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What readers have been saying about
Arch Montgomery's "JAKE"
 "Jake,
the second novel in Arch Montgomery's Gunpowder Trilogy,
is more than a worthy sequel to Hank: it takes the
story chronicling the second of three protagonists into new
arenas that define verisimilitude. It should be required
reading for all teachers who work with adolescents, since Montgomery
captures the voice and spirit of the age with aching and powerful
poignancy. I can't think of a better training manual for
parents of young children as well. Your world changes when a
child becomes an adolescent; Jake tells the story of
what you should expect. It's about time that readers experience
an uplifting tale of what a good school, with extraordinarily
thoughtful leadership and caring teachers, can mean for a young
boy whose soul is wandering and seeking direction, the very
essence of what one hopes any school could do for all wards
in its charge.” -- Patrick Bassett, President,
National Association of Independent Schools “Arch
Montgomery has done it again. Actually, he's more than done
it. I was a great fan of Hank, the first installment
of his Gunpowder trilogy. And Jake, his second novel
in the trilogy, is even better. It goes without saying at
this point that the writing is clear and beautiful. But what
blows me away is Montgomery's ability to capture the voice
of the adolescent, the ache and yearning and confidence and
confusion. Nobody out there does it better.”
--Buzz Bissinger, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of
Friday Night Lights and A Prayer for the City
“A paean to the ideal school.”
-- Shan Serafin, Author, Seventeen
“Jake provides a sensitive, intimate, and
touching picture of middle and upper school life. And I will
admit it: I shed rare and real tears while reading it. It
also provides extraordinary insight into students’ minds,
and, as such, is a wonderful education for parents, educators,
and students alike. Anybody who liked Hank, its predecessor
in the Gunpowder Trilogy, must read Jake.”
-- Ginny Levin, Retired Teacher
"Montgomery demolishes the high standards set by his
own first novel (Hank) with a follow-up that is thoroughly
riveting and superior in every way . . . He builds a world
in which we can live and delight. St. Stephen's is the sort
of school at which every teacher dreams of working, and every
student wouldn't mind attending. It's dreamlike in its almost
idyllic perfection, but a dream that one can envision becoming
reality . . . Jake's world is populated not with characters
or archetypes, but with people who burst off the page. They're
real, not simply life-like or true to life. And like all real
people, they refuse to fall under neatly defined labels, continually
defying expectations and revealing hidden depths . . . In
a sensitive critique of the adolescent world . . . and an
arresting portrait of a boy on his journey into manhood, Montgomery
takes the reader on a journey into the magic and the reality
of growing up. Jake is brilliant, a dazzling work
of fact and fancy that perfectly captures the nature of that
elusive gremlin called adolescence. Entertaining and insightful,
it is a multi-faceted gem.”
-- Harvard Book Review
“Arch Montgomery captures adolescence with a blunt
and loving accuracy that could only come from a man devoted
to helping young people gain safe passage to adulthood, despite
their occasionally galling flaws. His Jake is or nery,
self-absorbed, and caught up in pushing the world away
while at the same time trying to give himself permission to
drop his teenage guard and embrace the adults who
baffle him by being so unreservedly decent. Without being
unduly sincere, Jake demonstrates that in a troubled world,
it's more important than ever that we hold our children
to high standards and celebrate them when they prevail.”
-- Tom Matthews, Author, Like We Care
“Few schoolboys are dealt a more unpromising hand than
Jake Phillips. His relationship to the members of a badly
broken family hang together by tenuous threads--and things
will grow worse. His young life has made him justifiably defensive
and angry. But Jake could not be luckier in his new school.
It is never easy for him, and though attentive and caring,
it is far from warm and fuzzy. It is, rather, just right--and
what he least expects. Jake, we feel, will succeed because
of equal measures of innate boy-strength and the reliable
guiding hand of a fine school. The road to that success will
be harder than most readers could imagine, and it is to Arch
Montgomery's great credit that he convincingly delivers a
heartbreaking problem and its gratifying solution in a single
tale.”
— Richard Hawley
, Headmaster of the University
School in Ohio
, and author of The Headmaster’s Papers and
Paul & Juliana |
