AT THE LIBRARY
New items are available at the Hancock County Public Library.
The following items are available at Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road. For more information on the library’s collection or to reserve a title, visit hcplibrary.org.
{span style=”text-decoration: underline;”}Adult Fiction{/span}
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“A Prayer for Travelers” by Ruchika Tomar
In this debut novel, Ruchika Tomar explores the legacy of the American West. Cale Lambert, a bookish loner of unknown parentage, lives in a dusty town near the California-Nevada border, a place where coyotes scavenge for backyard dogs, and long-haul truckers scavenge for pills and girls. Cale was raised by her grandfather in a loving, if codependent, household, but as soon as she leaves high school, his health begins to decline. Set adrift for the first time, Cale waitresses at the local diner, where she reconnects with Penélope Reyes, a charismatic former classmate with a dubious side-hustle to fund her dreams. Penny exposes Cale to the reality that exists beyond their small town, and the girls become inseparable — until an act of violence shatters their world. When Penny vanishes without a trace, Cale must set off on a quest across the desert to find her friend and discover herself.
{span style=”text-decoration: underline;”}Adult Nonfiction{/span}
“Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood” by Maureen Stanton
For Maureen Stanton’s proper Catholic mother, the town’s maximum security prison was a way to keep her seven children in line (“If you don’t behave, I’ll put you in Walpole Prison!”). But as the 1970s bring upheaval to America, and the line between good and bad blurs, Stanton’s once-solid family loses its way. A promising young girl with a smart mouth, Stanton turns watchful as her parents separate and her now single mother descends into shoplifting, then grand larceny, anything to keep a toehold in the middle class for her children. No longer scared by threats of Walpole Prison, Stanton too slips into delinquency — vandalism, breaking and entering — all while nearly erasing herself through addiction to angel dust, a homemade form of PCP that sweeps through her hometown in the wake of Nixon’s war on drugs.
