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Jon Hassler's rich, uncluttered
style provides
the perfect window through which to view his characters' lives
Annette Sandford /The Dallas Morning News
Jon Hassler wrote 27 short stories in the 1970s, published a few in
small literary quarterlies and then turned to writing novels. His first
published novel, Staggerford (the story of a week in the life of
Miles Pruitt, a high school English teacher), was widely praised. Eight
more well-received novels followed, while his earlier stories languished
with their rejection slips in a neglected file box.
Now, praise be, the Afton Historical Society Press has brought them
to light. The first group of stories, Keepsakes and Other Stories,
came out last year, and now we have Rufus at the Door. It seems
incredible that these splendidly rendered tales could ever have been
passed over. Mr. Hassler's clear, uncluttered, easygoing style provides
his people (they are so much more than characters) with exactly the
right atmosphere for the enactment of the dramas of their lives.
In the title story, narrated by a man thinking back on a high school
field trip to an insane asylum, the horror of the visit is intensified
when out of the assembled idiots, morons, imbeciles and madmen, the boy
recognizes a man from his hometown.
"Winning Sarah Spooner" is Mr. Hassler's take on the old
theme of a widow finding a new mate, but it goes down so smoothly and
humorously that you can hardly believe it ever happened before.
In "Agatha McGee and the St. Isidore Seven," the title
character, drawn from the earlier publication, Staggerford, is
the kind of wily, common-sense schoolteacher who rules with a velvet
baseball bat and gets things done when nobody else can.
Every story invites a second reading, for the sheer pleasure of
savoring the feelings invoked, but "Dodger's Return," for me,
at least, is the top selection. It is a tough, poignant story of a
newcomer's brief friendship with Dodger, the school outcast. The fun the
two boys enjoy ends when the new boy realizes the association is making
him an outcast, too. He drops Dodger but is forever haunted by a loss of
self-respect.
Two unusual features add further interest to this excellent book.
One, a publisher's note at the beginning, includes the kind of
information readers often wish they knew about how stories originate and
how characters are created and so on. The other, a jewel of a letter by
salty old Agatha McGee, appears after the last story and ironically
describes the author's ongoing battle with Parkinson's disease.
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