{"id":98815,"date":"2020-08-13T01:17:50","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T06:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=98815"},"modified":"2020-08-12T23:24:26","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T04:24:26","slug":"local-author-lisa-howorths-latest-novel-summerlings-is-on-shelves-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/local-author-lisa-howorths-latest-novel-summerlings-is-on-shelves-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Author Lisa Howorth\u2019s Latest Novel, “Summerlings,” Is On Shelves Now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s been a highly weird summer with a lot of uncertainty to come. Why not distract yourself with a good book?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dubbed \u201ca vibrantly voiced, heartfelt, and charming Cold War coming-of-age story,\u201d Lisa Howorth<\/strong>\u2019s Summerlings<\/em><\/strong> is available now at Square Books<\/a><\/strong> and various other merchants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is Howorth\u2019s second novel, and she has contributed widely to both Garden & Gun<\/em><\/strong> and Oxford American<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Grisham called Summerlings<\/em> \u201ca story rich in local color, humor, outrageous characters, and with a wicked plot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her own words, Howorth describes the book: \u201cSummerlings<\/em> is a simple historical novel set in Washington, D.C. in 1959 in a neighborhood similar to the one I grew up in. Our street was a Whitman\u2019s Sampler of families: Austrian Jewish refugees from Anschluss, Latin American diplomats, A Dutch general and Nazi sympathizer, possible CIA and FBI operatives, a goddess-like Ukrainian refugee supporter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

To a gang of crazy kids, and to the adults as well, nothing is as it seems, and everything is colored by a WWII hangover, causing rumors and mistrust. It\u2019s the Cold War, and there is fear about The Bomb, spies, and Communism, especially when a strange insect plague spreads across the city, and a mysterious death occurs in the \u2018hood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The kids try to navigate all this, plotting in the wacky, Lord-of-the-Flies way kids will, hoping to fix things. The book is a good read for this time; a dark but amusing distraction from the awfulness we feel now. Some political issues resonate today, but I think serve to comfort readers by showing that there have been other frightening times, and we do come through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a bit of lagniappe to the novel, Howorth has constructed a playlist of songs that color her novel. “In trying to write a historical novel, it\u2019s so important to be able to re-create a time and place, and nothing gets you there faster than tapping into the popular culture: films and TV, vernacular speech, clothing, food, political and social issues, kids\u2019 games, advertising, cars, and music\u2013all of that,” Howorth writes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These things seemed particularly important to me for evoking the 1950s, when America was changing so fast post-World War II. And nothing was changing more thrillingly than the music of that time\u2013pop music became the soundtrack for every day!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can listen to the soundtrack on Spotify<\/strong><\/a>, or at KnopfDoubleDay.com<\/strong><\/a>, which includes Howorth’s own commentary for each track, explaining its significance to the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a highly weird summer with a lot of uncertainty to come. Why not distract yourself with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14439],"tags":[7493,602,14838],"class_list":["post-98815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-books","tag-lisa-howorth","tag-square-books","tag-summerlings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2019-07-31-Lisa-Howorth.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}