CANR
WORK TITLE: SUMMERLINGS
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Howorth, Lisa Neumann
BIRTHDATE: 4/8/1951
WEBSITE:
CITY: Oxford
STATE: MS
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
LAST VOLUME: CA 363
http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/flying-shoes-9781620403020/ http://www.bloomsbury.com/author/lisa-howorth/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born April 8, 1951, in Washington, DC; daughter of Claire Neumann; stepdaughter of Frank Johnston; married Richard Howorth (a bookstore owner), 1973; children: three, including Claire.
EDUCATION:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, bachelor’s degree; University of Mississippi, M.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and bookstore owner. Savile Book Shop, Washington, DC, worked in paperback department; Square Books, Oxford, MS, cofounder and co-owner, 1979—. University of Mississippi, worked as a reference librarian and teacher of southern folk art.
AVOCATIONS:Letterpress printing, model railways, cider making, beekeeping, astronomy, and stamp collecting.
AWARDS:Mississippi Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, 1996; MacDowell Colony fellowship, 2007.
RELIGION: Church of England.WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including Garden & Gun and Oxford American.
SIDELIGHTS
Lisa Howorth is the cofounder of an iconic bookstore in Oxford, Mississippi; Square Books has hosted special events featuring some of America’s best-known authors. The city has likewise drawn literary giants to its quaint downtown, notably Oxford native and Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Faulkner. Howorth wanted to be a writer herself, even as a child. She published a few books on southern arts and culture while teaching classes on those topics at the University of Mississippi. What she did not write about, however, was a subject that had haunted her since she was a teenager in Bethesda, Maryland. Howorth was in her sixties when she finally completed the project that merited a featured guest appearance and book signing at the celebrated Square Books.
On Mother’s Day in 1966, when Howorth was fifteen years old, her nine-year-old stepbrother, Stevie Johnston, was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered in the woods near home. The family was shattered by a hideous reality that impacted their lives forever. Howorth, in particular, harbored the guilt of knowing that she and a boyfriend had been kissing and fooling around within hearing distance of the attack, without ever hearing a sound. She spent years tormented by questions of what might have happened. The only person of interest was ruled out as a suspect, and years passed with no further action on the case. Then, in 1994, Howorth’s stepbrother Sam opened the closed-case file. He was shocked to learn that a viable suspect had been identified within a year of the murder and was linked by evidence to Stevie’s death. It was a known sex offender who had committed similar offenses, yet he was never arrested and never charged; police had lost the evidence.
Howorth decided it was time to tell her story, but it was not easy to face the memories she had suppressed for decades. At last she realized that a memoir would not be possible. She would write her story as a novel, but, as she told Leonard Gill in a Memphis Flyer interview: “I wanted to make it a bigger novel, more complex. … I wanted to look at bigger issues—crime, for instance, and the inequalities in sentencing. I wanted to talk about race, about Southern history.” Howorth wanted readers to see the South as she did, with the sharp eyes and ears of an outsider to whom every detail, from the figures of speech to the rhythm of daily living, is new. She wanted to surround the horror of a gruesome murder with warm character studies of fictional people not unlike her friends and neighbors in Oxford, and to temper their pain with the moments of wit and humor that enable real people to survive tragedy and transcend grief. Also, because the suspect in Stevie Johnston’s murder was still free in 2014, Howorth hoped that her novel would motivate someone to reopen the case officially and possibly bring a killer to justice.
Flying Shoes is the story of Mary Byrd Thornton of Richmond, Mississippi. It begins with a phone call from a cold-case detective about the Mother’s Day murder of her stepbrother thirty years earlier, in 1966. The case mirrors the reality of Stevie Johnston’s murder, but Mary Byrd’s story is uniquely her own. “Readers should not come to this book expecting a mystery or true crime,” Howorth cautioned in an interview by Jana Hoops in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. The crime enables her to explore the lives of people affected by it. In another interview, this one with Megan Labrise in Kirkus Reviews, she explained: “It’s not so interesting to talk about being beaten down by a tragedy. I’m much more interested in the ways that people pull out of it and deal with it.” In this case, life goes on. Mary Byrd avoids reality with occasional illegal prescriptions and adulterous sex; she hoards worthless ephemera and frets over details; but she continues to function.
Reviewers also appreciated the other citizens of Richmond. Kendal Weaver wrote in the Ocala Star Banner: “One of the best is Teever, a penniless black Vietnam veteran who lives in a cemetery.” Some critics noted that the characterizations, though beautiful, divert attention from the central story of the murder. “Over the length of the book, however,” Weaver commented, “these divergent episodes form a memorable mosaic of a place, a time and a good- hearted woman at midlife.” “By the end,” Elizabeth Taylor related in the Chicago Tribune, Mary Byrd learns “that the world works randomly and chaotically, with personal stories overlapping and colliding, so that no individual story exists apart from the others.”
Reviewers were touched by Flying Shoes. On the Web site Deep South, Mary Sellers described the story as “a charming depiction of the South and all of its wonderful and troubling complexities involving race, family love, and the day-to-day struggles of humanity.” A Publishers Weekly contributor concluded that Flying Shoes is “more of a character study than a page-turning thriller, but Howorth’s characters are well worth getting to know.”
In Summerlings, set in 1959, Howorth follows an eight-year-old boy named John, as he interprets international events, family relationships, and friendships. John lives with his maternal grandparents, Brickie and Dimma, and his sister, Liz, on Connors Lane in a suburb of Washington, DC. World War II has touched the lives of many of John’s neighbors and friends, including Max, whose Jewish family escaped persecution in Austria, and Ivan, whose family claims to have fled Ukraine because of the Stalin regime. John and his friends recognize the tensions between the families on their street, so they develop the Beaver Plan, inspired by the Marshall Plan, to bring everyone together. They plan a party, which coincides with a tragic event that changes the boys’ lives.
Writing on the Shelf Awareness website, Nell Beram commented: “The book entertainingly eviscerates the rose-colored notion of postwar tranquility. Despite its Howdy Doody, Brillo pad and Hostess cupcake references slathered on sunscreen-thick, Summerlings is really about a regrettably timely subject: the nation’s enduringly mixed track record when it comes to loving thy neighbor.” A Kirkus Reviews critic suggested: “Howorth has a gift for crafting memorable characters and an authentic sense of place. She writes with a clear understanding of the catastrophes seeded by intolerance.” The same critic described the book as “an engaging coming-of-age story.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Winchester, Simon, Their Noble Lordships: Class and Power in Modern Britain, Random House (New York, NY), 1982.
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 1, 1994, Brad Hooper, review of The South: A Treasury of Art and Literature, p. 798; May 1, 2014, Carol Haggas, review of Flying Shoes, p. 77.
Chicago Tribune, July 30, 2014, Elizabeth Taylor, review of Flying Shoes.
Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS), June 28, 2014, Jana Hoops, author interview, and Patricia Hall and Elizabeth Spencer, review of Flying Shoes.
Daily Mail (London, England), August 16, 2014, author interview.
Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2014, review of Flying Shoes; June 17, 2014, Megan Labrise, author interview; June 15, 2019, review of Summerlings.
Memphis Flyer, July 15, 2014, Leonard Gill, author interview.
Mud and Magnolias, August 6, 2014, Sandra Knispel, author interview.
New York Times, June 17, 2014, William Grimes, author interview.
Ocala Star Banner, July 20, 2014, Kendal Weaver, review of Flying Shoes.
Publishers Weekly, November 1, 1993, review of The South, p. 62; March 10, 2014, review of Flying Shoes, p. 40.
Washington Post, June 19, 2014, Neely Tucker, author interview; June 24, 2014, Yvonne Zipp, review of Flying Shoes.
ONLINE
Black and White http://www.theblackandwhite.net/ (April 8, 2014), Julia Pearl-Schwartz and Emma Anderson, author interview.
Deep South, http://deepsouthmag.com/ (June 17, 2014), Mary Sellers, author interview.
Mississippi Writers and Musicians, https://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/ (July 23, 2019), author profile.
Nashville Scene, http://www.nashvillescene.com/ (June 19, 2014), Emily Choate, review of Flying Shoes.
Shelf Awareness, https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ (June 28, 2019), Nell Beram, review of Summerlings.
Wales Arts Review, http://www.walesartsreview.org/ (September 13, 2014), review of Flying Shoes.
LISA HOWORTH was born in Washington, D.C., where her family has lived for four generations. She is a former librarian and the author of the novel Flying Shoes. She has written on art, travel, dogs, and music for the Oxford American and Garden & Gun, among other publications. Howorth lives in Oxford, Mississippi, where she and her husband, Richard, founded Square Books in 1979.
Lisa Howorth
Major Works
Flying Shoes (2014) (fiction)
The Southern I. Q. Quiz Book (2003)
The South: A Treasury of Art and Literature
Yellow Dogs, Hushpuppies, and Bluetick Hounds (1996)
Biography
Lisa N. Howorth, born in Washington, D.C., published her first work of fiction, Flying Shoes, at age sixty-three. She and her husband Richard Howorth own Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, which they opened in 1979. The bookstore was named Book Store of the Year in 2013 by Publishers Weekly.
Lisa Howorth previously worked as a reference librarian and art historian at the University of Mississippi where she earned a master’s degree in art history. Howorth and her husband have three children.
Howorth’s novel Flying Shoes is rooted in a very personal subject. In 1966 Lisa Howorth’s stepbrother was attacked and killed near the family’s home in Bethesda, Maryland. The murder made the front page of The Washington Post and the case has never been solved.
In Flying Shoes, a sister (Mary Byrd Thornton) gets a phone call thirty years after her brother is murdered because police have a new lead in the investigation. They want her to come back home to a small Mississippi town to assist. However, rather than being a murder mystery, Flying Shoes is the story of what happens to those left behind when a tragedy strikes. The novel delves into the lives of the characters and the challenges life hands them.
Howorth was awarded the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1996 and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship in 2007. She has written for Garden and Gun magazine and the Oxford American.
Lisa Howorth
Lisa Howorth was born in Washington, D.C., where her family has lived for four generations. In Oxford, Mississippi, she and her husband opened Square Books (Publishers Weekly's 2013 Bookstore of the Year) in 1979 and raised their three children. She received the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1996 and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship in 2007. Her writing has appeared in Garden & Gun and the Oxford American. Flying Shoes is her first novel.
New Books
August 2019
(hardback)
Summerlings
Novels
Flying Shoes (2014)
Summerlings (2019)
QUOTED: "Howorth has a gift for crafting memorable characters and an authentic sense of place. She writes with a clear understanding of the catastrophes seeded by intolerance."
"an engaging coming-of-age story."
Howorth, Lisa: SUMMERLINGS
Kirkus Reviews. (June 15, 2019):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Howorth, Lisa SUMMERLINGS Doubleday (Adult Fiction) $22.95 8, 6 ISBN: 978-0-385-54464-1
Eight-year-old John revels in summertime hijinks with his two best friends while storm clouds gather all around, obscuring the sun.
Howorth (Flying Shoes, 2014) first introduces John on a tour of the verdant suburban street where he lives outside of Washington, D.C., with his sister, Liz, and their grandparents Brickie and Dimma. John's parents are divorced. His dad is an unemployed drinker and carouser, and his mother, who may or may not have tuberculosis, has been in a hospital for two years. Tensions roil under the calm lawns of idyllic Connors Lane. John rides his bike, catches spiders, and hatches strategies with his best buds, Ivan and Max. But there's an undercurrent of unhappiness and distrust on the tree-lined streets of the neighborhood. It's 1959, and just about everybody hails from a different country impacted by World War II. The cold war on Connors Lane seems especially frigid. The people who live next door carried their prejudices and hatreds with them when they crossed the Atlantic. John and his friends develop their own version of the Marshall Plan to bring everyone together: the Beaver Plan, a blowout party/fiesta organized over the course of a summer. The three boys idealize Ivan's stylish young aunt, Elena, who helps them prepare for the big event. She smokes Vogues, drinks Cuba Libres, and buys them ice cream. Elena and her brother are Ukrainian immigrants who harbor dark secrets about their past. On the night of the party, a mysterious tragedy occurs. Was it an accident or something more sinister? John, Max, and Ivan will never be the same. Howorth has a gift for crafting memorable characters and an authentic sense of place. She writes with a clear understanding of the catastrophes seeded by intolerance while creating a rich overview of America on the brink of the turbulent 1960s.
An engaging coming-of-age story focused on the unraveling of truths hidden just beneath the surface.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Howorth, Lisa: SUMMERLINGS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2019. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A588726919/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5ddacaf2. Accessed 13 July 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A588726919
QUOTED: "The book entertainingly eviscerates the rose-colored notion of postwar tranquility. Despite its Howdy Doody, Brillo pad and Hostess cupcake references slathered on sunscreen-thick, Summerlings is really about a regrettably timely subject: the nation's enduringly mixed track record when it comes to loving thy neighbor."
Book Review
Review: Summerlings
Summerlings by Lisa Howorth (Doubleday, $24.95 hardcover, 256p., 9780385544641, August 6, 2019)
Lisa Howorth's second novel is narrated by John, who spends the book's length looking back at the summer of 1959. He was eight years old and, thrillingly, a spider infestation overtook his neighborhood in Chevy Chase, Md. One adult-promulgated theory was that refugees and immigrants had brought in the spiders. Notes the adult John: "Even though World War II had been over for more than a decade, there was still a collective war hangover among the people on Connors Lane, maybe because so many of our neighbors had been affected by it in one way or another."
Because his divorced parents were unstable sorts, John lived with his maternal grandparents, flanked by families with unconventional backgrounds--John's grandmother called Connors Lane a "Whitman's Sampler." Also on the street was John's best friend, Ivan Goncharoff, whose father and mysterious, alluring aunt emigrated from Ukraine as children "to get away from Stalin," John explains, "but even so, the Soviet connection didn't endear [them] to my grandparents."
In such a climate, it's perhaps unsurprising that John and Ivan's Jewish friend, Max Friedmann, whose parents fled Austria after the Anschluss, is pointedly not invited to swim in one Connors Lane family's pool. This doesn't sit right with John and Ivan. Never mind the Marshall Plan: the three boys hatch the Beaver Plan, named for the title character in television's Leave It to Beaver. (It must be said that, as in Leave It to Beaver, the kids' dialogue in Summerlings can have a scripted quality--"Aww, forget it, you dumbheads.") The Beaver Plan's aim is to "make the neighbors nicer," and the friends throw themselves into organizing a Connors Lane Labor Day potluck for the cause. Meanwhile, the spider invasion remains of paramount importance to the boys, and they plot to steal a poisonous arachnid from a museum in order to exact revenge on one of the neighborhood's dumbheads.
In Howorth's fine first novel, Flying Shoes, the protagonist, recalling the three-decades-earlier murder of her nine-year-old stepbrother, wonders, "When had the times turned on children?" True nostalgists might insist that Summerlings takes place long before such times, but the book entertainingly eviscerates the rose-colored notion of postwar tranquility. Despite its Howdy Doody, Brillo pad and Hostess cupcake references slathered on sunscreen-thick, Summerlings is really about a regrettably timely subject: the nation's enduringly mixed track record when it comes to loving thy neighbor. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer
Shelf Talker: In this nostalgic but unblinkered novel set in Chevy Chase, Md., during the summer of 1959, three boys are sufficiently displeased by their neighbors' anti-Semitism to do something about it.
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