Download or read book Staggerford written by Jon Hassler and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-01-12 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic novel of a small Minnesota town—and of one school teacher who calls it home This utterly charming, deeply poignant debut remains perhaps the signature achievement of beloved novelist Jon Hassler—once hailed by The New York Times as “a writer good enough to restore your faith in fiction.” It’s the story of a week in the life of Miles Pruitt, a thirty-five-year-old bachelor who teaches high school English in Staggerford, Minnesota. And though it is only a week, it’s an extraordinary week, filled with the poetry of living, the sweetness of expectation, and the glory of surprise that can change a life forever. Praise for Staggerford “Witty, intelligent, compassionate . . . an absolutely smashing first novel.”—The Plain Dealer “You’ll remember it for a long time.”—The Minneapolis Tribune “One of the year’s truly freshly conceived and carried out novels, one whose not always so gentle ironies address themselves to a broader range of life than is to be found in Staggerford, Minnesota.”—The Kansas City Star “A thoroughly convincing X-ray vision of small-town life . . . so sincere, so true, so honest with itself, and so very, very funny that a reader often has to wipe the tears out of the corners of his eyes before he can—as he must—read on.”—The Houston Post “Very entertaining . . . [Miles is] one of the most likable protagonists of modern fiction.”—The Pittsburgh Press “Staggerford, Minnesota, is a town out of control. It is as weird and convoluted as any lover of comic fiction could wish.”—Boston Herald American

Download or read book The Staggerford Flood written by Jon Hassler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-10-28 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Staggerford Flood, Jon Hassler brings back Agatha McGee and reunites other favorite characters from his award-winning Staggerford novels. When a flood hits Staggerford and neighboring towns, Agatha McGee's house on the highest hill in town becomes a refuge for seven female neighbors, friends, and former students for three days and three nights. This deluge of old and new friends—as well as a new young priest who thinks Agatha has become a bit too zealous about morality—helps to restore Agatha's own very distinctive spark.

Download or read book The New Woman written by Jon Hassler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-09-26 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1977, Jon Hassler’s Staggerford series has entranced readers with its funny and charming depiction of life in small-town America. The New Woman is his latest visit to this Minnesota hamlet. At the age of eighty-eight, Agatha McGee has grudgingly moved out of her house on River Street and into the Sunset Senior Apartments. She’s not happy about giving up her independence, and Sunset Senior’s arts and crafts activities and weekly excursions to the Blue Sky Casino are hardly a consolation. Meanwhile two of her close friends pass away, her nephew Frederick is drifting into depression, and a kidnapped little girl has suddenly appeared on her doorstep. With characteristic poise and dignity, Agatha takes on her problems and finds that the bonds of friendship and family are still the key to happiness at any age. Affectionate and life-affirming, The New Woman is another delightful trip to a town with a soul as real as rural America itself.

Download or read book The Staggerford Murders and Nancy Clancy s Nephew written by Jon Hassler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with his trademark humor and warmth, Jon Hassler’s The Staggerford Murders and The Life and Death of Nancy Clancy’s Nephew offer a welcome return to the town that has captivated readers for years. In The Staggerford Murders, residents of the Ransford Hotel "solve" the nine- year-old murder of esteemed Staggerford citizen Neddy Nichols and the disappearance of his widow, Blanche. Hassler’s wry humor is in full force as this wonderful tale unfolds. In the more poignant and bittersweetThe Life and Death of Nancy Clancy’s Nephew, elderly W.D. Nestor finds his loneliness dispelled by his friendship with a young Staggerford boy, but it is a sudden visit to his one hundred-year-old Aunt Nancy that provides the peace he has always been looking for.

Download or read book Four Miles to Pinecone written by Jon Hassler and published by Fawcett. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was an eyewitness to a crime that his best friend committed. . . . “It all started the day school ended” That was when my English teacher decided not to flunk me—if I wrote a long story during my summer vacation. My name’s Tom Barry. I’m sixteen, and I really do want to be a junior next year at the high school in St. Paul where I live. But with my full-time job at Mr. Kerr’s grocery store, I didn’t think I’d have enough time to do it. But by the end of the week, the paper seemed small potatoes. You see, Mr. Kerr’s store was broken into—and my best friend Mouse was involved. I saw him, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be a fink. I kept mum because it was right about then that I was invited to stay at my uncle’s resort near Pinecone. It’s a real neat place in the Minnesota woods, and I figured I would cool out there. And then I found that they have crime just like in St. Paul—but this time the stakes were much higher. Suddenly, my life was on the line. . . .

Download or read book Grand Opening written by Jon Hassler and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 1987 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twelve-year old Brendan tells the story, set in 1944-45, that begins with his parents' decision to buy a run-down grocery store in a tiny Minnesota town. What they discover about small town idealism, bigotry, and good old American values will change them and the town forever.... "A writer good enough to restore your faith in fiction." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW From the Paperback edition.

Download or read book My Home is Far Away written by Dawn Powell and published by Steerforth. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My Home is Far Away is the most precisely autobiographical of Powell’s fifteen novels. In this family chronicle set in early twentieth century Ohio, young Marcia Willard’s family struggles to keep up with the rapidly changing times, and Marcia endures disillusionment, cruelty, and betrayal to forge a survivor’s sense of independence. John Updike has compared Powell with Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, “and those other Midwestern writers who felt something epic in the national shift from rural to urban, from provincial sequestration to metropolitan liberation.” By 1941, when Powell set to work on My Home Is Far Away, she was better known for the smart, boozy, bawdy, hilarious send-ups of Manhattan high and low life. She had begun to attain a reputation for high sophistication and nothing could be less “sophisticated” – in the glittering, all-knowing, furiously present-tense, big-city manner Powell had perfected – than My Home Is Far Away. This was the month of cherries and peaches, of green apples beyond the grape arbor, of little dandelion ghosts in the grass, of sour grass and four-leaf clovers, of still dry heat holding the smell of nasturtiums and dying lilacs. This was the best month of all and the best day. It was not birthday, Easter, Christmas, or picnic, but all these things and something else, something wonderful, something utterly unknown. The two little girls in embroidered white Sunday dresses knew no way to express their secret joy but by whirling each other dizzily over the lawn crying, “We’re moving, we’re moving! We’re moving to London Junction!” My Home Is Far Away is one of the very few examples of a book written for adults, with an adult command of the language, that maintains the vantage point of a hungry, serious child throughout. It might be likened to a memoir that has been penned not with the usual tranquility of distance but rather with the sense that everything happening to the characters is happening right now, without any promise of eventual escape, without any assurance that childhood, too, shall pass away. My Home is Far Away had been out of print for sixty years when Steerforth reissued it in 1995. It received immediate widespread acclaim, and was featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, where Terry Teachout called it “one of the permanent masterpieces of childhood, comparable with David Copperfield, What Maisie Knew and the early reminiscences of Colette,” and where he proclaimed Powell to be “one of this country’s least recognized great novelists.”

Download or read book Good People from an Author s Life written by Jon Hassler and published by Loyola Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Good People, celebrated novelist Jon Hassler examines goodness with warmth, humor, and poignancy by exploring the many meaningful relationships that have enriched his life. He describes his parents and grandparents, childhood playmates, fellow teachers and writers - including the renowned fiction writer J.F. Powers - and shows how the goodness in these people has inspired the good people in his fiction. Written in the same engaging style as his novels, Hassler's stories reveal much of his own background, including his strong Catholic faith and the places that have shaped his writing."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Download or read book Dear James written by Jon Hassler and published by Loyola Classics. This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dear James, by best-selling author Jon Hassler, is a delightful exploration of the themes of loss and spiritual renewal. Agatha Magee, the feisty, quick-witted, fiercely Catholic doyenne of Staggerford, Minnesota, confronts crises large and small in her 70th year: she is forced to retire from her beloved teaching; she's crushed to learn that her Irish pen pal, James, is a priest; and she's faced with evils ranging from Irish terrorism to the petty jealousies that tear apart life in a small town. John Hassler's Dear James is a poignant reminder that life is full of sorrow and loss, but also of joy and new beginnings.

Download or read book Days Like Smoke written by Jon Hassler and published by Afton Historical Society Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Here is the story of Jon Hassler's early years. His poignant remembrance of family and friends, of youthful calamities and triumphs, show what shaped him and opened his path to become one of Minnesota's best-loved and iconic writers. Memoirs are written from the vantage point of age. Here, his close examination of memory-what endures and why-unfold the pivotal moments of his growing up. Family, friends, new neighborhoods and old, questions of faith and doubt-all had deep meaning, he comes to see. In this book, Hassler also confirms William Faulkner's opinion: 'The past is never dead. It's not even past'"--

Download or read book My Staggerford Journal written by Jon Hassler and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "April 3, 1976. Completed Staggerford this morning at 9:15. . . . The most satisfying thing I've done since playing high school football." In the spring of 1975, an unknown Minnesota teacher named Jon Hassler decided to take a sabbatical and fulfill his lifelong dream of writing a novel. A year later, Hassler typed the final page of Staggerford--a book that has won a cherished place as a classic novel of small-town life in America. Now, many years and many novels later, Hassler shares the private story of Staggerford's creation as recorded in the vividly revealing journals he kept while writing the book. Hassler's My Staggerford Journal is at once the narrative of a work of art struggling to be born and the portrait of a creative mind in the throes of a life-altering breakthrough. Day by day, we peer over Hassler's shoulder as he breathes life into his creation--realizing with a sudden flash of insight that his hero Miles Pruitt should not have a wife, shaping and reshaping the character of the Bonewoman, heeding the good "advice" of the spirited Miss Agatha McGee, stumbling on the perfect title. Here, too, is the moving account of the novelist's inner doubts and comic missteps, his lonely triumphs and jarring sacrifices. My Staggerford Journal affords a rare glimpse into the imagination of one of the best-loved masters of contemporary American fiction. Jon Hassler's many fans, as well as all readers interested in seeing the creative process at work, will be spellbound by this wonderful book.

Download or read book A Green Journey written by Jon Hassler and published by Center Point. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixty–something Agatha McGee is feisty, intelligent, honorable, quick witted, hot–tempered, and nurturing. A problem at the school where she teaches propels her to leave America for Ireland and look for the pen pal with whom she has corresponded for years. It may be a little late in the game, but for once in her life Agatha follows her heart in search of a dream. Along the way, she not only discovers people she would never have allowed herself to know before, but she learns through experience, at long last, that love is unpredictable, unstoppable, and never appears as we dream it will.

Download or read book Underground Christmas written by Jon Hassler and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly 50, Jay has taken a temporary teaching job at St. Andrew's College. Dealing with a painful divorce and his son's suicide attempt, he travels to spend Christmas Day with his son at a residential treatment center in northern Minnesota.

Download or read book Churches of Minnesota written by and published by Minnesota Historical Society. This book was released on 2006 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the one-room chapel in a prairie town to the grandiose cathedral on a city street, churches stand at the heart of the Minnesota landscape. A photographer and an award-winning writer come together to honor these icons and share their stories.

Download or read book Rookery Blues written by Jon Hassler and published by . This book was released on 1997-11-26 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rookery State College in the late 1960s is an academic backwater if ever there was one -- until the Icejam Quintet is born. With Leland Edwards on piano, Neil Novotny on clarinet, Victor Dash on drums, and Connor on bass, the group comes together with the help of its muse, the lovely Peggy Benoit, who plays saxophone and sings. But soon isolated Rookery State will be touched by the great discontent sweeping the country: the first labor union in the college's history comes noisily to campus. As a teachers strike takes shape, the five musicians must struggle with their loyalties -- to the school, the town, their families, and one another....

Download or read book Keepsakes Other Stories written by Jon Hassler and published by Minnesota Historical Society. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Publishers Weekly These seven gentle tales set in Minnesota and North Dakota and all written during the 1970s treat fans of novelist Hassler (A Green Journey; Jemmy) to the earliest fruits of his talent. Some are folksy portraits of small-town characters, while others are drier and more plot driven. Both the title story and "Resident Priest" feature crusty, 74-year-old Father Fogarty, a pastor who's leaving his parish after 23 years. In "Chief Larson," a seven-year-old Indian boy, known (rather improbably) only as "chief" on the reservation, rebels in a small but telling way against his white adoptive family. "Good News in Culver Bend" tracks two city reporters who travel to a small town and discover "the heart of Christmas." "Chase" and "Christopher, Moony, and the Birds" show how frustrated residents of small towns seek solace. The former, so brief it's nearly a prose poem, hints at Hassler's own adolescent discovery of his talent for fiction; the latter follows a lonely 50-year-old college professor as he goes on a consolatory walk with a student's awkward wife and child, watching "birds on family outings, hopping and halting on the grass." The cleverest story, "Yesterday's Garbage," follows a "garbologist" who finds the truth about a murder in a trash bin, and is then led to commit one himself. The publisher plans to issue Hassler's later short fiction in three more volumes, starting in the year 2000. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Download or read book Staggerford written by Jon Hassler and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: