Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, His Wife and Her Alligator

By: Homer Hickam

Narrated by: Adam Verner

Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

A journey of a thousand miles. With an alligator on the back seat. And John Steinbeck as a passenger.

This is a tale where everything is true,except the bits that are made up.

In 1930s America, the Great Depression made everyone’s horizons smaller, and Elsie Lavender found herself back where she began, in the coalfields of West Virginia.
She had just one memento of her halcyon days – a baby alligator named Albert.

Then one day, her husband’s stoical patience snapped and Elsie had to choose between Homer and Albert.
She decided that there was only one thing to do: they would carry Albert home to Florida.

And so began their odyssey – a journey like no other, where Elsie, Homer and Albert encountered everything from movie stars and revolutionaries to Ernest Hemingway and hurricanes in their struggle to find love, redemption,
and a place to call home.

From the bestselling author of Rocket Boys–the basis of the movie October Sky–comes a long-awaited prequel. Big Fish meets The Notebook in this novel about a man, a woman, and their alligator.

©2015 Homer Hickam (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"Great memoirs must balance the universal and the particular.... In his debut, Hickam...walks the line beautifully.... No matter how jaded readers have become by the onslaught of memoirs, none will want to miss the fantastic voyage of BCMA, Auk and Coalwood." (Publishers Weekly on Rocket Boys)
"Recalling a lost era, the transition between small-town life and the dawning of the new technological age, he brings his American hometown to life with vivid images, appealing characters and considerable literary magic." (Publishers Weekly on The Coalwood Way)