through this story of one man's selfish desires to have the things of his childhood. These run the gamut from mistreatment of his wife's faithfulness to the death of a person who tried to save his life.
None of these things seem to phase Otis in his quest for self-discovery.
Perhaps there is a feel-good resolution in the final chapters. I simply don't want to run the risk to find out.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
You're a good guy, but keep your day job, Jim, 2007-12-09
I like Jim Lehrer, and liked him even better after I heard him interviewed on public radio about this novel. It had such a splendid premise, I took the trouble to get hold of an advanced reading copy. Unfortunately, nothing much was done with the idea. The story reads---as Gene Fowler used to say---like its author went to bed and left the keyboard running. Many of the observations are also quite trite, and no real point is made from the adventures of a middle aged man finally trying to get the things he's always wanted. Like I say, Lehrer should keep to what he does best, and not just publish bad fiction because he can because of his reputation.
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