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Monday, July 31, 2023
A Fever In The Heartland
Adult nonfiction
"On Thanksgiving night in 1915, fifty years after the close of the Civil War, Simmons and fifteen other men clambered up the granite monolith of Stone Mountain in Georgia. They built an altar on which they laid a Bible, an American flag, and a sword. The men set fire to a cross and shouted to the heavens an oath of allegiance to the Invisible Empire of a new age. The Ku Klux Klan had risen, Simmons proclaimed, 'awakened from a slumber of half a century.'"
The image most of us carry of the roaring 20s involves hair bobbed flappers in skimpy dresses, their sheiks, and speakeasies with secret phrases required for admission because prohibition was at least officially the law of the land. That would be like mistaking the Kardashians' media feed for 2023 American reality. For every privileged teen or young adult flinging conventions to the winds there were scores of people emerging from the double trauma of an unprecedented worldwide pandemic and an equally unprecedented global war and desperately seeking a return to the security of normalcy...
...as well as scapegoats on whom to blame their misfortunes. At that point in American history there were plenty. Eugenics was in ascendancy. Whites were being continually warned that their pure 100% American blood was in danger of being corrupted by an influx of "undesirables": Blacks, immigrants from "inferior" nations, Catholics, and Jews. While some race warriors were all out lynchers, others followed a strategy of preventing them from reproducing. State approved forcible sterilization laws led to the Supreme Court nationalizing the heinous practice in its 1937 Buck v Bell, a decision that inspired Hitler and his underlings as revealed in the Nuremberg Trials.
And, as Timothy Egan tells us in A Fever In The Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot To Take Over America, And The Woman Who Stopped Them, there was a group ready to channel and exploit this fear and anger. Thomas Dixon Jr. was born at the tail end of the Civil War and was probably brought up with the narrative of the lost cause. He was horrified by seeing Uncle Tom's Cabin portrayed on stage and set out to avenge the South with The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan which was made into a blockbuster silent movie by D. W. Griffith.
William J. Simmons, an itinerant minister, had a father who had been a member of the original Klan. The movie had inspired him to try to recreate the group. He was one of the group who had climbed Stone Mountain. He, in fact, was the one who had proclaimed the KKK "awakened".
Those who would reawaken the slumbering organization were birthing a hate group far more dangerous than it was in its original incarnation when it consisted of well off Confederate worshippers terrorizing, torturing, and killing all they wanted to eliminate or at least keep "in their place."
"The way to win over the Heartland was with a wholesome Klan, a Klan of family and faith and Midwestern values. It would not be the Klan of the whip and the sword, but the Klan of the hearth and the Lord. 'It's a clean organization,' said Huffington, 'standing for the uplift and protection of untainted Americanism.'"
It was a Klan that grew to include chapters for women and children (Ku Klux Kiddies in miniature robes and hoods). It was a group that included law officers, clergy representing an array of protestant denominations, and legislators at various levels of government. In fact they used their clout to get members elected to achieve their goals. In fact they envisioned a Klan president.
In a highly readable and engaging narrative (that toward the end is as suspenseful as any fiction chiller) Egan brings to life a Klan that encompassed the nation, sometimes having more membership in the North than the South, the very colorful personalities that shepherded it, the factors in the nation that made it possible, if not inevitable, and the ultimate act of courage that led to its downfall.
Although it adds a great deal of clarity to a less than glorious chapter of American history, I see A Fever In The Heartland as even more of a cautionary tale for our times and beyond. If we look at history as cyclical rather than a series of dots on a time line it would seem that we have come full circle back to the world of the 1920s. We're seeking stability after a once in a century pandemic. We are experiencing the biggest wealth gap since guess when with all but the top percentages (and the politicians in their pockets) leading lives of increased precariousness. We have people in high places stoking fears about Blacks, Muslims, Jewish people, Latinx people, immigrants, and anyone who isn't totally CIShetero; warning white supremacists that they could become a minority in their "own" country; and trying to ban any books and curriculum that aren't totally white washed.
You know what they say about people who can't or won't learn from the lessons of history.
Jules Hathaway
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Sunday, July 30, 2023
Julieta and the Romeos
YA romance
"I guess I thought that if I picked up some of the slack, did as much as I could to pull the restaurant along, plus also built some brilliant, solid future for myself, the pressure would go away and they'd be back to how they used to be. The last couple of years have just felt like one long crisis, you know."
Julieta's family life is centered around their Argentinian restaurant, Las Heras. She works part time there. Her younger siblings do their homework there. In fact the kids' heights are tracked on a wall there instead of in their house.
Las Heras managed to survive the pandemic. But now their customer flow has greatly slowed down. A new Argentinian restaurant is taking a lot of their business. With income down Julieta notices that her parents are struggling to keep their sole source of income open. She sees the toll this stress is taking on their marriage. Although she loves ❤️ them both she sometimes wonders if they made the best possible partner choices.
Although Julieta wants desperately to see her family's restaurant stay open she doesn't see her future in it.
"Whenever I picture my life as a grown-up, I'm writing ✍️ in cafés and sumptuous libraries and on luxurious overnight trains in exotic locations. I'm giving readings 📚 in elegant lecture halls and signing copies of my best-selling novels to a line of readers that is so long I can't see the end of it."
The summer ☀️ before her senior year of high school Julieta is taking a writing class from a famous author. She and her classmates are told to putting their writing out there. She begins putting a story, chapter by chapter on StoriedZone. Much to her surprise she gets a collaboration request from someone signing as HappilyEverDrafter. As they work together but apart she becomes obsessed with learning his identity, especially when she learns that he's someone she's known a long time ⌛️ in real life. She's sure he has to be one of three people: Lucas who has grown up alongside her in Las Heras; Calvin, her grandmother's new neighbor; or Ryan, her best friend's formerly obnoxious twin brother who is suddenly looking more interesting.
Zoe is sure that when she learns her collaborator's identity she will have found not only her soul mate, but the person who will bring out the best version of herself.
In Julieta and the Romeos Maria E. Andreu delivers a complex narrative of a teen on the verge of a major life transition trying not to let down her loved ones while searching for the way to become her best and most authentic self.
On a purrrsonal note, I had an amazing day Thursday. It was the last day of Upward Bound summer ☀️ session. I came in to pack up the swap shop and say goodbye to the students. I was deeply touched by how many were telling me how they wanted more of my workshops. I said I can volunteer 🙋♀️ next year. Even if I have my professional job it will be a day one. It filled my heart ❤️ 💙 💜 💖 💗 with joy 😊 😃 😄 ☺️ that they got something out of what I had to offer. That evening I went to the pot luck supper 🍽 😋 at the Wilson Center. The food was scrumptious. I got to chill with friends. And I got to be in the space where I was married July 29, 1989. (Jules)
The family who would adopt me. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to this year's Upward Bound summer session students with best wishes for their upcoming school year!
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
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Friday, July 28, 2023
Forever Is Now
Juvenile fiction
"One officer draws his gun, screams:
GET BACK!
The other officer tackles
the girl down down
her face smushed against the pavement
her hands twisted into cuffs
his knee on her back."
One of the greatest advances in YA and juvenile literature in recent years is the introduction of protagonists with mental health challenges. Mariama J. Lockington's Forever Is Now is a powerful addition to this important sub genre. Sadie has been diagnosed with general anxiety and, more recently, agoraphobia. Even in the best times the endless what ifs--worst case scenarios--her mind generates keep her from doing things she really wants to and keeping promises to people she really cares about.
But these aren't the best times. Sadie's girlfriend, Aria, the one person who made Sadie feel safe, who was able to help her with panic attacks, breaks up with her.
"We're still young.
I'm not sure we should be limiting ourselves
you know?
I mean it's summer and we're about to be juniors
let's just kick it, be cool
not put any labels on this, okay?"
Then as the conversation is awkwardly wrapping up they hear a commotion. A Black girl has saved a pug. It's white owner is accusing her of stealing it. She's called the 👮♂️.
Of course you know who the 👮♀️ s side with.
Sadie is planning on going to a protest about the incident with her best friend, Evan. She's dressed and ready when he pulls up. Then she freezes, unable to manage the nine steps from her house to the streets below. What ifs flood her head.
Sadie desperately wants to be part of the protests against 👮♂️ brutality against Blacks. She also feels her family's wanting her to not lose out on so much of life's possibilities as pressure. But what can you do when taking a bus, walking around the block, or even going into your own backyard feel like gargantuan challenges you're not equipped to handle.
Lockington herself lives with anxiety and panic attacks. No wonder Sadie is so authentic. Her internet sharings, which she calls Dispatch from Insomnia Garden, are especially raw and revealing. I highly recommend Forever Is Now to people with anxiety diagnoses and our loved ones.
On a purrrsonal note I can't imagine what it would be Black and have anxiety in this racist as fuck society. Especially as a parent who has never had to have the talk with my kids.
I was 70 when I received my own anxiety diagnosis. It actually was a relief. It explained why doing some things that logically I thought I should be capable of felt terrifying and impossible and at times led to strong visceral reactions and insomnia. It also gave me the words to explain myself to loved ones. In the ensuing little over a year and a half I've developed some good strategies. But I'm still now and then blind sided.
A great big shout out goes out to Lockington for her insightful narrative centered around the intersectionality of Blackness and anxiety.
Jules Hathaway
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Thursday, July 27, 2023
Five Survive
YA chiller
"'He shot out the gas tank,' she said.
'Why?' Maddy asked.
Red had an answer. The others probably did too, but Simon was the one who gave voice to it.
'So we can't leave.'"
If you're a fan of Holly Jackson's Good Girl's Guide to Murder series you're in for a real treat. Five Survive is even more chill inducing. You get to join her characters on a spring break journey to basically hell on earth.
Protagonist Red lost her police 🚔 officer mother to a gangland style shooting when she was only thirteen. She's harbored guilt over that. They'd argued on the phone ten minutes before her mother was shot. She wonders if things would have been different if she hadn't hung up on her. Maddie is Red's best friend--the one who pays for her lunch when she doesn't have the money and helps her stay organized. She and big brother, Oliver, are the children of Catherine, an assistant DA looking to move up her career ladder. Reyna is Oliver's seemingly devoted girlfriend. Friends Simon and Arthur round out the ill fated cast.
They're headed to a spring break destination to meet up with their friends for a week of 🥳 and relaxation. Unlike the others, they're driving instead of flying. It's so that Red can afford to go.
Driving through the pitch dark they get lost as the roads devolve to dirt and worse. They can't get onto a directions app. In fact there is zero reception, something they attribute to being way out in the boonies. Suddenly all four tires are flat and the gas tank is leaking, shot out by a sniper. Trapped in a suddenly fragile seeming recreational vehicle, the group scrambles to figure out a way to escape or call for help. A group of friends devolves into fighting factions, rife with sudden distrust of one another.
It turns out that the sniper doesn't want all of them--just the one who harbors a particular secret. They all harbor secrets. Probably few people these days don't. In exchange for handing that person over, the rest will get to leave alive. Will they figure out who the target is? Will they be willing to give this group member's life in exchange for promised safety? And what if the sniper, who is rapidly losing patience, decides to end the stalemate by taking them all out?
Jackson's narrative is so skillfully crafted that you aren't just looking on from the safety of your home. You are there...
...which is why I read the book 📖 before darkness fell.
If you're a true blue chiller affecianado you owe it to yourself to get your hands on Five Survive.
On a purrrsonal note, this continued heat wave accompanied by humidity is taking a toll on the fam. Eugene who has to work outside all day in long pants comes home short tempered. I feel exhausted and have trouble breathing when I have to be outside any length of time despite my doctor vouched for excellent lung 🫁 function. Tobago wakes up meowing at all hours of the night and I take her to the studio so Eugene, who has to be up at 4:00, can get his sleep. And this is Maine where we're talking 80s. I can't imagine what it's like in the parts of the country that are passing 100. (Jules)
I sure feel sorry for the Texas and Florida cats 🐈 😻 🐈⬛️ (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to all who are working to stop and reverse climate change.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
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Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
YA romance
"My app takes the idea of the kids' game Mansion Apartment Shack House and pairs it with a science-based survey to accurately predict your future. I worked with Vera Kincaid, renowned human behavior expert, to develop the survey. Once you take it, MASH chews up your data and spits out four key aspects of your future: the city you'll live in, your profession, how many kids you'll have, and who your partner will be."
Ro Devereux is starting her senior year of high school. Her father is on her case about applying to colleges. She has no interest in higher education. Why should he rack up debt that would further defer his own goals when she can fulfill her dreams without incurring the costs?
It seems as though her dream will come true faster than even she expected. The app she developed for her senior project, basically a graduation requirement, catches the eye 👁 of Evelyn Cross, the head of XLR8.
Evelyn smiles, and when she speak, her words are directed at me. 'We want in on this idea, Rose. It's a smart one. And the amount of public interest you've received without any marketing or funding is astounding. Imagine what you could do with our resources.'"
There is one fly 🪰 in the ointment. At the event called Match Day Ro has her ideal match revealed. Shall we say they have a history. Former best friends, they are now no longer speaking to each other even though they attend the same school. He agrees to be her pretend boyfriend in exchange for the money 💰 he needs to bankroll college. And when they're not performing relationship he's painfully cold and aloof.
The relationship drama alone would be more than enough to make Seven Percent of Ro Devereux a truly engaging read. But it also raises questions about the potential unintended consequences of apps, especially when corporate interests demand downplaying, denial, and sometimes outright dishonesty. For that reason I recommend this fine book 📖 for multi generation book clubs.
On a purrrsonal note, I had a wonderful time last night. I did a drag workshop for Upward Bound. We started out in the Swap Shop putting together outfits and talking. People were really having fun, putting together ❤️ really 👁 catching combos. Even I created an outfit everyone agreed I should take home. Then Jasmine went down to the basement with us to film us. Each of us did an individual song. I chose Only The Good Die Young. Then we did an ensemble song. The atmosphere was pure joy. I was glad Jasmine was able to see that. (Jules)
The other cats get to go out. Why don't I? (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to the enthusiastic participants and Jasmine.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
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Tuesday, July 25, 2023
We Ship It
YA romance
"I had hastily thrown the whole lecture together in the three hours since my parents had oh so casually dropped the world's worst news on me.
They had booked a spring break cruise for our family."
Most teens (and adults for that matter) would not consider a mandated luxury cruise to be the world's worst news. Most wouldn't whip together a PowerPoint on why they couldn't go. I imagine they'd be posting the news on social media, contacting best friends, and shopping for cruise 🛳 worthy attire.
But Olivia, narrator of Lauren Kay's We Ship It is not most teens. She has her life planned out without any room for spontaneous detours. If she sticks to her plan she'll be a doctor with office wall diploma from a top notch school by age thirty. The trip coincides with a research fair with a huge prize.
"I needed that internship. Without it, I don't stand a chance at my dream program--Brown's eight-year combined undergraduate and med school program, which boasted a less than 5 percent acceptance rate."
Olivia even has chosen a specialty: cardiology. When she was only eleven her beloved seventeen-year-old brother, Logan, had died of a heart attack. She'd been alone with him that night. They'd had an argument. She'd left him only to return later and find him dead.
Her parents seem to have moved on, even having twin sons who are five at the time of the cruise. They always change the subject when his name comes up, especially if the twins are around.
Olivia can't forget Logan. She wants to discover ways of preventing other families from losing teens to heart disease. That's what she and her best friend, Shruti are presenting at the research fair. That week. Luckily she finds a way to do her part on line. She'll read the materials and draft the paper and Shruti will edit and present.
So Olivia is going to ignore all the distractions of a commercial cruise ship 🚢 and spend her time researching. Only she isn't counting on her fun loving cousin Jules whom she hadn't seen in ages or very cute and charming Sebastian who seems to really be into her.
Could she find a little space in her life for spontaneous fun without giving up on her goals?
I especially recommend this book for mother-daughter book clubs. Although We Ship It can be enjoyed as a fun summer read it also raises issues that can be easier to discuss with the distance that literature provides.
On a purrrsonal note, Sunday 🌄 morning Eugene was doing some work at his mother's house while I was in my studio ✍️. When he returned he picked Tobago up from the porch. We had the heavy door 🚪 shut and the screen door open. Baby Girl had cut herself a cat 🐈 😻 🐈⬛️ door. At least she didn't get far. (Jules)
Why does the world look exciting when you see it from the inside and scary when you see it from the outside? (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to our imperfect but precious cats and other animal companions.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
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Monday, July 24, 2023
Can you believe two Beanie Boo Keychains for 75 cents? They are now with the rest of the travel team on my Harry Potter backpack 🎒 which is the one I use the most. It was a beautiful day for bargains. At one yard sale I picked out some clothes including Hollister short shorts and someone who recognized me from campus paid for them.
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The Meloncholy Of Summer
YA fiction
"What should be arrogance turns to fear, and my hands begin to tremble with uncertainty, with the realization that I was found by Child Protective Services and I may be in trouble. I'm sitting in a social worker's office. Gardenia is a social worker. I am almost eighteen. These sort of things don't go well for girls like me."
Summer, protagonist of Louisa Onome's The Melancholy Of Summer, has a major problem. Her parents are on television news regularly, but not for anything good. The police are after them for running some kind of scam. Summer has no clue where they are. They abandoned her.
Summer camped out in her old house but quickly burned through the money she could get her hands on. She's been couch surfing at the homes of her best friends. She's sure she'll somehow be fine when turning 18 gets her legal freedom.
But, as Gardenia tells her rules are rules. Seventeen-year-olds must be in the custody of someone else. She locates a cousin, Olu, and arranges for Summer to live with her.
Only Olu may not be exactly guardian material. At 20, she's barely legal age herself. Her career is on shaky ground. The amount of wine she consumes indicates that she may be dealing with demons 😈 of her own.
The time after high school is, even under the best circumstances, a period of rapid transition. Summer's besties are about to start colleges far from home.
So what can the future hold for an about to turn 18-year-old with no plans and a fear that she isn't enough to keep those she leaves from abandoning her?
On a purrrsonal note, so far my summer has been anything but melancholy. Yesterday Eugene and I had a road trip. We started off with breakfast at Governors. I had scrumptious blueberry 🥞 s and home fries. Then we drove around stopping at yard sales and finding some really good stuff. Eugene wanted individual pizzas 🍕 for supper. The IGA we stopped at was out of pre-made shells. So I said I'd conduct a low stakes science experiment. (Jules)
They came home with lots of new stuff. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to Eugene.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
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Sunday, July 23, 2023
You Don't Have A Shot
YA romance
"The ref scoffs at me. 'You're calling that little stunt an accident?'
"Funny, I didn't think after that last fucking call of yours that you'd be wise enough to identify bullshit. I love witnessing character development.'
Dina yanks my arm sharply, a warning.
'How's this for a call?' The ref lifts a second yellow, followed by a red card, and waves both at me. 'You're out of the game.'"
Vale (Valentina), narrator of Racquel Marie's You Don't Have A Shot, is in big trouble. Her stunt at a big game has ended her school soccer varsity team's season and their unbroken record. Her coach is considering replacing her as team captain her senior year of high school.
And then there's her super critical father.
"'I lock my jaw and look him in the eye. 'She made fun of my bad play.'
'Right.' He nods, a bitter smile on his face. 'And that was worth throwing away all those potential scholarships and all the hours I've spent supporting you.' Scoffing, he takes it home. 'Your mother would be so proud.'"
That's his ultimate weapon. Her mother had unexpectedly died of cancer when she was barely a teen.
Then her best friends, Dina and Ovie, suggest that they all spend the summer at the soccer camp they all loved as children. At first she thinks they're out of their minds. But as they talk the idea begins to make sense. It sounds like more fun than a summer with impossible to please Daddy Dearest.
There's a new intensity at camp. There's going to be a summer tournament. Campers have been split up into teams. Scouts from twenty colleges will be watching the last game.
Vale is assigned to co captain with her rival, Leticia, the girl she got kicked out of the big game for starting a fight with. Their team seems very weak and unmotivated. And Letitia doesn't seem to see the urgency of whipping them into shape.
It's not like Vale and Leticia could ever fall for each other...
...or is it? Only one way to find out.
On a purrrsonal note, this week, I think I finally have a way to clear out my returnables and thrift shop stuff out so I can actually get the house and shed organized. My friend, Erin, came over and we stuffed her station wagon with bags of bottles and cans. We had more of an adventure than we'd anticipated. The first two redemption centers we tried were closed. I was worried that we wouldn't find an open one. Luckily at our next stop we did. (Jules)
Erin is a good friend. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to Erin.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
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Saturday, July 22, 2023
A Tribute to Elizabeth
Adult nonfiction
Today I'm reviewing two enlightening books on higher education within a slightly different context: a tribute to a truly excellent educator who is fortunately still very much alive.
It was nearly five years ago that I walked into Elizabeth Allan's classroom, not knowing what to expect. The class was seminar, an overview of higher education's history, missions, structure, and issues. Elizabeth told us about the different divisions of student services and their functions. She asked if any of us had questions.
Having worked my on campus student job over the summer I felt that there was something decidedly missing. "What about dining?" I asked. "You can have the most amazing curriculum and the the most brilliant professors in the world but if you aren't prepared to feed them--and feed them well--you won't draw the students."
Sitting at the front of the room, I couldn't see my classmates. But I heard giggles and gasps.
Elizabeth said "Jules is right" and explained why not recognizing the importance of dining is a mistake.
That was my we're not in Kansas any more moment. It was when I realized that my educational experience was going to be nothing like any other in my past. There was important content to learn, but not in a listen, read, and regurgitate way. We were to actively engage with the material and apply critical thinking skills. Our out of the classroom experiences were sources of knowledge and insight--even those as humble as wiping down tables and serving lunches.
I looked forward to that class every week. My favorite part was all the times we were split into groups, given tasks such as creatively portraying a concept, and called on to share with the class. Barring Alzheimers for the rest of my life I'll remember Elizabeth gliding around the room calling on us and being delighted with what we had to say.
When the class ended I was thirsty to learn more. It was as if Elizabeth had given me a solid foundation and I wanted to keep building on it. In the years since I've tracked down and read as many new books 📚 on higher education issues I can get my hands on. Instilling this kind of motivation in a student is the mark of an excellent educator.
"More than a half century after the baby booms and economic booms and the atomic booms of the 1950s and '60s, we are still clinging to the fast-melting permafrost of a now no-longer-new idea that college is the American Dream. So much so that we are refusing to admit that somewhere in the middle of a long and stormy postindustrial night, the dream has morphed into a nightmare. That a ladder greased with a snake oil called meritocracy has changed from joyous kids climbing higher than their parents to a panicked desperation to hang onto the slippery middle rungs."
I know that I don't have to tell you that the last time America was as split into two warring factions as it is today Lincoln was running the country. January 6 was only the iceberg tip of a desperate struggle between the forces of blue and red, with pundits on both sides trying to sell their narratives of what the fuck is going on and if/how we can solve the problem. In After The Ivory Tower Falls Will Bunch asserts that we'd be very remiss if we didn't include higher education in understanding the problem and devising the solution.
Bunch gives readers a guided tour of the recent history of American higher education beginning with the mid 1940s--"When College In America Almost Became A Public Good. We know and Bunch acknowledges that this was as much cautionary tale as shining example. Blacks were for the most part unable to access GI Bill benefits which is one of the reasons for the unconscionable and growing racial wealth gap. But it was a time when the concept of who could benefit from college was greatly expanded.
It started off as a pragmatic issue. Following World War I the government did a really poor job of facilitating the transition of its veterans into civilian life. Washington did not want a repeat of that. Even legislators who normally swung ultra conservative voted in favor of it.
However the influx of students from more heterogeneous backgrounds was greeted with skepticism and dismay, even by those who ran the colleges and universities that would benefit from their tuition money.
"A lot of America didn't think that the farm boys and sons of coal miners and immigrant laborers who'd fought on Iwo Jima or in the Battle of the Bulge were really college material, to be shamefully honest. This was especially true of the men who ran the country's best-known and longest-standing universities, who saw the G.I. Bill not as an opportunity, but as a threat to their hegemony. These college gatekeepers clung to their beliefs that it wasn't because of inherited wealth and elite privilege that they only educated the top sliver of Americans, but rather because the other 95 percent didn't have the brain power, or 'merit,' to cut it."
The soldiers turned students more than proved their drive and ability. Steps were being made to change higher education from a perk for the children of the elites to a public good. Many leaders were troubled by the fallout from the bombs dropped on Japan to end the war and the possibility that a nuclear war could be a real planet ender.
"With the war's end, America's growing network of colleges and universities were suddenly viewed by Washington as an underutilized resource that--through both basic and applied science and research--could be both the nation's secret weapon in winning the cold war as well as a driver of peacetime prosperity."
Sadly the drive to make higher education a public good was reversed, leading to the politically acrimonious shitsttorm we're in today. Bunch gives readers a decade by decade analysis of all that went wrong. Fortunately he has ideas on how to remediate the situation. His book is a really good read for anyone who wants a better grasp of the plight of 21st century higher education and how it got this messed up.
I am, though bothered by the ageism Bunch brings to the topic. Comparing Americans to a pizza, he cuts us into four slices based on age and the chance (or lack thereof) to attend college. He embraces every negative age stereotype making the rounds. When stereotypes are common enough descriptions reinforce as well as portray the status quo.
In line with this, I question his request for free education for only eighteen to twenty-eight-year-olds. I can think of many reasons people need college access in later years. Between the shipping of decent paying jobs to other countries and the automation that is rapidly replacing not only blue collar, but white collar and entry-level professional jobs, not to mention divorces and spousal deaths, a lot of people who never thought they'd need higher education...
...suddenly do.
"At the same moment, not far away, an equal number of Alabama National Guardsmen assembled, preparing to invade Tuskegee Institute. Governor Lurleen Wallace gave them orders, just days after the assasassassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In Memphis, Tennessee, to free the prestigious trustees. The troops gathered outside the campus gates in the early hours of April 7, with bayonets attached to their rifles. Tuskagee's dean of students approached, hoping to avoid a bloodbath. One soldier heard his concerns, but told him that they would enter the campus anyway. 'Well, you know,' the guardsman explained, 'you all at Tuskagee have been too uppity for a long time.'"
Wow! You have National Guardsmen with drawn bayonets about to rush into a campus to free a group of trustees from students who feel like holding them captive is a final desperate option to achieve much needed change. If that historic incident isn't drama, I don't know what would qualify. And it's part of a largely hidden history. The story of student activism in higher education centers on primarily white institutions. People who were born way after Kent State know what went down there. Historically Black colleges and universities have been pretty much left out of this narrative...
...until the 2022 publication of Brian Jones' The Tuskegee Student Uprising. Jones sets this incident within two contexts: the history of the institution and the student rebellions of the 1960s. With a variety of documents from the past and interviews of survivors he skillfully combines past and present sources.
Jones dilineates several sources of tension. The first is in regard to its founder's legacy which is hotly debated today. Tuskagee was modeled after what was then the Hampton Normal (which then meant teacher training) and Industrial Institute. This was at a time when any challenge to racial imbalance and white supremecy would lead to severe consequences. The loss of the Civil War and Reconstruction had left a lot of powerful whites mad as wet hornets.
"Fusing the curricurriculum with a political stance, [Booker T.] Washington followed directly in his mentor's footsteps and also surpassed him. Black people needed moral education and manual education, Washington taught, not the broad liberal arts education they sought. 'No race can prosper,' he said. 'till it learns that there was as much dignity in plowing a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.'"
While many people lionized Washington, subsequent waves of students felt that Tuskagee curricullum kept them at the bottom. Desiring an education that would prepare them for professions, they increasingly saw their professors, curriculum, and resources as inadequate. They also rebelled against a strict moral code which they felt was geared toward conformity and subservience.
A second lies in the conflicting responsibilities of Tuskegee faculty and administration. On one hand they had a mandate to nurture the talents of the students including those that could lead to rebellion. On the other they had to not anger not only the whites who controlled financial allocations and made up the majority of the trustees, but the Black middle class professionals who didn't want to see any kind of boat rocking. That must have been a fine line to walk.
Although The Tuskegee Student Uprising is the product of a university press and would make a worthwhile read for higher education professionals I can also see it appealing to a much wider audience.
Jules Hathaway
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Friday, July 21, 2023
America Redux
YA graphic novel
If you're a long term reader of this blog you know that I consider the concept that only emergent readers need pictures in their books 📚 and that the transition to words only volumes is the mark of literary maturity to be dangerously dumb ass. Scientists have discovered that different parts of our 🧠 process words and pictures and that the two together convey far more information than words alone ever can...
...plus, c'mon, admit it, the pictures 📸 make reading 📚 more fun. If you're anything like me, you've had the experience of having to read (for school or work or because someone you're connected to wrote it) a words only manuscript that you desperately want to put down before your eyeballs roll back into your skull 💀...
...Ariel Aberg-Riger's America Redux: Visual Stories From Our Dynamic History is the book that proves my theory perfectly 🥰 💞. The book is a vibrant collection of two page spread collages where images and words carry equal weight rather than the former simply supporting the latter.
The first (after a very short introduction) chapter, The Good Old Days, blazed up like fireworks 🎆 illuminating the night 🌙 sky. A photographed building is enveloped by flames drawn in shades of red and yellow. Readers learn that it's the United Daughters of the Confederacy headquarters. The narrative begins with the story of that group: how they started in a South angered by the loss of the Civil War and Reconstruction; how they erected statues of their heroes, raised their children with a lost cause narrative, and successfully got textbooks banned and teachers fired for a century--in both the South and the North.
One of the most chilling two page spreads is also one of the most banal. The pictures 📸 📷 🖼 of two white children, a girl and a boy, are juxtaposed with a drawing and content descriptions from an actually approved and used textbook.
"The 1961 edition of Know Alabama, the Alabama State Board-approved history textbook, describes the Ku Klux Klan as The loyal white men of Alabama and plantation life as one of the happiest ways of life in Alabama before the War between the States. Fourth-grade readers are asked to imagine a day in the life on a beautiful plantation where their father is the Master and their mother is the mistress. It's a world where, yes, there were slaves, but Most of them were treated kindly And the mistress is the best friend the [word I don't use; substitute Black] have."
The next pages detail the valiant efforts of Black leaders to get this deadly garbage changed, only to be charged with "hypersensitivity" and tie it in with today's censorship.
Eugene and I had just returned from camp. I'd just played with Tobago and done my tick due diligence. I had dishes, laundry, and other stuff to catch up with. I didn't even know what I'd make up for supper...
...I was just going to skim the book...
...as if I could put it down. Other chapters beautifully lived up to the promise of the first. A couple that got to me the most were:
*Traditional Family Values that starts with the family made famous by the basal readers of my childhood or a reasonable facsimile. Dad (even rocking a 👔 and button down while recreating with the fam), Dick, Jane, and Spot gaze adoringly at Mom (who frankly looks like she's doubled up on the mother's little helper). The text segues neatly into eugenics and the forced sterilization of those considered unfit for motherhood. On one page Fannie Lou Hamer, who herself was a victim of this cruel practice, is shown testifying that, "Six out of every ten [word I don't use; substitute Black] women were taken to the Sunflower City Hospital to be sterilized for no reason at all."...
...and at the very end you learn that coerced sterilization is still being performed on women in jail and immigrant detention centers.
*As American As describes the forced incarceration of all "persons of Japanese ancestry" during World War II.
The beautiful marriage of words and images and the truth telling alone would be amazing. But Aberg-Riger also reminds readers that many cultures see time differently than the slice, dice, and pinpoint way we do.
"Notions of nonlinear time crop up everywhere from the Mayans to the Celts, Chinese thought to classical Indian philosophy, African conceptions to Dine traditions. There is a kaleidoscope of philosophies, all with their own interpretations and variations, but one thing that comes up again and again is the belief that time is a continual, ever-evolving relationship, not a series of isolated, fixed points on a line."
This concept is so liberating! I know I'll spend a lot of time pondering its implications for life and the changes our society needs so desperately.
Aberg-Riger dedicated America Redux to us, her readers, with the assertion that we have more power than we know. She also issues this invitation:
"Forms change us, and I hope this book changes you. A poem has the ability to shape us into the truth just as much as (if not more so than) a list of facts. I hope you question these stories, this book. I hope your questions turn into creation--of conversation, of art, of action."
I don't know about you, but I intend to take her up on this invitation.
On a purrrsonal note, this week I had the opportunity to conduct two evening workshops for the Upward Bound students. Monday's was journals and vision boards which went really well. Students were engaged and having fun. Last evening's was Banned Books Bookmarks. I had the second largest group, outdrawn only by karaoke. My people were highly engaged and passionate. I started by sharing a chapter from the book. Then we talked and made bookmarks. It was so much fun. We shared the basement with karaoke so we had 🎶 🎵. My favorite bookmark is one a student helped me with. I couldn't think of how to draw a frog so she drew one for me. (Jules)
My favorite says cool cats 🐈 😻 🐈⬛️ read banned books 📚. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to the students who participated enthusiastically in the workshops.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
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Thursday, July 20, 2023
Leah on the Offbeat
YA romance
Leah, protagonist of Becky Albertalli's Leah on the Offbeat, attended her first prom well before high school. She was a fetus in her mother's womb. As a high school senior she lives with her single mom in a town where her peers live in lavish homes with established married parents.
Her mother dates. She's getting serious with her current boyfriend and trying to get Leah to spend time with them. Leah wants nothing to do with that.
It's drawing close to the end of Leah's senior year. People are learning what colleges they've been accepted to and making plans for the next chapter of their lives while celebrating (often with mixed feelings) the culmination of their about to end one.
Leah's tight friends group is planning to go all out--limos and all--for the prom. But in the weeks leading up to it conflicts unexpectedly flare up. Morgan, devastated by being rejected by her family's alma mater, tells Leah that Abby was accepted because she's Black. Abby breaks up with long term boyfriend, Nick, because she doesn't want to miss out on the full college experience by trying to carry on a long distance relationship.
Abby and Leah will both be going to University of Georgia. When they decide to go for the campus tour together some of her friends want Leah to somehow get Abby to change her mind and reverse the breakup.
What those friends don't know is that Leah is bi and experiencing feelings toward Abby...
...feelings that may be reciprocated...
...and the clock is ticking down. In Leah's words,
"Holy shit. We're graduating. We have--what--five weeks of normalcy, and then the whole world resets."
On a purrrsonal note, this is a feeling not limited to people about to graduate high school. Barring a major upset (somehow COVID has made my plans for the future feel more conditional) I'm getting my masters degree in May. To paraphrase Leah, "Holy shit. I'm graduating. I have--what--9 1/2 months of normalcy, and then the whole world resets." Actually my challenge is bigger than that of my classmates. There is only one school 🏫 I can work at. Unlike my unmarried peers, I can't move to Alaska or Idaho or wherever. And not being able to drive means that Bangor's fine institutions of higher education would make for an untenable 4 hour a day commute even though Bangor is next to Veazie. Actually an impossible commute since last bus 🚌 out of Bangor leaves at 5:15. (Jules)
She'll get a job at UMaine. No doubt in my mind. (Tobago)
Tobago, might you be a bit biased? (Jules)
Who? Me? (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to all who are helping me gain skills and create an awesome resume.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
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Wednesday, July 19, 2023
Girls Like Girls
YA romance 😍 💓 💗 💛 💕 💖
"And now I have no mom and a dad who barely has a hold on the meaning of that word, and there are way too many things simmering under my skin. Secrets that are more like truths when you winnow them down:
I'm not like other girls."
Coley, protagonist of Hayley Kiyoko's Girls Like Girls, had known that her mother suffered from serious bouts of depression. Still she never guessed her mom would leave her...
...until she came home and found her body.
"I can't think about it. If I do then I'll think about that day and the weeks before, and that will lead to the months when I was telling myself it was okay, but I know it wasn't. And it'll all circle into: WHY weren't you better, Coley? Why weren't you faster? Why didn't you realize how bad it was?"
As if that isn't bad enough, she's being sent from the city she's lived in just about all her life to a rural area she calls "Bumfuck Nowhere, Oregon" to live with the father who walked out on her and her mom when she was three and until he became her only living relative never looked back. She doesn't know how to relate tol a father. She's sure that Curtis has no clue how to parent. She believes they're both looking forward to her turning eighteen when they can drop the pretense of family.
She doesn't think she'll make friends. It's not like she'll have anything in common with her new neighbors.
When Coley nearly gets hit by a car she meets someone she'd like to be more than friends with. But Sonya is heart breakingly unpredictable. Sometimes she seems to reciprocate Coley's feelings only to pull back, especially when her friends are around. She has a real jerk of an ex boyfriend who seems determined to pull her back to heteronormativity.
The story behind the book is as compelling as the narrative itself. It's based on a song Kiyoko cowrote. She spent her last $5,000 on a video which she posted on YouTube. At that point she had 9,000 subscribers. Much to her surprise it got millions of views.
"All I ever wanted was to find a community of belonging, to feel worthy and enough. All of a sudden, there they were, millions of people who reminded me I wasn't alone in my queerness. My fans, you."
On a purrrsonal note, for some reason I wasn't able to post for about 6 days and now just as inexplicably I am. Anyway sorry about the delay. I've got lots of good content to send your way. :) The picture I sent before this is of Tobago caught in the act of knocking a trash 🗑 over and pulling out the contents. (Jules)
Hey, you can't be too careful. You never know what could be lurking in trash 🗑 s. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to you, our readers.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
Thursday, July 13, 2023
All The Sinners Bleed
Adult Chiller
S. A. Cosby's All The Sinners Bleed opens with a Joseph Conrad quote: "The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are capable of every wickedness." If that's the thesis statement it's most gruesomely supported in the body of the novel."
The novel is set in Charon County, Virginia, a name interconnected with the River Styx and the rest of the underworld. And historically the county had lived down to its name:
1805: the burning 🔥 of an Indigenous village and the shooting of any residents who managed to escape the fire;
1853: cannibalism
1901: an outbreak of maleria
1935: poisoned picnic pie decimating the ranks of the United Daughters of the Confederacy
1957: a family murder-suicide
1968: tent revival baptismal drownings
Some residents now believe that the evil 😈 was in the past and should be forgotten and moved beyond. But not everyone.
"But if you had asked Sheriff Titus Crown, he would have said that anyone who believed that was a fool or a liar. Or both. And if you had an occasion to speak with him after the long October, he would have told you that maybe the foundation of Charon was rotten and fetid and full of corruption, not only corruption of the flesh but of the soul. That maybe the rocks the South was built upon were shifting and splitting like the stone Moses split with his staff. But instead of water, only blood and ichor would come pouring forth."
"'Titus...there's an active shooter at the high school. Titus, I'm getting a hundred calls a minute here. I think...I...think...Titus, my nephew's there,' Cam said. He sounded strange. Titus realized he was crying."
It's the call probably just about every law enforcement officer dreads these days. And the scene Titus and his deputies arrive at is predictably chaos. Teachers and students are pouring out of the building. A passing student tells Titus that a man shot Mr. Spearman, a teacher.
Then the shooter appears carrying a leather wolf 🐺 mask and a .30-30 and spouting what seems to be pseudo Biblical nonsense.
"He made them call out for God. Then he'd tell them he was Malak al-Mawt, the Destroyer. But that wasn't true either. He was just a sick motherfucker, just like Mr. Spearman."
Titus knows the shooter, Latrell. He'd gone to school with and played football with his dad, Calvin. He'd had to arrest Latrell for minor law breaking. Calvin had admitted that Latrell was "messed up." He's desperate for the incident to end without another death. He does his best to convince Latrell to put his gun down and let himself be taken into custody. But when Latrell starts running toward the law enforcement officers two deputies start shooting.
Titus finds Mr. Spearman in his classroom with his brains blown out. There are no other victims.
At this point if you believe that it's a simple case of a popular teacher being killed by a mentally ill person, possibly also strung out on drugs, you're totally justified. But Titus isn't totally sure Latrell's ramblings were total nonsense. Latrell's almost last words were, "Check his phone." When he does what he finds on it and on two hidden thumb drives is horrific. Latrell, Spearman, and an unknown third man had been molesting, torturing, and killing children. Obviously Latrell and Spearman are beyond any kind of justice ⚖️ of the Earthly kind. But the third man must be captured before he commits more horrific acts. And the families of the victims deserve the chance to get closure.
Communicating the situation to the public and the media at a press conference isn't going to be easy. It's a small community in the rural South. One where people desperately want to believe all the bad stuff happened in the past. Mr. Spearman was a much loved and respected teacher.
"He was about to smash their fantasies of safety and security. He was about to smash one of their idols. He was going to have to drag them into a new reality where people they knew, people they'd known all their lives, were monsters with human faces."
Sadly all that isn't the only evil going on in Charon County. Racism is very much alive and well. Titus, their first Black sheriff is caught between those who think he plays the race card too much and those who see him as a sell out. When a social justice oriented minister accuses him of selling out, he replies:
"You stand there and you quote Bible verses to me about the oppressed, and then have the nerve to accuse me of tap-dancing with these motherfuckers. Like I stopped being Black when I put on that star. Watching them boys march down Main Street extolling the honor of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee makes me sick to my stomach. But unless they break the law there's nothing I can do."
If you're a true hard core chiller affecianado you owe it to yourself to put All The Sinners Bleed at the top of your summer reading list.
On a purrrsonal note, it's another scorcher of a day. I went to campus. I collected food for me and clothes for Swap Shop at Black Bear Exchange. I delivered clothes to Upward Bound. I picked up journals Kevin had found for me for one of the Upward Bound workshops I'm running next week. I came home 🏡 soaked in sweat. (Jules)
It's muggy in the house 🏠 even with the windows open. It isn't easy wearing a fur coat in July. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to Eugene and all the others who have to work outside in the heat and humidity.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
The Star That Always Stays
Juvenile historical fiction
When I started this blog historical fiction was one of my favorite genres. Now it's not far above adult romances on my preferences list. So to captivate me a novel of this type has to be very special. Anna Rose Johnson's The Star That Always Stays certainly is.
Norvia is very lucky to be able to attend high school. In 1914 it isn't considered essential, especially for girls who are expected to become wives and mothers. From popular novels she's learned that the key to high school happiness 😊 🙂 ☺️ 😃 is popularity. Her first day she picks out some alpha girls whose circle she wants to work her way into, unaware that she has two social stigmas standing in her way.
Her mother is a divorcee newly married to a widower. Her father's drinking, gambling 🎰, and risk taking had been too much for her to take. Leaving him is a move that would be applauded now. But in those days divorcees we're considered to be wicked, worldly women whose daughters would follow in their evil 😈 footsteps.
Also she's half Indigenous. Most of her life had been on an island surrounded by her living and nurturing extended family. She treasures her birthright traditions and the stories passed down from generation to generation. Now her mother has told her to keep this part of her heritage secret--even from the family they'll be marrying into.
But there are some good parts to high school. Norvia enjoys and excels in bookkeeping and typing. She begins to dream of working in an office after graduation. A classmate is determined to be her friend. And a boy has a pretty obvious crush on her.
Maybe, unlike the popular mean girls, they'll be there for Norvia even if they learn her secrets.
On a purrrsonal note, I had a really good day Tuesday. It was all about volunteering. My first stop was the library where I did some shelf reading. They had a surprise for me. I thought I didn't have any inter library loan books waiting for me because I hadn't received any notices. It turns out there were thirteen. Now I have enough even if Eugene and I go to camp 🏕. Then I went down the hill and volunteered in the community garden. The weeds had sprung up like...weeds. So gardeners had our work cut ✂️ out for us. I'd invited my friend Zoe to join the crew. She did. She loves the garden and everyone loves her. She had never been in Orono Public Library so I gave her a tour. She was very impressed and asked me how to get a library card. :) Today I'm going on campus. Black Bear Exchange is open. I'm hoping to get lucky and find food for me and cool clothes for the Upward Bound Swap Shop. (Jules)
She was covered in dirt when she got home last night. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to Orono Public Library. They now have a machine in the bathroom with free eco friendly period products. Also to their partner in this important endeavor--Orono Health Association.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
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Wednesday, July 12, 2023
The Extraordinary Life Of Sam Hell
YA fiction
Do you ever get a book as a gift from someone you love that you never would have chosen for yourself? You're not sure you'll get around to actually reading it. But you can't just pass it on. You keep it just in case the right time comes to at least skim it...
And when that time comes you discover that you really like it.
Robert Dugoni's The Extraordinary Life Of Sam Hell was such a book for me. I'd run out of interlibrary loans and was browsing through my emergency stack consisting of gifts and thrift shop/yard sale acquisitions. Initially it triggered a lot of my biases: 1) adult fiction 2) by a male author featuring 3) a male protagonist set in 4) the past and 5) involving old time Catholicism. But after I got through the first few chapters I was committed to finishing it...
...and it takes a hell of a book to overcome that many biases.
"My mother called it 'God's will.' At those moments in my life when things did not go as I had hoped or planned, and there were many, she would say, 'It's God's will, Samuel.' This was hardly comforting to a six-year-old boy, even one 'blessed' with a healthier dose of perspective than most children at that age."
Sam had been born with ocular albinism, a condition that gave him red rather than say brown or blue eyes. His mom insisted that it was a sign that he was special, destined for an extraordinary future.
When Sam starts Catholic school, however, a school his mom had to fight to get him admitted to, his classmates see his red eyes as a sign of something much different. His classmates call him Devil 😈 Boy and alter the spelling of his actual last name, Hill. He has to put up with a lot of bullying and ostracism. The only kids who become his friends are each different in a unique way. Ernie is Black. Mickie is outspoken questioning of all those in authority take for granted.
Just as Sam graduates from high schoolhis pharmacist father, a hard working man and devoted dad, suffers a massive stroke. He doesn't die. In fact he does recovery some functions. But he never is able to return to his home, being transferred to a long term care facility, his modest retirement plans for traveling with his beloved wife becoming out of reach.
And then a bully from Sam's past, a child abuser mirroring the abuse he suffered at his own father's hands, takes down his ex wife in a murder-suicide.
Sam doesn't believe his mother's rosary praying, God's will acceptance brand of Catholicism. But he still wants to believe in something.
Many of us brought up in strictly religious households, have faith crises when tragedy flies in the face of what we've been taught. When Harriet became severely and irreversibly brain damaged my image of an all powerful, all loving God was seriously shaken. If he'd allowed something so bad to happen to an innocent little kid... The Extraordinary Life Of Sam Hell is a most excellent read for anyone who has experienced a similar faith crisis.
On a purrrsonal note, my older daughter, Amber, just called me with most excellent news. A short story she wrote about a haunted doll has been accepted for publication in an anthology that will come out this fall. I'm very impressed. She's really making it as a writer. (Jules)
Yay, Amber! Way to be awesome! (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to our Amber!
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
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Monday, July 10, 2023
Joyland
Adult Horror
"He fed her, then he took her on the Carolina Spin--a slow ride, you know, easy on the digestion--and then he took her into Horror House. They went in together, but only he came out."
I first saw Joyland on a picked over table. Clean Sweep had come to a successful end. Now we workers were to clear out the ice hockey arena, not by making a gazillion trips to the dumpster, but by getting the leftover merch to organizations that could use it. I was at one point tasked with sorting trade books from textbooks so that someone from Kiwanis could take the former for their later in the season auction/yard sale.
Joyland almost went to Kiwanis. It was a slightly battered paperback with a cover featuring a horror stricken red haired girl in an extremely skimpy dress. It looked like something from an old time true crime magazine. I was about to place it with the other trade books 📚 when I saw that it was by Stephen King. So it went home with me.
About half way through I glanced at the publishing date, convinced that it was one of King's earlier works only to see that it came out in 2013 when he was mostly cranking out really complex works that I wouldn't want to read on a dark and maybe stormy home alone night. The King opus it reminds me most of is Stand By Me.
The story itself is set in 1973. Devin is a college student who didn't want to spend his summer working dining "mopping cafeteria floors and loading elderly Commons dishwashers with dirty plates". So he decided to take a summer jack of all trades job at a theme park: Joyland. It's a family friendly place where Howie the Happy Hound greets visitors and many of the rides are child size. But it has its one dark corner, a ride on which a guy slit his date's throat, dumped her body, and walked. The murder was never solved; the ride is said to be haunted.
On his way walking down the beach ⛱️ to and from work Devin regularly sees a little boy in a wheelchair, Mike, his mother, Annie, and their dog, Milo.
"He looked very sick. His smile was healthy enough, though. Whether I was coming or going, he always flashed it. Once or twice he even flashed me the peace sign, and I sent it right back. I had become part of his landscap, just as he had become part of mine."
Annie remains immune to Devin's charms until one day after the end of the Joyland season. (Devin is staying behind to help clean, perform repairs on, and shut down the park). He helps her fly the kite Mike is desperate to see soaring through the air.
Mike has Duchenne's muscular dystrophy exacerbated by a recent bout of pneumonia. He has come to terms with the fact that he doesn't have long to live and wants to make the most of the time he has left. Annie at least partly believes that she can cheat the grim reaper by protecting him enough.
The suspense lies not only in the two strands of the story eventually melding into a horrific conclusion, but in human feelings such as the tension between Mike and Annie and Devin's reaction to being dumped long distance by the girl he thought he'd spend the rest of his life with. It's now tied with Stand By Me as my favorite Stephen King novel. If you enjoy the Horrormeister's lower key offerings I believe that you'll find Joyland to be the cat's pajamas.
On a purrrsonal note, well, the work week just starting feels like it will be a low key one for me. I won't be running any workshops until next week. Thursday I can raid the Black Bear Exchange for swap shop clothes and deliver them. Tuesday if the weather cooperates I can get in time at Orono Public Library and Community Garden. The other things I need to do are pending on my ability to contact other people. So it looks as though I'll have a quiet week and make good progress on my own book and on reorganizing my studio and then the rest of the house. (Jules)
Which means she'll be home a lot. My favorite kind of week. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes you, our valued readers, with hopes that your week is starting 😀 👌 👍 😊 off well.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
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