Sticklebacks and Snow Globes [Hardcover]

B.A. Goodjohn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2007

"A fat, brown stickleback nosed the canal bank just below the surface. Tot stretched face down on the gravel tow-path. Hold my legs! she told the boy and edged the bamboo fishing net out slowly across the oily water. You can t chase a fish, she whispered. You have to decide where he wants to go, and then wait for him there. She held the net steady. The fish glided backwards an inch, turned once, then swam into the net s pink nylon mesh." Tot is good at watching, waiting and working things out. And there s a lot that demands close attention: her own epilepsy, an older sister who never wants to play anymore, a best friend who s changed her name to Roger, and a girl across the road with a star entry in the Stanley Close Spy Club notebook for doing it with a gypsy man. And then to crown it all, her dad has dreams of New Orleans. Sticklebacks and Snowglobes is a story of tangled destinies unravelled and made sense of by an eight-year-old girl called Tot, a child as yet untouched by hormones, and whose belief system is shored up by fishing nets, a healthy respect for exploding saints and faith in both the inherent goodness of people and in the way things are.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Goodjohn's debut follows the inhabitants of Stanley Close, a housing project outside of London that's home to the Thompson family. Donald Thompson is a trumpet player with hopes of moving to New Orleans to play, even though following his dream means leaving behind his wife, Elaine; teenage daughter Dorothy; and eight-year-old epileptic daughter Tot. Donald tells Tot of his secret plan, and she promises not to tell anyone as long as he brings her back a snow globe to add to her collection. Tot, meanwhile, strikes a deal with God that if she catches seven stickleback fish over the course of seven Saturdays (and sacrifices them), her father will return. Subplots concerning other residents involve, among others, Gerald Damson, who lost his former home, sold most of his possessions and suspects his wife is flirting with the rent man. The pace suffers from stringing together a hodgepodge of points-of-view (a retarded child, Dorothy and her friend) that fail to coalesce. Goodjohn captures the feel and tenor of a working-class neighborhood, but the novel's meandering hobbles readers' emotional investment in the characters' plights. (Oct.)
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From Booklist

Set in the early 1970s, this debut novel re-creates life in a British public-housing development. Though the point of view varies, the principal one belongs to eight-year-old Tot, whose trumpet-playing father dreams of a new life as a jazz musician in New Orleans. Money and class play large thematic parts in most of the novel's sequence of episodes. Tot's neighbor is a formerly wealthy manufacturer who has lost his money; Tot's older sister dreams of marrying up but only manages to get herself pregnant; Tot's best friend's father is an unemployed laborer who enjoys sticking it to the rich, etc. The best part of the story involves Tot's befriending an Indian boy, whose immigrant family is routinely subjected to taunts and cruel practical jokes. Unfortunately, generosity of spirit too often turns into sentimentality here; nevertheless, Goodjohn's novel conveys a quiet air of authority and a sense of having been lived. Cart, Michael

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Permanent Press (October 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1579621554
• ISBN-13: 978-1579621551
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,356,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

B.A. Goodjohn, a transplant from London, England, has fiction and poetry published with The Texas Review, The Cortland Review, Wind Magazine, Streetlight Magazine and Inkpot and has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her first novel, Sticklebacks and Snow Globes, was published by Permanent Press in Fall 2007 and was subsequently sold to Scribe Publishing (Australia) and Centrepolygraph (Russia). Sticklebacks took a BookSense Notable Award and made the Kirkus Best of 2007 list. She holds a BA in English from Randolph-Macon Woman's College (2004) and an MFA from The University of Maine's Stonecoast Program (2007). She teaches English at Randolph College in Virginia and is Director of their Writing Program.


On Goodjohn's first novel, Sticklebacks and Snow Globes:
"This was one of my all-time favorite Stonecoastian pieces. This is my fourth residency and I've read enough to know a standout when I see one. This is one."
Suzanne Strempek-Shea, Songs from a Lead-Lined Room
"In this magical debut, working-class British council-estate life become a sort of quotidian wonderland starring children clever and strange and very real . . . A cozy, richly written delight."
Kirkus Reviews, August 2007