We Ride Upon Sticks

This is, I suppose, technically a young adult novel since all the main characters are 17-18 year old seniors at Danvers High School in the year 1989; nevertheless, I enjoyed it immensely, occasionally laughing out loud and once being moved to tears. Our protagonists are the high school field hockey team, the Danvers Falcons, composed of 10 women and 1 man:  Mel Boucher, Sue Yoon, Heather Houston, Julie Kaling, Little Smitty, Becca Bjelica, Boy Cory, Girl Cory (no relation to Boy Cory), Jen Fiorenza, AJ Johnson, and Abby Putnam. You will get to know them all as the book progresses. None of the athletic teams at Danvers HS have won much over the decades, but the field hockey team comes to believe that the dark forces possibly passed down by their witchy forebears, and currently epitomized by the smiling face of Emilio Estevez on the cover of Mel's notebook, may help them win.  After a totally demoralizing defeat at summer hockey camp, Mel is the first to scribble a dark pledge into her notebook, but when the very next day the Falcons tie with a powerhouse competitor, the rest of the team begins to fall in line. They will just need to do a few things differently than normal. The humor is, at times, adolescent, but was just what I needed at this point in time. For example, one of the "bad" things they did to placate the dark forces was to leave an open can of sardines hidden in the teachers' lounge. This is a coming of age book, a book about figuring out how to be your true self, and a paean to friendship, teamwork, and faith in one another. The culture of the 80's is richly woven throughout the story, and there is a fair amount of history about the Salem witch trials sprinkled in, which the author claims is largely accurate. Highly recommended.
Reviews from NPR, and Publishers Weekly.
Barry also gives an interview to the Paris Review about her choice of setting and subject.

Four from Lorna Barrett

I read one of the later installments in Lorna Barrett's "Booktown Mystery" series (Title Wave) and was curious to find out more of the back story. So I picked up what I could from earlier books in the series that were available online (our library has been closed for 2 months due to the pandemic shut down). They are noted here starting from the earliest publication date.

Chapter and Hearse: This is the 4th in the series, published in 2010. Tricia Miles lives in a small town that has re-invented itself as a hub of specialty bookstores. She, of course, runs the mystery bookstore. When a gas explosion at the history bookstore kills the owner and injures Angelica's (Tricia's sister) boyfriend, Bob Kelly, she can't resist doing some investigating on her own. Angelica, BTW, owns a cookbook/ food focused bookstore. You can see the relationship between the sisters develop as well as other relationships (some romantic) among acquaintances. Because Angelica is a great cook (and cookbook author), each book includes some of her recipes.

Book Clubbed: Published in 2014, this is the 8th in the series. Angelica is the newly elected President of the town's Chamber of Commerce, which is currently doing business on the 2nd floor of Angelica's bookstore--just until they find a new permanent home. Betsy Dittmeyer, the cranky CofC receptionist is killed when a toppled bookcase lands on her. Of course, the big question is, was it an accident? It turns out that Betsy had some secrets worth murdering for. Tricia, whose penchant for discovering dead bodies has resulted in her being labeled the town's "jinx," also learns some disturbing secrets about her own family. Her ex-husband has shown up in town and is competing with the chief of police for Tricia's affections.

A Just Clause: This is book #11, published in 2017, just after Title Wave. Two characters from that previous novel take on shape and character here. Tricia and Angelica's father, John, shows up in Stoneham, without their mother! When a local woman is murdered, he becomes the prime suspect due to an earlier romantic entanglement. Tricia, who has always adored her father, learns of his rather unsavory past as a con man who has actually served time in jail. An author she met on the book cruise, Steven Richardson, also comes to Tricia's bookstore for a book signing and evidences romantic interest in Tricia. The dead woman was found clutching a signed copy of Richardson's newest book--just a coincidence? Glowing review from Publishers Weekly.

Poisoned Pages: Number 12 (published in 2018) opens at a house-warming party in Tricia's newly refurbished apartment on the two floors above her bookstore. She has also learned enough about cooking from sister Angelica to do the food preparation. Which seems to have terrible consequences when one of her guests dies from an apparent allergic reaction to the hors d'oeuvres.  This time around, Tricia must find the killer in order to clear her own name. Review from Publishers Weekly.

This is not the best cozy series in the world, but it is entertaining light reading, which is often what I am in the mood for during these days of distancing, anxiety, and uncertainty.

Autumn

This book by Ali Smith, intended to be the first in a 4-part seasonal series, was my book group's choice for May. I read it; I did not like it, although there was one passage that I will copy below because it was very clear and spoke to me, appropo of our times. This book got absolutely glowing reviews from many sources.
NYTimes: the first great "Brexit novel"; one of their 10 best books of 2017.
The Guardian says, "Autumn is a beautiful, poignant symphony of memories, dreams and transient realities; the “endless sad fragility” of mortal lives."
NPR says Ali Smith could be "J.D. Salinger's natural heir."
The Atlantic calls her book a "post-Brexit masterpiece."

From an interview with author Jeanette Winterson, we get a short bio, to wit, "She tells me not to worry about the facts of her life – they are simple and there is no scandal. She was born in 1962, one of five children from a Scottish working-class family. She studied at Aberdeen, and then at Cambridge, for a PHD that was never finished. A stint of working as a lecturer at Strathclyde in 1990, convinced her that she could never cut it as an academic."
She writes in several genres (poetry, short stories, plays, fiction) and you can find lists of her work here.
The NYTimes also says, apparently as a compliment, "Chronology skips forward and backward and sideways, moving slowly and then quickly. 'A minute ago it was June,' the author says. 'Now the weather is September.' Smith’s writing is fearless and nonlinear, exploring the connectivity of things: between the living and the dead, the past and the present, art and life. She conveys time almost as if it is happening all at once, like Picasso trying to record an image from every angle simultaneously."
This is part of what I didn't like about the book. I often did not know who was talking, or when in the chronology of events they were speaking. I didn't know anything about some of the prominent speakers, e.g., Christine Keeler.  But I read to the end, partly because that is my commitment to the book group and partly because I figured there had to be a pony in there somewhere. Call me old fashioned, but I like well-constructed sentences and an identifiable cast of characters--especially if there are characters I can at least empathize with--, and some sense of a timeline and purpose to the writing.
But here is the passage that did grab me (spoken by the main character's mother):
"I'm tired of the news. I'm tired of the way it makes things spectacular that aren't, and deals so simplistically with what's truly appalling. I'm tired of the vitriol. I'm tired of the anger. I'm tired of the meanness. I'm tired of the selfishness I'm tired of how we're doing nothing to stop it. I'm tired of how we're encouraging it. I'm tired of the violence there is and I'm tired of the violence that's on its way, that's coming, that hasn't happened yet. I'm tired of liars. I'm tired of sanctified liars. I'm tired of how those liars have let this happen. I'm tired of having to wonder whether they did it out of stupidity or did it on purpose. I'm tired of lying governments. I'm tired of people not caring whether they're being lied to any more. I'm tired of being made to feel this fearful. I'm tired of animosity. I'm tired of pusillanimosity." (p. 56-57)  Well said and I can only respond, "me, too!"