I am informed right up front that this is NO LONGER PROPERTY OF EUREKA-HUMBOLDT LIBRARY. So my volume has been across the whole nation to get into my hot little hands! And how do I repay it? By reading it two years ago and taking copious notes and then never writing anything down. Oh yeah, we’re deep in the weeds here. I am going to attempt to remember my thoughts by reading the notes that I vaguely scrawled in the margins as I read. I am not optimistic…
Chapter One is a lot of exposition. The Campbell children (or teens, Sandra is a college freshman, Josie is fifteen and I think by now Tenny is eleven, or maybe he is always eleven, he seems very eleven all the time) are living with their grandmother in Crawfordsville, I mean Wallaceville, Indiana. They are poor and smushed into a little apartment because their parents are selfish mutton heads who think only of themselves and their own creative pleasures. Sandra has a beau named Jay who lives in New Jersey and is ITALIAN! He’s so exotic! He is at Princeton and quite rich and wants Sandra to marry him right now because sometimes early marriage is okay if you know it is for real love and Janet Lambert sanctions it.
Grandma loves having the kids around, but Sandra is mopey, Josie is making the best of things and Tenny is eleven-ing. I think Sandra needs some new dresses to be able to attend dances to make sure Jay is the one for her, but I find her so dull I can’t really keep track.
In Chapter Two the drama starts right up! There’s a bit of Josie worrying that Sandra can’t join a sorority because their clothes suck, but then she remembers that her mom is a semi-famous artist and she has a bunch of pictures she can sell to finance Sandra’s glow up. When Josie gets to school Janet points out all that she loves and has her think, “My country gave these to me…My country wants me to have the best.” I mean, it is true, but Janet is SO in love with America, it doesn’t feel like something a fifteen-year-old would think of.
There is going to be a play! An alumna of the high school who is a director in Chicago is doing a try-out of a play that her friend has written and the senior class is going to do it, by force if necessary. (Unless they are on the baseball or track teams because, boys.)
Josie has no plans to audition for a lead like her friend Carola, so she helps Carola with her English accent, but Carola sucks, Josie is compelled to audition by the director and she kills it. Carola is pissed, but Josie begs her not to be mad and says that the horribly named Teal Landis will probably get the lead anyway and please don’t be mad because she has never had friends before and doesn’t want to lose any because of a part she doesn’t even want! There is a nice bit of possible foreshadowing. “Because of not knowing that some girls get over being mad when it suits their purpose, and never having encountered feminine rivalry, she had not thought of Carole’s being insincere.” And since it has been over 2 years since I read it, I can’t remember if this comes up or if Teal is the bitch-baddie we always get. So excited to find out!
Chapter Three we meet Mike (Anna Harding) McCabe. She is a poor little rich girl who has five popular older sisters and just wants to be a boy. She falls in love with Josie immediately. Or in Janet universe, she is a tomboy who needs a friend. I mean, both of these things could be true. At any rate, she is a delight, drives a pony cart and is every bit the iconoclast that Josie is. She and Josie set about selling the paintings.
Chapter Four is the callbacks for the play and since the paintings are selling and the Campbells are now going to be conveniently loaded, Josie can actually afford to take a lead part. And she gets it, because she is awesome. I asked myself in my notes at the top of the chapter if Josie was a manic pixie dream girl and I think we all know she is, but I still love her. The BMOC, Barry Considine will be playing Ronald MacDonald, the romantic lead, not the hamburger clown. Barry offers to drive Josie home and is stunned to be turned down for Mike’s pony cart. That’s how they get you, Barry.
Chapter Five opens with me getting a little weepy. Josie is telling Sandra about their windfall and she says, “We’re Americans at last!” and when Sandra asks for clarification she says, “ Why, we’re in things, silly. We belong to things. No more reefing sails and staring lonesomely at miles and miles of water, no more sitting in the prow of the Pakhoi, etching other kids to go yacht-club dances, no more wishing and aching for friends.” Poor Jo, didn’t even know how lonely she was, the way Sandra did.
And I have to say, Janet is really great at big picture propaganda. Her details are sometimes off, but she can define a teenage problem really well. Barry invites Josie to run lines and when she meets him at the library she finds he has brought a wingman, the deplorable Hazlitt Aleshire who has the undeniably cool nickname Haze, but is a giggler - “the high-pitched, constant kind”. So gross. They work on the script until the library closes. Barry has to go off to another date and Haze is supposed to see Josie home. She tells him there is no need, she has her trusty roller skates with her. But even though earlier in the evening he told Barry, “She’s a dim-wit if I ever saw one” he seems reluctant to let her go off on her own. But apparently his only purpose is to teach her about high school jealousy and let her know that Ruthie is going to want to kick her ass. Helpful, Haze, you jerk. Josie is freaking out, but Sandra calms her down, saying, “Gossip and troublemaking come easy to some people [She’s looking at you, HAZE] but that doesn’t mean they’re founded on facts.” Josie decides she is just going to hang with Mike. Solid plan, Josie.
Chapter Six is more of Josie being awesome. She confronts Ruthie in the kindest possible way and lets her know that she is only interested in Barry as a scene partner. And Janet gets some more licks in on the evils of going steady. Then Haze and Hal horn in on Mike and Josie’s date to drive out in the country. When Haze and Mike amuse themselves swinging on a vine, Josie attempts to get to know Hal. At first he is a jerk and barely engages in the conversation. But when he realizes that Jo is actually interested in getting to know him, he thaws. At one point he says, “I’m retarded” as he discusses his struggles in math and it is quite a punch. Nice that that word is so far from common use that it stands out like that, but weird to see it again. He talks of his plans to join the military and eventually be a gentleman farmer. Josie talks of her dream of having a house full of Campbells, kittens and fun.
Chapter Seven begins with Tenny earning my undying love by telling Josie, "I couldn't have stood the creep that giggles all the time or that grouchy character.” Someday, as God as my witness, Tenny, I will figure out how old you actually are. (Okay, just read the first intros again, he is 10, but in 8th grade. So mature!)
Jay is coming for a visit and apparently that means that clothes are important. I am so glad I only care if my clothes are comfy and cover most of my hinder. Also, the Phi Kappa Thetas are desperate for Sandra to join them and they help her put her money worries, and Josie worries, to rest by getting her work study jobs and promising to rush Josie so that she and Sandra can live together next year at college. They are nice sorority girls!
Chapter Eight is just about how horrible those parents are. Sure, they are smart and creative but they are clueless about their children to the point that it isn’t even entertaining. They sent a letter saying that not only are they not coming to Josie’s graduation, but they expect the kids to come down to Haiti to sail with them all summer. They are just the worst. Also, Hal likes Josie, but is clueless about the fact that she is not in the boy business.
In Chapter Nine, Jay saves the day with a great idea. He and Sandra and Josie are going to go to Haiti and sail the folks back to New York. Tenny will stay with Grandma’s tennants (cousins I think) who are childless and like his weird energy. And Josie is inviting Mike to come with! They are the best of friends and it is adorable. And there is a nice bit about how for the next month, until they leave, Mike will be the center of her family’s attention, perhaps for the first time. Josie decides she doesn’t want to go directly to college at 16 and will stay in New York and be her father’s typist and go to museums. She loves those dreadful parents.
And also Sandra is crowned queen of the May or something. And Tenny is doing some middle school Skibide-toilet precurson rhyming slang.
Chapter Ten has Sandra swooning over the idea that she has been to a dance. And Jay was a delight. Jo is getting all kinds of attention now that everyone knows she’s Haiti-bound. Ruthie and Barry have had a fight and now he is making a play for Josie at rehearsal and she is having none of it. She thinks going steady is stupid and is horrified that Ruthie and Barry’s folks are on the fence about them going to college together, married. And it occurs to me that my grandparents were not supportive of my Dad and my Mom going steady and I have the letter where he apologizes to her for it. What a treasure! Anyhoo, back to the fiction…
We find out in an aside that Hal’s father beats on him - perhaps it’s metaphor? So Barry ends up really asking Josie for advice and she basically tells him that if he’s too stupid to figure this out on his own, he’s too stupid for a wife. Which is pretty solid advice. He tries to get back in with his gang of bros, but they have dates and stuff and he is left alone to contemplate his fate.
Chapter Eleven starts with Ruthie just freaking debasing herself, asking Josie to pity date Barry to the senior picnic so he won’t date Teal. It’s sad and Janet does a great job of showing how pushing relationships can be terrible. Everyone gets their costumes and complains about it, except Josie who remains a delight. Then Barry asks her to the picnic and she says yes, but when he wants to hang out she says no and goes to find Haze because “Hazlitt’s giggle was more pleasant to listen to than Barry’s troubles.” HA!
At the picnic a “blubbery” boy (oh, Janet… you just hate the fat so much…) puts a snake down Josie’s top when she is trying to keep him from being horrible and she ends up taking him down in a completely badass way. Afterwards, she takes the little snake into the woods to set it free and also barfs from the experience, but no one sees. And Barry comes to tell her that she is awesome and he is going to try to be less of a jerk. Fingers crossed!
Chapter Twelve is all about Josie’s nerves about the play. Mike is concerned that they have too many clothes for the boat, but Josie reassures them that it will be fine because she knows that they are in love with the clothes (and the attention). Jo is FREAKING OUT over the play. Everyone is trying to distract her, Hal whines about joining the army, Mike is getting Pet shod, it’s all go. Haze and Barry come to get vines because the playwright, Miss Skinner has said that the set is all wrong, and Josie helps and that takes her mind off it. But she is still sure she is going to mess it all up. Spoiler: she does not.
Chapter Thirteen is why I love Janet Lambert so much. She perfectly captures what it is like to be in a high school play. The nerves, the rallying, the feeling that you want to do it again and again. She talks about the aftermath and how the girls in the dressing room tell each other how amazing they are as “the swarming bees of compliments began to fly again.” It is just perfect. Josie is transendent and nobody else messes up too much.
Chapter 14 is the last one and it starts on a high note as Jay talks to Sandra asking if it is okay if Scott sails with them. It’s a hard no from Sandra. The girls are about to leave for the airport and everyone wants to say goodbye. There is some nice time with Grandma telling the girls how proud she is of them and all Josie’s classmates come by the house to wave them off. And away they go. It’s kind of abrupt, but my favorite line is “She and Josie were going down to Haiti, not to depend on their parents, but to get them back where they belonged.” Even Janet knows that they are disappointing parents. But their kids are all right!
