TEST
Here’s an unexpected, unheralded treat of a novel, set in the fondly remembered but long-closed Palisades Park in New Jersey.
Focused on the Stopka family, who run a French fry stand in the park’s busy, colorful environment, our protagonist is seven-year old Antoinette, who insists on going by the moniker Toni and who dreams of becoming a daring high diver at the park’s saltwater pool. Toni’s mom and dad, Adele and Eddie, hold down the fort at the stand while living with their frustrated ambitions, Adele to be a star and Eddie to open his own restaurant. Completing the picture is Toni’s brother, Jack, who loves comic books and superheroes and hopes to be a writer.
Both time and the world’s events challenge the Stopka family, from the belt-tightening great depression to the twin disasters of World War II, which separates Eddie from the family as he’s drafted to service, and a massive fire that destroys large swaths of the park, traumatizing Toni and leaving an exasperated Adele looking for a way to pursue her dreams before it’s too late.
A grown-up Toni achieves her dream of becoming a high diver, but a disappointing first love and the pain of her fractured family keeps her from home. In the end, both the park’s waning days and Toni’s frustrated, fractured relationship with her mother draw her back to New Jersey – and to true love, healing, and the culmination of her ambition, a star turn as the lead attraction at Palisades’ high diving pool.
I honestly don’t have words enough to laud Brennert’s writing; he sinks the reader easily into each era he explores, from the radio days of Toni’s youth to the civil rights struggles of the sixties – his portrayal of a real-life event in which African-American youth protested the segregation of the waterpark area by swimming in its famous salt water pool is especially delivered with punch, as is his description of the fire that claimed lives, rides and businesses at the park in one ugly afternoon. He sprinkles the narrative with colorful real-life characters and incidents, managing to make the park a character all its own, proud and scarred, breathing to its closing night.
Toni is one of my favorite narrators of recent memory; selfish and ambitious, kind and loving, bright and giving, she’s everything I enjoy in a literary heroine. Her journey is a great one and well worth seeking out.
Grade: A+
Book Type: Historical Fiction
Sensuality: Kisses
Review Date: 22/03/17
Publication Date: 10/2013
Lisa Fernandes is a writer, reviewer and recapper who lives somewhere on the East Coast. Formerly employed by Firefox.org and Next Projection, she also currently contributes to Women Write About Comics. Read her blog at http://thatbouviergirl.blogspot.com/, follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thatbouviergirl or contribute to her Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/MissyvsEvilDead or her Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/missmelbouvier
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.