Cinnamon Girl
Lawrence Kessenich
North Star Press
2016
Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she heard the
author read from it, and was intrigued by the story of a young man who falls in
love with his friend’s wife. She didn’t know that the title, CINNAMON GIRL, is
the name of a Neil Young song. Ms. Hen is not a big Neil Young fan, but she
listened to the song, and it makes her think of the summertime haze of years
past.
This novel is about nineteen year old John Meyer, during the
late Sixties, who meets Tony, then his wife Claire, and their son Jonah, and
becomes friends with them. John is smitten with Claire at first sight, even
though she is married. They hang out in their apartment, smoke pot and get to
know each other over a few months.
John is caught stealing an 89-cent book from the college
bookstore. He has a hearing and is sentenced to community
service. He doesn’t get along well with his family: his father and he differ on
political issues, such as Vietnam. They have a generation gap, the father
thinks that he knows more about the way things are in the world than the son,
but the son understands that everything is changing, and wants to have a say
about the way the world is going to be.
Eventually John moves in with his friends, Tony and Claire,
and another man, Jonathan. The group drinks a lot and smokes a lot of pot
during the first few months they lived together. But the Kent State murder
happens. And everything changes for John. He decides that he wants to get
involved with the student strike at his college, and helped organize the
protest, and led discussion groups about the war in Vietnam. John’s
relationship with Claire comes to life when the strike is happening; two worlds
come crashing together. He doesn’t want to get arrested again, because he is
still on parole, so he is careful.
Ms. Hen admired the characters in this novel. It seems to
her as if the youth in the 1960s had conviction, that they wanted to
change things, and they were mad as hell that they didn’t have control of their
own destinies, such as the draft. Ms. Hen wishes that young people, and
everyone today would be as angry and provoked as the people in the Sixties. She
thinks that the tipping point has come in this country, and everyone with intelligence is going to start making waves again, and
doing things to make the world a better place.
Ms. Hen thinks that right now is a perfect time to read a
novel like this, one that’s about fighting the people in power, and trying to
make our voices heard. The hippies in the Sixties had great ideas, but they
didn’t take their ideas far enough. Ms. Hen wants to take her ideas farther
than any hen has.
Ms. Hen found a couple of chickens in this novel. John and
Claire make dinner together, “…stood at her elbow as we fried chicken, tossed
salad, and mashed potatoes, sat across from her at the table, so I could stare
into her deep green eyes while we ate.” Also when Claire gets angry at John, “
‘It’s not what you say, but how you say it. You puff up your chest like a
rooster. You really think you’re the cock of the walk since you fucked me,
don’t you?’” Ms. Hen admires Claire for saying what she feels.
Ms. Hen enjoyed this novel. She was engrossed by the story
of a man living in a different time, but with the same kind of problems
that all young people face. Ms. Hen couldn’t help but think that the Sixties
were a raucous age, when nobody knew what the future held, but we never know
what will come. We still live in a precarious era, but Ms. Hen thinks the world
will survive, or she at least hopes it will.
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