‘Labor Day’ delivers Henry, tomato soup and fish stick dinners

Editor’s note: Anita Paddock’s review of books we should read are scheduled to appear on the second and fourth Friday of each month. Enjoy.

review by Anita Paddock

“Have you ever heard of Joyce Maynard?” a friend asked me recently.

She had been reading my reviews, and she wanted to suggest a book. “Uh oh,” I thought, “can this be that preacher lady I see on television.” No, her name is Joyce Meyer.

Because I respect my friend’s taste in books, I got on Amazon and ordered the book suggested. And I feel like I’ve won the lottery!

“Labor Day” is a novel told by a man remembering five pivotal days of his 13th year. Henry lives with his mother, a pretty woman who used to love to dance, but since her divorce, has given up on life, given up on love. She sells vitamins over the phone, not a lucrative job, but one that enables her to stay home. She doesn’t like to cook anymore, so their pantry is stocked with tomato soup, and the freezer is full of fish stick dinners. Henry’s father is remarried, and he and his wife have a new baby girl. There’s also a teenage stepson who’s athletic and very popular. He’s everything Henry is not. Once a week, Henry has to go out to eat with his father and his new family, a ritual that is uncomfortable for everyone,

Henry and his mother, Adele, live on a dead end street in a little town in New Hampshire, where everyone knows everyone else’s business. They keep to themselves, and Henry feels responsible for his mother. He is the man of the house, Adele often reminds him.

Henry is experiencing every sexual awakening emotion common to his age, but he doesn’t want to discuss things of that nature with his mother, although she tries to get him engaged in conversation about the subject “for his own good.” The confessions Henry makes to the readers of “Labor Day” are hilarious, and will certainly make the male readers remember when such agony visited them. (Maybe still does.)

During an unusually hot spell right before Labor Day, Henry and his mother go back-to-school shopping, something she hates to do. While there, a man calls to Henry and asks him for help. His leg is bleeding, and he needs a ride. Would Henry and his mother take him someplace?

The man’s name is Frank. He is an escaped convict, and they take him home with them to recuperate from a fall. Adele and Frank fall in love, and briefly, their house is happy. Frank is a good cook. And a good dancer, the measurement of a man Adele has always used. The pressure of taking care of his mom is lifted, and Henry feels happy. Frank teaches him how to play baseball and make a pie.

The happiness lasts only a short time, however, and that’s all I’m going to tell you.

But I will tell you something about the author, Joyce Maynard. When she was 18, she wrote a New York Times cover story about growing up in the sixties, and her picture was plastered all over the place. J.D. Salinger wrote her a congratulatory letter, and she eventually moved in with the reclusive author of “Catcher in the Rye” who was a good 30 years older than she. The romance lasted for only a year, and Joyce Maynard eventually wrote about it in her memoir, “At Home in the World.” Joyce Maynard is a fantastic writer, but she has not received the acclaim due her, and some think it’s because she did the unthinkable. She ratted out J. D. Salinger.

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At the end of each review, I try to find someone whose life vaguely mirrors a character in the current Paddock’s Picks. Since I don’t know anyone who has fallen in love with a convict, I contacted the friend who recommended this book and introduced me to the superb talent of Joyce Maynard.

Marla Cantrell is a freelance writer for The City Wire and works part-time at the Van Buren Public Library. She is reading books from the 1940’s and 1950’s. The most recent one is by Catherine Marshall titled “To Live Again,” about her life after the death of her husband, Peter Marshall.

Her favorite book as a child was one about fish.

“We were living in Arizona then, and I got it for Christmas. It was a beautiful book with shiny fish on the cover.”

The next book she remembers loving was “Gone with the Wind.” She spent all her Christmas vacation reading it. In high school in Alma, the book she kept under her mattress was “Love Story,” which was considered very risqué, and her parents forbade her to read it. Remember that love means never having to say you’re sorry.

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