“In those years, the hardest of my childhood, Echo felt like a kindred spirit. I memorized her lines in Slugger 8. I practiced her stance on the field in the mirror. I cut out snapshots from Teen Beat magazine. I bought four copies of her cover issue of Sassy, the one where she wore a red cropped T-shirt with big lips smacked across her flat chest. I made a collage, carefully glued images of her together, draped it with a heart garland, and hung it over my bed. My favorite was a photo of Echo and her also-actor dad, Jamie Blue, leaving a restaurant, his arm slung over her shoulders, protecting her, the way I wished my father did.”
Goldie Klein, a writer for Manhattan Eye, has it bad when it comes to Echo Blue, the famous child actress. The obsession that worried her parents when she was growing up still has a hold on her even now. And when she learns that Echo, who was scheduled to appear on MTV’s New Year’s Eve Y2K special, one that will help her regain her foothold on stardom, hasn’t shown, Goldie knows it has to be more than just a relapse and stint in rehab. Echo has really disappeared.
Currently, Goldie is writing the kind of stories she hates and that her father, an overly critical professor loves, including her most recent article on boxing. But Goldie’s aspirations are to cover subjects much hipper and more compelling. And she sees Echo’s vanishing as just the ticket. She manages to talk her editor into sending her to Los Angeles to track down the missing star. But it’s going to be difficult. Even those close to Echo have no idea where she is, and they’re upset that Goldie is looking for her.
But in her adoration of the Echo, Goldie has spun a mythology in her own mind. She saw Echo as the only friend she had during her early teens. The boy-crazy girls in her class intimidated her with their talk about sex while Goldie was still playing with dolls. She tried to connect but it just didn’t happen despite the best efforts of her mother who planned slumber parties to help her make friends. And so, Goldie further immersed herself into Echo’s world—or the world she thought Echo inhabited.
But Echo’s life was also difficult. Her mother, a washed-up television actress, is a depressive who has locked herself away in their house. To escape that environment, Echo opted to live with her movie star father who was always away on location hoping to become an Academy-award winning actor and never had time to talk on the phone, changed girlfriends monthly and really wasn’t that concerned with his daughter’s well-being. Echo had handlers that raised her and like Goldie she was terribly lonely with just one friend. Stardom couldn’t make up for not having the type of normal life most teenagers have.
Goldie manipulates herself into the lives of people who know Goldie, including Jamie Blue. Accompanying an actor to his house, she eats a marijuana-laced cookie at the door and becomes completely stoned.
“Don’t you know not to eat cookies at a stranger’s house without asking what’s in them?” her editor asks incredulously when Goldie calls to tell her as if that’s a basic fact everyone should know. And though Goldie wants to leave, her editor tells her that she’d better get in the hot tub with Jamie, even though he’s likely to be naked.
Welcome to Hollywood.
Goldie begins to get the idea of what Echo’s life was like as she continues to hunt for the missing star. The story cuts back and forth between 2000 and the 1990s, capturing the era precisely and what life was like for Echo as she became an Oscar-winning child star. In her pursuit of her story, Goldie realizes that it’s time to chart a new course in her own life.
On Thursday, Oct. 3rd at 6:30 PM, Louis Bayard, author of The Pale Blue Eye and Jackie and Me, will be in conversation with novelistLori Rader-Day at The Book Stall. They will discuss Bayard’s new novel, The Wildes, a profoundly empathetic story about Oscar Wilde’s wife Constance and their two sons in the aftermath of the famous playwright’s imprisonment, told against Victorian England and World War I.
This program is free, but registration is required. CLICK HERE to reserve your spot.
Benjamin Dyer, New York Times bestselling author of Dreyer’s English, says, “It requires a novelist of great audacity to dare to attempt to bring Oscar Wilde back to life, and it requires a novelist of great skill, to say nothing of wit, to manage the feat persuasively. Happily, Louis Bayard is both of those novelists.
“As if that were not enough, The Wildes also presents us with a portrait of Oscar’s wife, Constance, that is little short of breathtaking in its vibrant depth, and a recounting of the heartbreaking tragedy of the Wildes that is eloquent and fully compassionate to all its characters, certainly to the Wildes’ sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, and even to (almost astonishingly) that feckless instrument of destruction Lord Alfred Douglas. I read The Wildes in an improbable state of breathless suspense, so wonderfully well has Bayard presented us with real people pressing, often excruciatingly, toward fateful decisions. This is an intoxicatingly gorgeous novel.”
Louis Bayard is the critically acclaimed bestselling author of nine historical novels, including Jackie & Me and The Pale Blue Eye, which was adapted into the global #1 Netflix release starring Christian Bale. His articles, reviews, and recaps have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Salon, and the Paris Review. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Lori Rader-Day is the Edgar Award-nominated and Anthony, Agatha, and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of Death at Greenway, The Lucky One, Under a Dark Sky, The Day I Died, Little Pretty Things, and The Black Hour. She lives in Chicago, where she is co-chair of the mystery readers’ conference Midwest Mystery Conference and teaches creative writing at Northwestern University. She served as the national president of Sisters in Crime in 2020.
Serious foodies have always raved about Tokyo’s fabulous food finds in a city where no matter the time of the place, there’s always a treat ready to be had.
Now, Brendan Liew and Caryn Ng, who established chotto, a pop-up Japanese café in Melbourne, Australia, where they introduced the art of traditional ryokan-style breakfasts, have written A Day in Tokyo(Smith Street Books), a cookbook highlighting the best of Tokyo’s round-the-clock cuisine and culture.
Lew has worked at the three-Michelin-starred Nihonryori RyuGin in Roppongi, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, and also studied the art of ramen-making in Japan before delving into kappo and modern kaiseki cuisine. In Melbourne, he worked at Kappo, Supernormal, Golden Fields and Bistro Vue. Together, Brendan and Caryn have traveled extensively through Japan’s countryside and major cities to explore, learn, and live the country’s culture and gastronomy.
As its name implies, the book is divided into chapters by the time of day starting with Early when the streets are silent. Recipes in this section include Kitsune Udon, a noodle dish made with deep-fried tofu, sea mustard, and sake and Funwari Hottokeki or Souffle Hotcakes.
Mid is a time when people head to their favorite ramen shops, curry houses, and depechika, department store basements filled with grocers, fishmongers, specialty pickle sellers, furikake or places to buy rice seasonings, wines, patisseries, umeboshi or stores selling pickled plums, and food stalls where one can buy rice balls, tempera, bento box meals, and other lunch items.
Late, when the sunsets behind Mt. Fuji and the neon lights of Tokyo flicker to life, is when Tokyo’s boisterous and lively night scene comes to life. Recipes include Chawanmushi, a savory egg custard and Kanikorokke or Crab Croquettes.
The last chapter, Basics, shows how to cook rice, milk bread, and hot spring eggs as well as tempura flour and different types of dashi. This is followed by a glossary of common ingredients in Japanese cooking found in Asian and Japanese supermarkets or greengrocers.
“It would be impossible to dine at every restaurant in Tokyo in a single lifetime. Layer upon layer of dining establishments exist here, stacked on top of each other in high-rise buildings, hidden down long narrow alleyways, and crammed tightly together in warrens. Their only signposts are noren, small-calligraphed signs accompanied by delicately arranged sprigs of flowers or traditional Japanese lanterns hung outside the door,” write the authors in the book’s introduction. “Tokyo is a city where centuries-old restaurants can be found in between modern ones, where third, fourth, and fifth generations of chefs’ neatly pressed white jackets live the life of shokunin, (a word commonly translated as artisan, but which encapsulates so much more) going through the processes their forefathers went through before them.”
The 96 recipes are not necessarily difficult, indeed some are very easy. But for those unfamiliar with Japanese cooking, it may seem daunting. The best approach is to start with recipes like Bifu Shichu Hotto Sando (Beef Stew Jaffles), Tomato Salad with Lime Dressing, or Yakitori (skewers of marinated chicken) that don’t require a long list of unusual ingredients or a lot of steps. And then continue from there.
YAKISOBA PAN
YAKISOBA ROLLS
SERVES 4
Yakisoba pan is a quirky Japanese creation consisting of fried noodles stuffed in bread, specifically a hot dog roll or milk bun. The story goes that a customer of Nozawaya in Tokyo asked for the combination in the 1950s, and the invention has lined the shelves of Japanese bakeries and konbini (convenience stores) ever since.
4 Milk bread rolls (page 216) [below] or store-bought mini hot dog rolls
1 tablespoon unsalted butter or margarine, softened
300 g (10½ oz) Fried noodles (page 99) [below]
beni shōga (pickled ginger), sliced, to serve
Split the bread rolls in half and spread with the butter. Divide the fried noodles between the rolls and top with lots of beni shōga. Serve immediately (though it also tastes fine cold).
SHOKUPAN
MILK BREAD
MAKES 1 X 2.8 LITRE (95 FL OZ) LIDDED LOAF TIN OR 12 ROLLS
“Our Australian chef friend, who lives in Japan, once made sourdough bread for his Japanese wife and her family,” write the authors in the introduction to this recipe.
“He couldn’t easily find the kind he ate back home, and missed the rustic, country-style loaves. He is a good baker, but we can’t say for certain that his wife and her family were charmed by his efforts. The Japanese are completely smitten with milk bread, you see, and it’s worlds apart from the chewy loaves and hard crusts typical of European breads.
“Milk bread is soft, white, sweet and fluffy: the perfect foil for a multitude of fillings, from cream, custard and red bean to katsu (crumbed and fried cutlets; page 186), fried noodles (see page 121) and curry (see page 127). It is also delicious eaten on its own.
220 g (11/2 cups) bread flour, plus extra for dusting
165 ml (51/2 fl oz) milk
50 g (13/4 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
10 g (1/4 oz) salt
4 g (1/8 oz) dried yeast
60 g (2 oz) butter, at room temperature, diced
neutral oil, for greasing
Preferment
220 g (11/2 cups) strong flour
165 ml (51/2 fl oz) water
2.5 g (1/8 oz) dried yeast
Egg Wash
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
Start by making the preferment. Mix the ingredients together, then cover and leave for 24 hours at room temperature.
The next day, put the preferment in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add all the remaining ingredients, except the butter and oil. Knead on low speed using a dough hook for 5 minutes. Scrape down the side, add the butter and knead for another 10 minutes, or until the dough is very elastic, scraping down the side of the bowl every 2 minutes.
To make a loaf, when the dough is ready, scrape down the side of the bowl again, then cover and leave to rest in a warm place for 1 hour, or until doubled in size. (To make rolls, skip to step 12.)
Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface and divide into three even pieces. Form each piece into a smooth ball, then cover and leave to rest for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, lightly grease a 2.8 litre (95 fl oz) lidded loaf tin with oil.
Lightly flour your work surface. Turn one rested dough ball over onto the work surface so the smooth side faces down. Using your hands or a rolling pin, stretch the dough to roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper, or about 20 cm x 30 cm (8 in x 12 in). Fold the left side of the dough over two-thirds of the dough. Press down to remove any large air bubbles, then fold the right side all the way over to the left edge.
Take the top of the dough with both hands, then tightly roll from top to bottom to create a log. Seal the excess dough by pinching it together, then place, seal-side down, in the loaf tin. Repeat with the remaining two dough balls.
Slide the lid on the loaf tin and leave in a warm place for 1 hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.
When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Bake the bread for 20 minutes, then turn the oven down to 165°C (330°F) and bake for another 15 minutes.
Remove the loaf tin from the oven, carefully remove the lid and turn the loaf out onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool for 30 minutes before slicing.
If using the bread for sando, use it within 2 days. It will be fine as toast for up to 5 days.
To make rolls instead of a loaf, after step 2, punch the dough down and shape into 12 evenly sized rolls. Place on a baking paper-lined tray, leaving a 10 cm (4 in) space between each roll. Cover the tray with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes to 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F).
In a small bowl, beat 1 egg yolk with 2 tablespoons of milk to make an egg wash.
Pour 250ml (1 cup) of water into a metal baking tin and place on the bottom of the oven. Brush the tops of the rolls with the egg wash and bake for 15 minutes, or until the rolls sound hollow when tapped. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool before using. The rolls will keep for up to 5 days.
NAPORITAN PAN
NAPOLETANA ROLLS
SERVES 4
“This is a twist on the Yakisoba roll (above), this time featuring spaghetti napoletana, a yōshoku (Western-style) favourite in Japan,” the authors write in the introduction to this recipe.
4 Milk bread rolls (page 216) [see Yakisoba recipe] or store-bought mini hot dog rolls
1 tablespoon unsalted butter or margarine, softened
200 g (7 oz) dried spaghetti
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely sliced
125 ml (½ cup) tomato ketchup
125 ml (½ cup) tomato passata (pureed tomatoes)
chopped parsley, to garnish
Split the bread rolls in half and spread with the butter. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet, then drain.
Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat, then add the onion and garlic and cook until soft. Stir in the ketchup and passata. Add the cooked spaghetti to the frying pan and mix well. Divide the spaghetti napoletana between the rolls and top with parsley.
Note:
The napoletana rolls can be – and are usually – served cold.
“what could be better than a cursed island, some supernatural happenings, and the righting of centuries of social wrongs?”
“It was a ship from Virginia, called Venus and it had around 400 slaves on board, packed like sardines,” bookstore owner Bruce Cable tells Mercer Mann, a writer who is looking for a new book subject. “Well, it left Africa with 400 but not all made it. Many died at sea. The conditions on board were unimaginable, to say the least. Venus finally went down about a mile to sea near Cumberland Island. Since the slaves were chained and shackled, almost all of them drowned. A few clung to the wreckage and washed ashore in the storm on Dark Island, as it became known. Or Dark Isle. It was unnamed in 1760. They were taken in by runaways from Georgia, and together they built a little community. Two hundred years went by, everybody died or moved away and now it is deserted.”
One of the many facets of John Grisham’s enthralling fiction is his ability to take complex social issues and weave them into the fabric of his novels so that they make for a compelling read.
In Camino Ghosts, the third book in the Camino series, he does it again with his compelling story of Lovely Jackson, an 80-year-old Black woman who is determined to save Dark Isle, the now deserted island once settled by both shipwrecked Africans kidnapped into slavery and escaped slaves. Lovely is the last of those who settled on the island, and she stopped living there when she was 15, only returning to tend to the cemetery where her ancestors are buried.
For years no one wanted the island, an inaccessible and unfriendly barrier island of impenetrable jungle, poisonous snakes, and prowling panthers. But Hurricane Leo has changed the island’s topography and rabid land developers with politicians in their pocket see Dark Isle as the place to build a sprawling casino and resort complex.
But Lovely is determined, believing she is the sole owner of Dark Isle and the protector of her ancestors’ history and graves. She also happens to be the only one who can lift the curse of her great, great, great grandmother, Nalla, a woman who was kidnapped from her village in Africa, taken away from her husband and only child, chained in the hold of a ship as it crossed the Atlantic, and raped repeatedly by the crew members. No white man who has stepped on the island has survived.
Camino Ghosts is the third in the series about bookstore owner Bruce Cable, who likes fine wine, good food, pretty women (he and his wife, an importer of French antiques, have an open marriage), and books. But he is more than a bon vivant and purveyor of tomes, he likes to intervene in the island’s business to produce the best outcomes and is extremely supportive of his writers. Good at pulling strings, he is the force uniting the factions fighting the development and is also helping his former lover, Mercer Mann, a bestselling author with writer’s block, find her next subject. And what could be better than a cursed island, some supernatural happenings, and the righting of centuries of social wrongs?
“a compelling look at a dynamic trailblazer who broke into a field that was male dominated and leading the way for other women . . .”
“When Dana Walters found her husband ashen-faced and unconscious in their hotel bed, his bottle of sleeping pills emptied, she didn’t call an ambulance,” writes author Susan Page in The Rulebreaker, her biography of Barbara Walters. “She called their daughter.
“‘I can’t wake your father up,’ her mother said, her voice frantic. ‘He just won’t wake up!!’
“Barbara ran to the street and hailed a cab for the Hotel Navarro on Central Park South, a mile away where her parents were staying. When she got there, she tried to shake her unconscious father awake—Daddy, Daddy—she shouted—as her mother and sister watched. Jackie, who as always was living with her parents, didn’t fully understand what was happening, but she knew it was a crisis. Lou didn’t respond. Barbara was the one who called the ambulance.”
Walters was the daughter of a nightclub owner who at times was extremely successful and at other times was broke, his family caught up in a cycle of living high and barely scraping throughout Barbara Walters’s childhood. And though she was a journalist, her father’s showmanship was also part of her genetic make-up; and so when Lou Walters, after having his stomach pumped, was out of danger, she went into public relations mode.
“No one had to warn the daughter of Lou Waters about the perils of bad press. At the hospital once her father’s stomach had been pumped, she recognized the risk to his reputation in his future prospects if word got out he had tried to take his own life. . . . Sometimes bad news required a shiny finish.”
This brief description of a major family emergency succinctly highlights the aspects of Walters ‘s personality, a summation of all the components of what led her to be such an outstanding success. She was the one people turned to in crisis. And even though she was devastated and fearful of losing her father, she kept her cool, she evaluated, and then made her decisions about what was the course of action. But underneath it all, her formative years had instilled a sense of impending doom, an understanding that life could change in a nanosecond. But that anxiety didn’t stop her from breaking through the barriers that had kept women out of the coterie of male reporters who were seen as the only ones capable of relaying news with the gravity and seriousness required.
She was a “rulebreaker,” a woman who managed a somewhat complicated private life (divorces, affairs, and the like) while working toward her goals. Walters is famous for many things and among them are the number of big “gets,” interviews with famous people such as Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, John Wayne, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Fidel Castro, the Shah of Iran, Monica Lewinsky, Ted Turner, and Betty White.
Not only a rule breaker but a groundbreaker, when Walters was 67—retirement age for many—she created a new television show with The View, the first in what is now known as talk TV.
Page, the author of the New York Times bestselling Madame Chairand the award-winning Washington bureau chief of USA Today, interviewed more than 150 people for her book and did a deep dive in archival research. The result is a compelling look at a dynamic trailblazer who broke into a field that was male dominated and leading the way for other women including Oprah, who announced when she was seventeen that she wanted to be Barbara Walters.
Amber Patterson lied and seduced her way to displace Jackson Parrish’s wife Daphne, snagging the rich and ruthless millionaire to become his wife. But the passion that fueled their relationship barely lasted past the birth of their son Jax and by the time Jackson is sent to prison for tax evasion, and the money needed to fund their ultra-glamorous lifestyle has almost run out, Amber is plotting the next phase of her life. And it doesn’t include either Jackson or Jax, who she finds adorably cute but rather obnoxious in all his demands for her time and attention. But then what are live-in nannies for?
When Amber discovers the valuable diamonds Jackson had hidden away she thinks all her problems are solved. Even with an unknown provenance—these very rare stones net Amber $14 million and she still has a few secreted away for a rainy day.
That day may be coming sooner than she expects. She has her ticket to Paris booked and is planning on leaving the country before Jackson is released from prison. Unfortunately for her, Jackson gets home days early and discovering her plans, blackmails her into staying and helping him win back Daphne who has moved across country to protect their two daughters from their father.
But Jackson isn’t Amber’s only problem. She has risen from her blue-collar roots by guile and murder. She tried to trick a wealthy local man to marry her by getting pregnant and when he refused, she sets him up for a rape charge and sends him to prison. Stealing money from her parents, she jettisons the care of her young son (yes, her maternal instincts are nil) and finagles her way into marrying a rich older man who dies shortly afterward in a mysterious hunting accident. “I thought he was a deer,” she told the authorities. They believe her, but the man’s daughter, Daisy Ann, is on the hunt for evidence that it was no accident.
As if that wasn’t enough to fuel bad blood between the two women, Daisy Ann had her father change his will to protect the family fortune from his new wife. All that plotting for nothing. So when she snags Jackson, her next step is break into the high society of Bishop’s Harbor where Daphne reigned as queen. But when she is publicly humiliated by Daisy Ann who owns an exclusive line of handcrafted jewelry based upon her mother’s artistic designs, Amber becomes determined to acquire the business.
As if all this conniving isn’t enough, Amber and Jackson have set Daphne up to look like an addict who can’t adequately care for her children. When Jackson wins temporary custody, he forces Daphne to move back into the home they once shared. When she refuses to sleep with him, he makes it clear that her life depends upon her changing her mind.
Though The Next Mrs. Parrish is a sequel to the million-copy, bestselling Reese’s Book Club pick The Last Mrs. Parrish (also available on Audible), it also is a stand-alone novel. Full of the plot twists and turns that fans of Liv Constantine, the pen name of sisters Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine, have come to expect and they deliver.
The two sisters have produced a plethora of bestselling novels like The Stranger in the MirrorandThe Wife Stalker. And like those, this is a page turner and immensely readable.
Award-winning author and journalist Joseph S. Pete will appear at a Northwest Indiana bookstore to sign copies of his new history book, “Lost East Chicago and Indiana Harbor.”
Pete, a Lisagor Award-winning reporter and columnist, will do a book signing from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, July 20 at Miles Books at 2819 Jewett Avenue in Highland.
He will sign copies of his latest history book about East Chicago and copies of his other books “Lost Hammond, Indiana,” “Secret Northwest Indiana” and “100 Things to Do in Gary and Northwest Indiana Before You Die.” Pete also will sign copies of University of Arizona Professor and East Chicago native Gloria McMillan’s “Children of Steel” anthology about life in steel mill towns, which he contributed a short story to.
“Lost East Chicago and Indiana Harbor” chronicles the Indiana steel town on the shore of Lake Michigan in north Lake County just outside of Chicago that was a melting pot, drawing immigrants from all over the world to work at its bustling steel mills. As the population boomed in the early 20th century, East Chicago was home to more than 100 nationalities who came for the opportunities in a highly industrialized city that earned nicknames like “The Workshop of America,” the “Arsenal of America” and the “Industrial Capital of the World” while forging the steel that built up 20th-century America.
Home to one of the most storied basketball rivalries in the state, East Chicago was also known as “The City of Champions” as it produced several high school football and basketball championship teams, including the only two back-to-back undefeated basketball teams in state history and the only two athletes to compete in both the Final Four and World Series. East Chicago gave the world many greats like the NBA’s all-time winningest coach Gregg Popovich, the Milwaukee Bucks star and later corporate magnate Junior Bridgeman, the baseball speedster Kenny Lofton, the actress Betsy Palmer, the boxing legend Angel “El Diablo” Manfredy and the Academy Award-winning screenwriter Steve Tesich, who penned the classic sports film “Breaking Away.”
Pete’s new book is based in large part on interviews, including with Bridgeman, the state champion who went on to lead the Louisville Cardinals to the Final Four, get his number retired by and Bucks, and build a business empire that made him one of the wealthiest former athletes of all time.
“Lost East Chicago and Indiana Harbor” takes a fond look back at bygone landmarks like Washington and Roosevelt High Schools, Inland Steel Christmas parties, the Washington Park Zoo, Taco Joe’s, the Mademoiselle Shoppe, movie palaces like the Voge and the gym where Michael Jordan played his first Bulls game. It recounts planned worker communities like Sunnyside and Marktown, the English village designed by noted architect Howard Van Doren Shaw where people park on the sidewalks and walk in the street and that’s featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not and enshrined on the National Register of Historic Places.
Pete, who has covered East Chicago for a decade for The Times of Northwest Indiana, relates stories about the Katherine Home, St. Joseph’s Carmelite Home, Big House, bolita, the Wickey Mansion, the Tod Opera House, the Patrick machine and the Crazy Indiana Style Artists graffiti crew, which hung out with the acclaimed artist Keith Haring, appeared on network television, and went on to exhibit their artwork internationally. His book also explores industrial pollution, political corruption, and unsolved mysteries like the deaths of Jay Given and Henry Lopez and the disappearance of the soccer great William “Wee Willie” McLean.
“Lost East Chicago and Indiana Harbor” looks back at fondly remembered East Chicago intuitions like Albert’s, Dominic’s, Puntillo’s, Shrimp Harbor, Los Burritos, and El Patio Restaurant, as well as curiosities like the East Chicago Hermit and a mummy a local funeral home used to let kids see for a nickel. It also examines the city’s impact, such as producing Indiana’s first Latino elected official, the Hoosier State’s first and longest-running Mexican Independence parade, and the Midwest’s longest-running Mexican American–owned business, as well as the steel that helped shape America and countless other products.
Pete is an Indiana University graduate, a combat veteran and a board member of the Indiana Society of Professional Journalists and the Chicago Headline Club. He is a playwright and literary writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 literary journals, earning Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. He’s received many journalism awards, including from the Inland Press Association, the Hoosier State Press Association, the Chicago Journalists Association, Columbia University and the National Association of Real Estate Editors as well as local honors from the Indiana Small Business Development Center and the Duneland Chamber of Commerce.
For more information or an interview, contact Joseph S. Pete at 219.841.1030 or jpete@alumni.iu.edu.
“How far would you go for a friend in need if it meant your life and liberty might come crashing down upon you?”
“Jo crawls over the bench and squats beside me. One sharp yank get the motor going. ‘I’ll drive,” she says tightly. ‘Move to the middle. And keep an eye out for debris.’
“I crawl to the central bench and sink down. Jo turns us toward shore. Distant lights twinkle. Wind catches my hair.
“It’s a relief to be moving, to flush my lungs with cold air.
“I pull my hands into my sleeves. I’m wet through and chllled. My teeth chatter. For some minutes, we ride in silence.
“’Dana?’ Although she’s driving slowly we’ve started to bounce again. Jo sounds ill.
“’Did you love him?
“I look back over my shoulder, toward my huddled friend and the black knuckles of islands. I find the spot we left Stan. I bite my lip, hard and spin the way we’re headed.
“’Yes. I still love him.’”
Two best friends, always there for each other. When Jo is fired from her job and her husband files for divorce, empties their bank account, and leaves her and their daughter homeless, she turns to Dana, married to Stan and living the life of an affluent wife in a ritzy subdivision in Texas. Dana is there for her, encouraging Jo to move back to Texas and gets her a job at the posh private school her children attend, even though Jo is without references.
So, of course, when Dana calls in the middle of the night needing help, Dana gets into her dilapidated car with her daughter and speeds over. But while Jo’s situation had been dire, the trouble Dana is in takes it to a whole other level. She killed her husband during a domestic assault. Stan, she tells Jo, has been abusive throughout their marriage and she was defending herself. Is that true? It’s difficult to know at first.
Dana has lived a life many women dream of—a handsome, filthy rich husband, a beautiful house, three children, and all the accoutrements that go with such a set-up. But Jo owes Dana big time and though she wants to call the police, Dana begs her to help dispose of the body. So the two trundle Stan down stairs and into a boat, weigh the body down, and drop him in the water and then return to the house to scrub, hopefully, everything clean. Exhausted, Jo gets her sleeping daughter into the car to head home and accidentally blows a stop sign causing a speeding motorist to swerve and hit a pedestrian walking her dog. He speeds on but Jo stops and calls 911 though she knows it will tie her to a location near Dana’s home.
It is not a good evening any way you look at it, but what will happen next will only get worse as Jo and Dana seem to be surrounded by vultures including malicious gossiping neighbors, zealous cops wanting to crack the case, and a blackmailer. Will the two women, who have known each other for 30 years, withstand all these external forces coupled with their own horror at what happened and what they’ve done?
Friendship is one thing but author Elka Ray, who was born in Canada, raised in the United Kingdom, and now lives in Central Vietnam, writes suspense novels, often with a touch of noir and poses intricate questions and situations. Her previous books include Divorce is Murder and Killer Coin. In her latest, A Friend Indeed (Blackstone Publishing), she asks, How far would you go for a friend in need if it meant your life and liberty might come crashing down upon you?
The Book Stall (811 Elm Street in Winnetka) on Tuesday, July 16that 4:30 PM is hosting a fun and informative afternoon program with middle-grade author Carolyn Armstrong. She will be discussing her new book, No Time to Waste, a heartfelt eco-adventure about youth activism and the complexities of climate change. The exciting second installment in the award-winning “Eco Warriors” series will transform readers’ eco-anxiety into eco-action, inspiring a new generation of youth activists. You can make a difference! This book is perfect for kids ages 9 to 12.
There will be a trivia contest, with prizes, and eco-friendly refreshments will be served!
This event is free with registration. To register, please CLICK HERE.
The series follows 11-year-old twins Sydney and Sierra — and their talking animal friends — on their missions to tackle the greatest threats to wild habitats. This time, the twins head to the coast for an adventure that highlights ocean plastic pollution, its effects on marine mammals, and the power small actions have in making a difference.
Fresh from their Arctic adventure of saving polar bears, Sydney and Sierra visit a sea kelp habitat off the coast of California. While scuba diving, the girls are enlisted to rescue an animal in trouble. Sydney’s animal contact, a sea otter named Sunny, tells them that ocean plastic pollution has entangled another otter, and it needs immediate help.
Even if the girls can release the otter from its plastic prison, there’s a much greater threat in the ocean. Together, they’ll have to use all of their wits, ingenuity and determination to somehow help their animal friends. But as they try — and fail again and again — Sydney has a sinking feeling that she’s in over her head. One thing is clear: there’s literally no time to waste.
Author Carolyn Armstrong — environmentalist and former educator —blends her love of travel and animal well-being into the Eco Warriors series, encouraging readers of all ages to be advocates for planet Earth.
NO TIME TO WASTE — as well as Armstrong’s previous book, AT THE EDGE OF THE ICE — will transform young readers’ eco-anxiety into eco-action, inspiring a new generation of youth activists.
Praise is already rolling in for NO TIME TO WASTE!
“The dynamics of twin sisters with contrasting personalities, nosy parents, new content-specific vocabulary, and imminent danger will keep readers on the edge of their seats and, by the end, convert them into allies of ocean conservation.” —Bibi Belford, Christopher award-winning author of Crossing the Line, Canned and Crushed, and Another D for DeeDee (Kirkus Star)
“Armstrong hooks her audience with the novel’s conflict and leaves them with tangible ways to positively impact the planet.” — Meaghan H., a middle school teacher from Evanston, IL
NO TIME TO WASTE is available on Amazon and other popular retail outlets where books are sold.
AUTHOR BIO
Carolyn Armstrong is the award-winning author of Earth-friendly middle-grade fiction. A former educator and now an imperfect environmentalist, she blends her love of travel and animal well-being into her stories. She encourages everyone to be advocates for planet Earth. It’s as easy as refusing a plastic drinking straw (and doing it every single time).
Carolyn has received multiple awards for excellence in independent publishing, including the National Indie Excellence Award and the Spark Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). At the Edge of the Ice made the 2024 Green Earth Book Awards’ Recommended Reading List for best environmental literature for children and young adults.
Head to www.ckabooks.com to sign up for her monthly newsletter called The Earth-Friendly Edition for People Who Love the Planet. Also on the website: an educator guide, free downloads, blog posts, author visits, and more!
Shelf Life 