Glory Days
by Melissa Fraterrigo
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Pub Date Sep 01 2017 | Archive Date Sep 29 2017
Description
Best Fiction Books of 2017 by Chicago Review of Books
One of 19 Books You Should Read This September by Chicago Review of Books
The small plains town of Ingleside, Nebraska, is populated by down-on-their-luck ranchers and new money, ghosts and seers, drugs and greed, the haves and the have-nots. Lives ripple through each other to surprising effect, though the connections fluctuate between divisive gulfs and the most intimate closeness. At the center of this novel is the story of Teensy and his daughter, Luann, who face the loss of their land even as they mourn the death of Luann’s mother. On the other end of the spectrum, some townspeople find enormous wealth when developers begin buying up acreages. When Glory Days—an amusement park—is erected, past and present collide, the attachment to the land is fully severed, and the invading culture ushers in even darker times.
In Glory Days Melissa Fraterrigo combines gritty realism with magical elements to paint an arrestingly stark portrait of the painful transitions of twenty-first-century, small-town America. She interweaves a slate of gripping characters to reveal deeper truths about our times and how the new landscape of one culture can be the ruin of another.
Read the author's discussion guide.
Advance Praise
“Melissa Fraterrigo’s novel strikes with the unexpected force of a summer tornado. . . . Characters worthy of a Flannery O’Connor story struggle and self-medicate to make sense of lives marked by loss, violence, and despair. These characters yearn for one another, across time, even across death, and they take comfort in the past and in one another, however fragile their connections.”—Bonnie Jo Campbell, National Book Award finalist and author of Mothers, Tell Your Daughters
“Spinning through a series of unforgettable characters, each lured by a sense of freedom, violence, or the need to belong, these stories surprise us, echo with significance, and draw together to paint a complicated portrait of a place about to be lost.”—Michelle Hoover, author of The Quickening and Bottomland
“Melissa Fraterrigo’s people will brand an impression upon your soul. . . . She knows her land and its people, their struggles, conflicts, ways of survival and ruin, but most of all the roots to family, and wanting to escape that family. Her people are forever stained by their upbringing, memories, and consequences of choice. Melissa’s stories are a powerful reminder of what it means to be human.”—Frank Bill, author of Crimes in Southern Indiana
“Glory Days is a tender and tragic portrayal of small-town life, filled with beautifully flawed characters whose voices are unforgettable. From this fascinating cast, we hear about the economic trials of farming, the realities of poverty, the solace of land. From calving season to an amusement park, this novel takes us on a journey that’s told with generosity of spirit and a true tenderness for the land and people. A beautiful book.”—Laura Pritchett, author of Stars Go Blue
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781496201324 |
| PRICE | $19.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 180 |
Links
Featured Reviews
Whitney A, Reviewer
A solid 3.5 stars.
A very honest and real book.
The writing style of Glory Days is described in its synopsis as "gritty realism," and I could not think of a more perfect description.
Fraterrigo does a fantastic job exposing the seamy underside of the places in America that have undergone drastic change--from antiquated and comfortable to modern and unfamiliar--and have emerged battered, broken, and looking nothing like they once did. The same goes for the people who inhabit these places; either they have accepted the changes and work with them, like Teensy did, or they have fought against the inevitable metamorphosis of their hometown and are bitter, greedy, and spiteful, like Luann was.
Much of the theme of this book, in my opinion, revolves around self-entitlement, and this further plays into the book's grittiness.
Many of the characters let bitterness accompany the modernity that swept across Ingleside, and as a result, it transformed them into people who grew accustomed to taking what they wanted without considering others--although, in their defense, I suppose, they felt their actions were justified due to the fact that their once familiar way of life was taken from them by the money hungry real estate developers who came in and bought up most of Ingleside's fertile farmland.
There were definitely characters in Glory Days who were more broken and selfish (Footer and Luann) than the rest, while others had good intentions at heart, even if they sometimes made the wrong choices, particularly when it came to raising their children (Fredonia and Teensy).
And that's another major theme of the book--parenthood, all the ways parenting can go wrong, and the often devastating and lasting effects that poor parenting choices can have on the next generation.
Although the book had its fair share of darkness, there were parts that were more uplifting...(view spoiler). But for me, the brilliance behind the book was that it could be argued that the so-called uplifting parts were not much better than the darker parts. (view spoiler).
Themes aside, I enjoyed the fact that the book revolved around the amusement park Glory Days--an idea that, thankfully, has not yet been done to death in books--and that the park was what shaped many of the people of Ingleside, for better or for worse.
In the end, Glory Days is a book that highlights the flawed nature of humans and the choices they make in order to survive their circumstances and surroundings.
*Note: This ARC was kindly provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.*
Librarian 391714
The best part of this book was the setting being around the Glory Days amusement park. It was intriguing and described well. The characters were lacking in descriptions and emotional range. While Fraterrigo created an interesting dynamic it just didn't hold up.
Stella G, Reviewer
Maybe because I'm from a small town, but I'm always a sucker for books with small towns. Glory Days is a fantastic book from Melissa Fraterrigo, exposing the seedy, gritty side of a small town.
Told from various points of view, this is a visual book. You clearly see the town and the people and the life. You feel their pain, their love and their heartbreak.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
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