Tuesday, July 22, 7 pm at Boswell
June Melby, author of
My Family and Other Hazards: A Memoir with opening reader Mel Miskimen,
When June Melby was ten years old, her parents decided on a whim to buy Tom Thumb mini golf course in the small Wisconsin town where they vacationed every summer. What followed was a 30 year love/hate relationship with the charming American pastime that robbed her of her summer freedom and turned out to be far more work than anyone in the family of five could have anticipated.
At the start of
My Family and Other Hazards, award-winning poet, stand-up comedian, middle child, and former mini golf concession stand operator June Melby is now an adult living in Hollywood, having flown the Midwest long ago. However, when she hears her parents will be selling Tom Thumb, she is shocked by her own panicked reaction and flies back to Wisconsin before the sale goes through, wondering if she should stop it. As the clock ticks on her last summer at the course, Melby reflects on what it meant to her both as a child and an adult, the simpler era that it represents, and the particular growing pains of losing your childhood home.
"Growing up spending summers at the Tom Thumb Miniature golf course in Waupaca, you had to learn some special skills, like how to keep the greens clean, and how to get balls that were stuck in the hazards. You had to learn how to make a good snow cone and the secret to crowd-pleasing cotton candy—the grape may taste better but everyone wants the pink stuff. Over the course of 18 holes, June Melby tells the story of her family’s thirty year adventure, with each hazard representing some aspect of life, with the wishing well representing dreams and the rotating barrels the jumping off point for rules.
My Family and Other Hazards is a funny and wise story, filled with all the emotions I associate with miniature golf-- anticipation, joy, frustration, nostalgia, and yes, a bit of regret too."--Daniel Goldin
Our opening reader for this event will be Mel Miskimen, author of the memoir
Cop's Kid. She will be previewing from her forthcoming memoir,
The Seamus Sessions: Dog Training for the Bereaved.
Wednesday, July 23, 7 pm at Boswell
Rebecca Rasmussen, author of the novels
Evergreen and
The Bird Sisters
We have built quite a following for Rebecca Rasmussen (photo credit Kristin Papac), having sold close to 50 copies of
The Bird Sisters, with the late Next Chapter having likely sold many more. The new book is getting a similarly enthusiastic reception.
From Boswellian Jane Glaser: "Leaving the city life of her upbringing, Eveline Le May follows her heart, marrying German immigrant Emil Sturm, and moving to the Depression-era, remote Minnesota community of Evergreen. Though the environment is harsh, the young couple is optimistic and hopeful, especially as Eveline gives birth to a son, Hux. When Emil is called back to Germany to care for his dying father, Eveline decides to stay alone with Hux, confident that her new found sense of independence and perseverance will see her through the coming days. That trust is betrayed not only as world events in Germany delay Emil's return, but also, at the hand of a stranger, Eveline is forced to into making a choiceless choice that will effect not just her, but her daughter and granddaughter as well. In the strong tradition of Midwestern literature,
Evergreen shares a place somewhere between Christina Baker-Kline and Willa Cather in this tale of trial and despair overcome by resiliency that ultimately triumphs in love and redemption."
Because the new book is set more in Minnesota than Wisconsin, we're likely to get a few less media hits on the new book, in lieu of publicity from the Gopher State. Aren't we so provincial, but you can say that about anywhere? Set a book in New York and you've definitely got way more shot at a review in
The New York Times, right? So yes, here's a review in the (Minneapolis)
Star-Tribune from Jackie Thomas-Kennedy.
She begins: "Rebecca Rasmussen sets her second novel,
Evergreen, in the North Woods of Minnesota. The town of Evergreen is a landscape of total isolation, occasionally described in violent tones — “great pines lay like injured soldiers, sap streaming from their bark like blood” — a site of assault and loneliness, but also of friendship and rescue. Rasmussen portrays several companionable marriages, but she seems most intrigued by alliances based on proximity, exploring the beauty — indeed, the necessity--of neighbors."
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, July 23, 7 pm, at Outwords
James Magruder, author of the story collection
Let Me See It
We're co-sponsoring Outwords Books' event with James Magruder (photo credit Miriam Berkley) on Wednesday.
Let Me See it is a connected story collection that follows two gay cousins from their adolescence in the 1970s into the 1990s. The author wrote a novel called
Sugarless, published by the University of Wisconsin Press, and from his theater background (he teaches both creative writing and dramaturgy), he is noted for writing the book for the Broadway musical,
The Triumph of Love.
A starred
Publishers Weekly review raved about this collection: “In this witty, elegiac collection of linked stories, Magruder (Sugarless) traces the paths of two gay cousins, Tom Amelio and Elliott Biddler, as they grow up in the Midwest and eventually become wised-up, crisis-addled adults… this collection—especially its final, tragic entry—will leave readers moved”
Kevin Wilson, author of the beloved novel,
The Family Fang, wrote: “There are few authors who write with as much sensitivity and tenderness as James Magruder; he has a way of finding something beautiful in the most heartbreaking moments . . . With sharp touches of humor, this is a marvel of a story.”
Thursday, July 24, 7 pm, at Boswell
Brian Benson, author of
Going Somewhere: A Bicycle Journey Across America.
Brian Benson has a fill-in-the-blank liberal-arts degree, a million vague life plans, and zero sense of direction. So he sets off on a grandly imagined, poorly planned Latin American backpacking trip, during which he meets and falls for Rachel, a self-possessed Oregonian living and working in western Guatemala. When Rachel mentions that she's always dreamed of bicycling across the U.S., Brian asks to come along for the ride.
Going Somewhere is Brian’s affecting, adventurous account of his and Rachel’s two-wheeled odyssey from northern Wisconsin to Somewhere West. The pair push off from the lush Northwoods, infatuated with the promise of adventure and each other, but as they progress into the bleak western plains, Brian and Rachel begin to discover the messy realities of life on the road. Mile by mile, they contend with merciless winds and vivid characters, broken bikes and bodies—and the looming question of what comes next.
Needless to say, when you get a quote as good as this one from Cheryl Strayed, you milk it for what it's worth. "
Going Somewhere is a tender, sexy, take-it-with-you-everywhere-you-go-until-you’ve-read-the-last-page beauty of a book."
Benson's book has definitely intrigued customers, as we've had very strong presales on this title, where the author does not seem to have strong ties (he's a Wisconsinite but not a Milwaukeean) and the book is not a national bestseller. We are currently the second best store on Above the Treeline, and #1 is likely his home store in the West region.
Next week! Sandra Ackerman at the Milwaukee Public Library for
Milwaukee: Then and Now on Tuesday, July 29, 6 pm (note time), plus Matthew Gavin Frank, author of
Preparing the Ghost: An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer, at Boswell on Wednesday, July 30 and Edan Lepucki at Boswell for
California on Friday, August 1, both at 7 pm.
Relatively new on our Boswell's Best is The Museum of Secrets: Art's Best Kept Mysteries, from Elea Baucheron and Diane Routex. Ingram may have it's pub date as earlier in the spring, but Prestel titles tend to roll out slowly and would qualify as a sleeper. Per the publisher, "Art and mystery collide in this fascinating look at the secrets behind some of the world's most important masterpieces and their creators. Traveling across centuries and continents, this collection of 40 enigmatic artworks and artists examines secrets that have confounded experts and amateurs alike."
Selling pretty well is The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee, from Marja Mills, the Chicago Tribune reporter who traveled to Lee's hometown after the book was the "One City, One Book" pick. Her time with Nellie (Harper is her middle name) and her older sister is chronicled in a book filled with reminiscences that has already gotten a lot of praise. The author and subject have now parted ways, at least through the interpretation of her attorney. There are at least two signed statements of support from Alice Lee, Harper's older sister, who continued to practice law until past her hundredth birthday. It's all chronicled in this Gawker article.
Continuing on the theme of the little known, another of Jason's Boswell Best picks is Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies (HMH), by Alastair Bonnett. From the publisher: "Bonnett's remarkable tour includes moving villages, secret cities, no man's lands, and floating islands. He explores places as disorienting as Sandy Island, an island included on maps until just two years ago despite the fact that it never existed. Or Sealand, an abandoned gun platform off the English coast that a British citizen claimed as his own sovereign nation, issuing passports and crowning his wife as a princess. Or Baarle, a patchwork of Dutch and Flemish enclaves where walking from the grocery store's produce section to the meat counter can involve crossing national borders." Max Winter in The Boston Globe offers that " this book is a comforting read, much like dipping into a highly intelligent travel magazine, a book that teases the imagination while remaining firmly rooted in the factual."
With the terrible crash of the Malaysian Airlines jet, Flight 232 (Norton), from Laurence Gonzalez, has taken on a new timeliness, though it was certainly not shot down by a missle in a war zone. 25 years ago, an explosion destroyed the hydraulic controls and the plane's crew made a valiant attempt to steer the plane to a landing, with more than half of the plane's passengers surviving the ordeal. From his interview in Popular Mechanics, who found the story interesting from not just a human interest perspective, but a mechanical one as well: "The whole story is a story of great human strength--spiritual, ethical, and moral strength. Everybody stepped up to the plate and did what needed to be done. The pilots kept the plane going for all that time. The flight attendants kept people from panicking and helped people out afterwards. And the people on the ground at Sioux City were just amazing..." Read the rest of the interview here.
Several new nonfiction titles have staff recs that were featured in our email newsletter. For those who don't subscribe, I reprint them here. First up is Mel Morrow's take on The Removers (Scribner), by Andrew Meredith. ""For Andrew Meredith, there was a vivid, happy 'before.' The moment bridging this 'before' and the numb void of his 'after' is brought on by his father's betrayal. Andrew goes through the motions of his twenties, sharing a house and silence with his family, flunking out of schools, and walking away from countless jobs. Then he takes the job that no one wants with the man that no one wants to speak to: he becomes a remover (of cadavers for funeral homes) alongside his father. Andrew learns while caring for the dead how to care for the living; in the lonely course of removals and cremations, he begins to recover. This is a melancholy, heartfelt tale that will resonate with all. The Removers: A Memoir provides an honest account of disillusionment, revealing a strange paradox that sometimes for those who feel betrayed by the living, it is the dead who are worth living for."
Another July title in the spotlight was Yeah, Yeah, Yeah: The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyonce (Norton), by Bob Stanley.Conrad Silverberg writes "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! is a string of pearls: songs, singers, genres, styles, bands and revolutions that stretch from the dawn of rock 'n' roll to the present. It never ceases to entertain, inform and scratch your nostalgic itch. There are plenty of instances of aha moments confirming your deepest suspicions: David Bowie was channeling Anthony Newley (duh.), that is a bolero in "Paint it Black" (duh!), Oasis did shamelessly pillage the Beatles' catalog (double duh!!). But such affirmations are rewarding and there are also many, many, many things in here that you didn't know or suspect. I'll leave you to discover those for yourself."
