Tag: new hampshire

Sugaring Off

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French, Gillian. Sugaring Off. Algonquin, 2022.

Reason read: I needed a book for the Portland Public Library 2024 Reading Challenge and was struggling to find something from the North Star Award nominee list. I am nowhere near being a young adult. Sometimes I wonder if I ever qualify as adult, but that is a whole other story. I found this book and decided it fit.

The backstory: Joel Dotrice was arrested ten years ago for fracturing his daughter’s skull when she was seven years old. Imagine this – he threw her down the stairs. On purpose. Partially deaf ever since, Rochelle “Owl” Dotrice has lived with her uncle and his wife. They own a maple sugaring farm in the mountains of northern New Hampshire and life seems pretty routine…until the Dotrice family gets notice that dad has made parole and Seth hires a teen named Cody to help with the sugaring.
Whether French was intentional or not, in the beginning of Sugaring Off I felt the story of Owl moved slowly, like cold sap moving through the trunk of a maple tree. As the story heated up, like sap to syrup, it began to flow faster with more flavor and intensity. Having said that, I am not a fan of overly dramatic descriptions of characters or plots. I feel they are ploys to get the reader crack open the book. The inside cover of Sugaring Off describes Cody as “magnetic and dangerous.” Spoiler alert! For the first two thirds of the book Cody is a sullen and silent cigarette-smoking teen who wants nothing more than to stay away from adults and maybe take Owl’s virginity. Oh yeah, she’s attracted to him, too. The real threat seemed to be daddy making parole. Would he come back for revenge? It was Owl’s testimony that put him away.
As an aside, I understand why the parole of Owl’s father was pivotal to the plot, but I felt it was unnecessary trickery in the face of Cody’s mystique. More could have been done to build up Cody’s “dangerous” character because Seth’s outrage about Owl’s relationship with the teen was misplaced. If Seth thought Cody was such a threat, why did he let Owl work so closely with him? What happened to big bad dad? He drifted out of the story as more of Cody’s dark past was revealed. This was written for teens and so I thought like a teen and questioned everything.

Edson

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Morrissey, Bill. Edson. Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

Reason read: June is the month a lot of small towns celebrate different things. Just yesterday Kisa and I went to an asparagus festival.

While I was reading Edson I had the sense that the town and the story of the main character were partly autobiographical in nature. Center stage is Edson, a small New Hampshire town with a cast of quirky characters. Most intriguing is former singer/songwriter Henry Corvine. Recently returned after a divorce and a disastrous stint on a fishing boat in Ketchikan, Alaska, Henry didn’t want the divorce and he couldn’t maintain even the smallest passion for the ocean. Acting as his refuge, Edson is where Henry returns to start over. Doing just what, he doesn’t know. The tiny town of Edson is brimming with other characters, including Caroline, a young waitress with her eye on bigger and better things and Pope Johnson, a singer who has stolen Henry’s former Edson life, right down to the songs Henry wrote and used to perform on a nightly basis. Resigned to the fact time has erased the true creator of the lyrics (think Dave Matthews singing “All Along the Watchtower”), Henry lets Pope take his former spotlight while Henry meanders from one job possibility to another. He may be lost in Edson, but it’s still the place to which he keeps coming back.
As an aside, the Edson mill closing down in the dead of night was exactly like Josh Ritter’s “Henrietta, Indiana” song. There are probably hundreds of stories about factories shuttering their doors without warning and putting thousands out of work.

As another aside, there is lot of smoking and drinking in Edson.

Author fact: Bill Morrissey is a real life singer-songwriter. I had a chance to listen to some of his performances on the internet. I would definitely go to a bar to hang out to enjoy his music.

Book trivia: this should be a movie. Josh Ritter could play the lead.

Playlist: Mississippi John Hurt, Joni Mitchell, Grace Paley, Johnny Hodges, the fictional Tyler Beckett, Righteous Brothers (“Unchained Melody”), Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly,

Nancy said: Pearl explains some of the plot.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Small-Town Life” (p 203).

Affliction

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Banks, Russell. Affliction. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.

Wade Whitehouse could be an ordinary guy. He could be that small town, hard-working, have a beer with the boys, all-around nice guy. Except bad luck not only follows Wade like a hungry dog, it bites him when he’s down. No matter how caring Wade Whitehouse is on the inside, no matter how well-meaning he is, when things go wrong people know not to stand in his way. The smarter ones walk away. The entire tiny town of Lawford, New Hampshire knows Wade and his troubles. It’s no secret he has a mean streak that runs to the center of his very core. Alcohol and a nagging toothache only widen that streak until it takes over his whole being. In theory it’s not all Wade’s fault. Abused by his father during his formative years, Wade loses his wife, home and daughter when he himself turns violent. All he wants is more time with his daughter, a decent paycheck and a simple way of life. When none of these things come easily Wade sets out to unveil the truth and right the wrongs, using violence as the vehicle to do so. What makes Wade’s story so fascinating is that it is told from a younger brother’s perspective. Being in Massachusetts he is a comfortable distance from both his brother and the memories that have scarred him as well.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Oh, Brother” (p 180).

Big If

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Costello, Mark. Big If: a Novel. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002.

I love it when everything about a book comes together. Meaning, when the plot is exciting and moves along like a river after a good hard rain and characters are detailed and dynamic and even the small stuff is interesting. When all these things come together I can’t put a book down. I read this over the weekend. that should tell you something.

Jens and Vi Asplund are adult siblings with very different lives. Jens lives in New Hampshire with his real estate wife and toddler son. He spends his days as a computer programmer writing programs for violent video games his patriotic father never approved of. His sister, Violet is Secret Service bodyguard sworn to protect the life of the Vice President of the United States during an election campaign. She has nothing that resembles a social life, a love life, or even a home life. If she is lonely she would never admit it.

Big If  takes you inside the creative and neurotic genius of software programmers. Simultaneously, you are drawn into every potential threat made to high powered public officials, as well as reliving old threats-come-true like the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Jens and Vi couldn’t have different lives and seem worlds apart…until they collide.

Favorite line: “This was another Rocky trick, fukc this legalistic sh!t, talk to crazy people in the crazy people language” (p36).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “New England Novels” (p 177).

Special thanks to the Hot One for posting…