Rocket Boys is a uniquely American memoir a powerful, luminous story of coming of age at the dawn of the 1960s, of a mother's love and a father's fears, of a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space ... and who made those dreams come true. With the grace of a natural storyteller, NASA engineer Homer Hickam paints a warm, vivid portrait of Coalwood, the harsh West Virginia mining town of his youth, evoking a time of innocence and promise, when anything was possible, even in a company town that swallowed its men alive. A story of romance and loss, of growing up and getting out, Homer Hickam's lush, lyrical memoir is a chronicle of triumph at once exquisitely written and marvelously entertaining. The true story of Rocket Boys inspired the Universal Pictures Film October Sky. To coincide with the movie's release, the book was published as a paperback with the title October Sky.
