This week: a horror novel worthy of Stephen King, plus a history of class in America.
Ms. Bixby’s Last Day
Three sixth-grade boys embark on a tragicomic quest to do something special for their beloved teacher, who has announced that she won’t be able to finish out the year following her cancer diagnosis. Upon learning that Ms. Bixby is in the hospital and this is their last chance to see her, best friends Topher, Brand, and Steve concoct a plan to skip school, acquire certain supplies, and spring Ms. Bixby for one last day of fun. But as good intentions collide with reality, the three are forced to adapt their plan and confront the possibility of defeat. The narrative unfolds in humorous yet insightful ways, illuminating Ms. Bixby’s influence on the students’ personal and scholastic lives and emphasizing the power that a good teacher, mentor, or friend can have. Topher’s rich imagination, Steve’s sharp intelligence, and Brand’s common sense keep the rotating voices distinct and the story lively. Anderson (The Dungeoneers) skillfully balances realism and comic exaggeration in an emotionally rich tale that holds no miracles, other than the small human kind.
White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
Isenberg (Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr), professor of history at Louisiana State University, tackles a topic rarely addressed by mainstream American writing on race and class as she skillfully demonstrates that “class defines how real people live.” Opening with a myth-busting origin story, Isenberg reveals the ways English class divisions were transplanted and embraced in the colonies at the expense of the lower classes. Colonization and expansion were accomplished because elites believed the poor were valuable only for the labor they provided for the nation. Isenberg then shows how words such as squatter, cracker, and white trash are rooted in public discussions over politics and land. Eugenics entered the conversation in an early 20th-century effort to breed out misfits and undesirables, and the Great Depression forced reevaluations of poverty and what it meant to be a “poor white” in the 1930s. In the book’s final section, a delectable mixture of political and popular culture, Isenberg analyzes the “white trash” makeover of the late 20th century thanks to movies such as Smokey and the Bandit, politicians Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s televangelism. A Marxist analysis of the lumpenproletariat this is not, but Isenberg’s expertise particularly shines in the examinations of early America, and every chapter is riveting.
Summer in the Invisible City
Romano (First There Was Forever) again explores long-time best friends growing apart, as well as the excitement and confusion of first love. Sadie Bell lives in New York City and dreams of reconnecting with her father, a famous artist. A photography class during the summer before Sadie’s senior year leads her to spend time with a pair of popular girls, who fascinate her but dismay and even disgust her friend Willa. Through Izzy and Phaedra, who’s “so pretty that just looking at her feels like staring,” Sadie runs into Noah, a boy who hurt her after an earlier hookup, and meets Sam, someone she could truly fall for. Romano’s novel wanders languorously through Sadie’s summer, treating readers to the same lushly detailed writing that distinguished her previous book (when Sadie and Sam visit Randall’s Island, “Trees canopy overhead and small diamonds of light and shadow swarm the world”). Relationships among friends, family, and romantic partners are the heart of Sadie’s life and her story, and readers will enjoy meandering through the joys and disappointments of this quiet, reflective teen.
Willnot
The discovery of a mass grave in the woods outside present-day Willnot, a small Southern town, opens this sly, nuanced tale from Sallis (Others of My Kind). Lamar Hale, Willnot’s indefatigable general practitioner and surgeon, investigates. Meanwhile, Bobby Lowndes, a troubled young combat vet whom Hale treated years before, suddenly appears back in his hometown. Lowndes’s intentions are unclear, and his ghostly presence is unsettling, especially when the FBI arrives in Willnot on his trail. Things get really eerie when Lowndes is shot by an unknown sniper, and he promptly walks out of the hospital and disappears. A series of violent incidents culminates with the shooting of Hale’s partner, Richard. Hale’s instinctive resistance to pat generalizations and reductive diagnoses makes him an effective and compassionate healer—and a good amateur sleuth. Sallis is without peer when it comes to interweaving seemingly disparate narrative threads, and his work consistently challenges readers to question their assumptions about themselves and other people.
Disappearance at Devil’s Rock
Intense emotions of fear and alienation carve direct paths to the supernatural in this tightly plotted and atmospheric novel. Young Tommy’s disappearance in Borderland State Park, Mass., near haunted Devil’s Rock, throws his mother, Elizabeth Sanderson, into a maelstrom of guilt. Townsfolk start seeing shadows at their windows, and Tommy’s friends Josh and Luis grow anxious, reluctant to discuss the night when he vanished. Meanwhile, Elizabeth encounters Tommy’s ghost in her bedroom and receives mysterious notebook pages that reveal sinister connections among Tommy’s father’s death, a stranger named Arnold who Tommy met at Devil’s Rock, and a macabre folk tale. Tremblay (A Head Full of Ghosts) uses concise prose and smooth storytelling to evoke raw emotion in this tale of love, loss, and terror. Sympathetic characters and heartbreaking struggles replace genre stereotypes and tropes. The menacing atmosphere captures small-town isolation and hopelessness. This stunning and tantalizing work of suggestive horror is sure to please admirers of Stephen King and Peter Straub.
As Good As Gone
This excellent family drama from Watson (Let Him Go) centers on Calvin Sidey and his second chance to be a part of his family. Decades ago, Calvin abandoned his son and daughter when his beloved wife, Pauline, died while visiting her native France. Since then, he’s lived in the scrublands of Montana, doing the occasional odd job and reading his father’s copy of Catullus. But in the heat of 1963’s summer, his son, David, has come calling, asking Calvin to watch over David’s children while David takes his wife, Marjorie, to Missoula for an operation. Calvin’s granddaughter, Ann, is 17, but she has a steady job and therefore can’t keep an eye on Calvin’s grandson, 11-year-old Will. Calvin receives unlooked-for support and physical comfort from Beverly Lodge, a neighbor, but even she can see that he “is always ready to run, and it doesn’t take much to set him in motion.” The challenges of his family may redeem Calvin or break him for good. This is a very well done novel in which every character faces an individual conflict, resulting in a rich, suspenseful read.
