"Detroit Shuffle"

D. E. Johnson, a graduate of Central Michigan University, is a history buff who has been writing fiction since childhood. He comes by his interest in automotive history through his grandfather, who was the vice president of Checker Motors. Johnson's books include The Detroit Electric Scheme, Motor City Shakedown, and Detroit Breakdown.

Johnson applied the Page 69 Test to Detroit Shuffle, the fourth volume of his Detroit Mysteries, and reported the following:

From page 69:

CHAPTER EIGHT

Wednesday, October 16, 1912

We were looking through the cabinets in the kitchen when Detective Riordan asked, “You said he lived elsewhere, correct?”

I answered without thinking. “I think so. Sapphira said he was hiding here.”

When Riordan didn’t respond, I turned around. He was staring at me, eyes narrowed, concentration deadly.

“What?” I asked.

“Sapphira Xanakis?” His voice was soft, but it carried the weight of the world.

Perhaps it was sleep deprivation, but I hadn’t thought about the implications of mentioning her to Detective Riordan. “Yes.”

“She’s in town?”

“Well . . . yes, but let me explain.”

“The Sapphira Xanakis who was John Cooper’s accomplice in the murders of Elizabeth’s father and Wesley McRae? The Sapphira Xanakis who helped Cooper nearly kill Elizabeth?”

“And me. Yes, but she’s not—”

“First of all, I don’t hold nearly killing you against anyone. The whole thing was your fault. Second”— he put his hands on his hips and squared himself to me—“are you out of your goddamn mind?”

This is an early moment of the murder investigation, and Will has let the cat out of the bag on an important secret. Detective Riordan wants to catch Sapphira Xanakis, a nemesis from The Detroit Electric Scheme. Will’s gut says to trust her, but he’s still trying to decide how far he can.

This book is all about trust and credibility, with Will’s behavior under suspicion because of a brain trauma, every other character with a hidden agenda other than Elizabeth Hume, who Will desperately wants to protect from a murderer, and (not surprisingly) seemingly every politician on Detroit on the take.

1912 was a tough year in Detroit politics. First, seventeen members of the city council were arrested for accepting bribes in a huge sting operation, then “Big Liquor” succeeded in their conspiracy to beat the woman’s suffrage amendment on Michigan’s ballot, with much of their activity centered in the city.

These two incidents take center stage in the book, as Will sorts through the criminals, trying to save Elizabeth from a threat only he believes in.

Learn more about the book and author at D.E. Johnson's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Motor City Shakedown.

The Page 69 Test: Detroit Breakdown.

My Book, The Movie: Detroit Breakdown.

--Marshal Zeringue

"At the Bottom of Everything"

Ben Dolnick is the author of three novels: Zoology, You Know Who You Are, and the newly released At the Bottom of Everything. His writing has appeared in the New York Times and on NPR.

Dolnick applied the Page 69 Test to At the Bottom of Everything and reported the following:

Page 69 of my book comes right at a point where to give too much context would spoil the plot. So, I'll just say that the narrator, Adam, is recalling a particularly difficult experience he had about a decade before, when he was a teenager:

The worst of my suffering in those next few days -- which felt like being poisoned, a freezing empty charge moving through me -- came over me maybe once an hour, whether I was awake or asleep, helping to stack the nap mats at work or standing in the corner of my bedroom talking to Thomas on the phone. Each time I'd think: I can't tolerate it, I'm going insane. This must be why people turn themselves in for things. But then it would... not pass, exactly, but slip back into some more inner part of my nervous system, leaving me sore and shaken, and I'd think, OK, I'll survive, it won't ever feel that bad again, and I'd try to more or less go about my life until it happened again.

The question of sanity -- what it feels like to go insane, the ways in which peoples' minds torment and trick them -- is a fairly important one throughout the book. Adam, the narrator, is ostensibly sane (he goes to India to see if he can rescue a friend who's gone off the rails), but as you can see in this passage, sanity can be a fairly tenuous thing.

Learn more about the book and author at Ben Dolnick's website.

Writers Read: Ben Dolnick.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The House of Journalists"

Tim Finch works for a London think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research. He was a BBC political journalist and is a former director of communications for the Refugee Council.

Finch applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, The House of Journalists, and reported the following:

Here’s how page 69 of The House of Journalists starts.

We reached the regional capital without incident, but the city was tensile with fear. There were reports of rebel forces advancing and there was dwindling confidence that the central government could hold this Northern outpost – or even that it wanted to.

Much of the novel is made up of gripping stories of refugee flight and on page 69 the reader is following a character called Adom in the latter stages of his escape into exile after a genocidal uprising against the corrupt government he has supported.

There were desperate scenes at the airstrip. Shots had to be fired to disperse the crowds so that I and my small party could get through. Angry, desperate, weeping people chased the plane along the red dirt runway. We banked out into a biblical storm; lightning forked down into the black turbulence of the great lake and electrified the jag-toothed mountains. This was the last view I had of my beloved home region. It was as if God was punishing it for its sins.

The immediate drama of this episode is broken at this point (a frequent technique in the novel which is fragmentary, rather than linear, in structure) as Adom reflects on his telling of the story.

I will admit that I crafted it with an eye to Western sensibilities and assumptions, painting the bigger picture in bold blacks and whites, but at the same time placing myself at the centre of the moral complexities, admitting my mistakes and weaknesses, in a way that some in my continent, never mind my country, found naïve, even dangerous. I always had confidence, however, that it would do me credit in the long run. I bank on it still, knowing that a most important telling is to come: before the tribunal.

Here we get to the heart of what The House of Journalists is all about – the ownership and trustworthiness of stories. Each ‘fellow’ of the House knows that his or her story is their most precious possession and their safety depends to a great extent on the effectiveness of their telling of it. And yet around them constantly are people, who may or may not have their best interests in mind, who are trying to re-craft or even requisition these stories.

Visit Tim Finch's Twitter perch, and learn more about The House of Journalists.

Writers Read: Tim Finch.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Impersonator"

Mary Miley is the winner of the 2012 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Novel Competition. She grew up in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and France, and worked her way through the College of William and Mary in Virginia as a costumed tour guide at Colonial Williamsburg. After completing her masters in history, she worked at the museum and taught American history at Virginia Commonwealth University. As Mary Miley Theobald, she has published numerous nonfiction books and articles on history, travel, and business topics.

She applied the Page 69 Test to The Impersonator, her first novel, and reported the following:

All right, I cheated. It starts on 69 and falls into 70. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have made any sense. Even then, it needs explaining ... The main character is talking to her phony uncle Oliver, the unscrupulous man who has hired her to play his long-lost niece so he can get hold of her inheritance. She’s asking him about the original search for the missing girl, seven years earlier. It’s a significant passage because it shows Oliver’s ruthlessness for the first time—he’s been relatively nice up until now. The actress portraying Jessie realizes she could be in danger from Oliver as well as from whoever has killed the heiress—if, indeed, the heiress is really dead. She may have run away seven years ago and be planning to return on her 21st birthday, which falls in just a couple weeks.

“A few days ago, I walked along the cliff south of the house. When Jessie went missing, did they search all those crevices along the edge?”

“Naturally. They even lowered lanterns to the bottom of the deeper ones. Why do you ask?”

“I think Jessie’s dead.”

“I told you that in Omaha.”

“I think she was killed.”

“A distinct possibility,” he said carelessly. I hated him.

“I think she stumbled into something criminal and was murdered, like the Indian girl.”

“Are you going ga-ga on me? That dead squaw has nothing to do with Jessie. It was some tribal feud.”

“That’s just what the lazy sheriff said to avoid an investigation.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I talked to some of her people on the reservation a few days ago. I rode over with the stable boy.”

His eyes narrowed as he contemplated that. “You’ve been snooping?”

“A Chinese girl was also strangled a few years ago along Dexter’s waterfront. Her father believes she was involved in something illegal. I talked to him this afternoon. I’m sure these two murders are related, and I think Jessie’s disappearance is too. Dexter is a pretty small town to have three young women killed in a seven-year span. It can’t be coincidence.”

Oliver hoisted his bulk from behind the desk and transported himself to my side. His face grew mottled with the effort of controlling his rage, and his breathing became uneven. “You unspeakable little tramp. How dare you traipse around playing detective? Your job is to impersonate my niece, not to stir up trouble all over town.”

Without warning, he slapped me. Twice. Hard.

“I don’t give a tinker’s damn about who’s dead and who’s not, but I know someone who is going to be dead very soon if she doesn’t play the part she was hired to play.”

And when I’d finished playing that part, when Oliver’s pudgy fingers were securely wrapped around a large chunk of Carr money, would he decide that a dead accomplice was safer than a live one?

Learn more about the book and author at Mary Miley's website, blog, and Facebook page.

Writers Read: Mary Miley.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Mykonos After Midnight"

The New York Times praised Jeffrey Siger's work as “thoughtful police procedurals set in picturesque but not untroubled Greek locales,” the Greek press described him as “prophetic,” and Eurocrime called him a “very gifted American author...on a par with other American authors such as Joseph Wambaugh or Ed McBain.” Mykonos After Midnight is the fifth novel in his Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series, following up on his internationally best-selling Murder in Mykonos, Assassins of Athens, Prey on Patmos: An Aegean Prophecy, and Target: Tinos. Born in Pittsburgh, Siger practiced law at a major Wall Street law firm and established his own New York City law firm before giving it all up to live and write on the island of Mykonos.

Siger applied the Page 69 Test to Mykonos After Midnight and reported the following:

From page 69:

in the most flattering of ways, and making sure to refer back to other things he'd said in other conversations.

Three months of this led to a weekend away together. Three more weekends led to a marriage proposal. She told him there was no way her captors would let her go. He told her not to worry.

The wedding was private but her captors attended, smiling as if they'd been family. She had escaped. She was free.

He was a kind man. He encouraged her to learn. She went to school, and she graduated. She attended college. Never did she look at another man. She was committed to her husband and their two children. Yes, she'd become the mother of two beautiful sons.

Teacher closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips against them.

Vladimir. And his rambunctious, mischievous brother.

She pressed harder.

My lovely Sergey.

She was in a class when they came to her home. Her husband had many enemies. These cut his throat, severed his genitals, and stuck them in his mouth. They did the same to her two beautiful boys. She did not know who did it. It could have been any of many.

She found them when she came home. She sat among them only for minutes, then packed her bag and left. There was nothing more she could do for them. She did not attend their funerals, for by then she was no longer in that city or that country.

She fled to lose herself, leaving behind all her papers and whatever else she thought could be used to trace her.

She became a nameless refugee in a foreign land. And, in time, experienced a revolutionary new emotion. Freedom. She no longer feared death, and with that discovered liberty, took absolute control over her life for the very first time.

She dropped her hands to her lap and looked again at the photograph.

Publishers Weekly wrote of Mykonos After Midnight, “The emergence of a shadowy master criminal bodes well for future adventures,” and page 69 captures the essence of what created that master criminal—hope, brutally destroyed, turned to ruthlessness.

In Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis’ fifth of “Siger’s thoughtful police procedurals set in picturesque but not untroubled Greek locales” (the New York Times on Target: Tinos), the murder of a legendary nightclub owner who helped transform Mykonos from an impoverished Greek island into a wealthy, world renown tourist paradise puts politically explosive secrets into play and Kaldis into battle with a powerful, clandestine international force intent on doing whatever necessary to wrest control away from those who’ve dominated the island for generations.

Mykonos After Midnight springs to life against the backdrop of a society rooted in the past, struggling through times of dire economic crises to catch up with the present, yet “reads more like an Elmore Leonard caper than a whodunit (Kirkus Reviews).”

Learn more about the book and author at Jeffrey Siger's website.

The Page 69 Test: Murder in Mykonos.

The Page 69 Test: Prey on Patmos.

The Page 69 Test: Target Tinos.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Gated"

Amy Christine Parker writes full-time from her home near Tampa, Florida, where she lives with her husband, their two daughters, and one ridiculously fat cat.

Parker applied the Page 69 Test to her new YA novel, Gated, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“Dance with me,” Will says from above me. He offers me his hand and I groan.

Marie giggles. “This should be good.”

I’m a horrible dancer. It isn’t that I don’t like the music or feel the rhythm. It’s that to do it well, you have to be able to let go, get lost in the song and feel it inside you. I’m not sure I’m built to let go of anything, no matter what it is. Ever. Letting go is as foreign to me as thinking things through is to Marie.

Will puts his hand on the small of my back, his thumb lightly stroking my pajama top. He takes me out into the grass. The moon silvers his blond hair, making him look almost distinguished, mature. He twirls me around in a slow circle. I grip one of his hands and the opposite shoulder so tight it has to be uncomfortable for him, but I can’t make myself relax.

“Just let me lead you, okay?” he whispers, his eyes strangely soft in the moonlight. The way he’s looking at me makes me shiver. There’s a hunger to his gaze. He pulls me closer, his chin resting lightly on my hair. I concentrate on not stepping on his feet so I don’t have to think about how close he is to me.

“Not a complete disaster. Good, Lyla!” Marie calls over Brian’s shoulder. She looks perfectly content. Once Brian finally slimmed down and muscled up, she fell for him hard. It shows in the way she looks at him now.

Marie and Brian are dancing too. I watch as she moves in his arms. It’s hard not to watch her when she dances.

This page is representative of my book in some aspects. It shows my main character, Lyla’s, relationships with her friends and her observant nature. But I fear that by skimming just this page any reader would assume that the book is a romance at its core when really, the romantic bits are few and far between. This book is primarily a psychological thriller. The story focuses on Lyla’s feelings about her Community, its leader, Pioneer, and his predictions about the end of the world. Creepy and unsettling are words I would use to describe the book. This passage is more romantic and wistful.

Learn more about the book and author at Amy Christine Parker's blog and website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"If I Ever Get Out of Here"

Eric Gansworth is a Professor of English and Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. An enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation, he was born and raised at the Tuscarora Reservation in Niagara County in upstate New York. His short stories, poetry, and nonfiction have been printed and reprinted in many literary magazines and anthologies, and his dramatic work has appeared at the Public Theater in New York City.

Gansworth applied the Page 69 Test to his new YA novel, If I Ever Get Out of Here, and reported the following:

Page 69 is oddly an important place in this book, a short but key moment. Lewis, the protagonist, has just been extended an invitation to borrow the Paul McCartney and Wings album, Band on the Run, from which the novel gets its title. He’s in seventh grade and the offer occurs as he’s being brought home from his first visit to a home that is not on the reservation where he’s been raised. Normally, Lewis would jump at the chance to check out anything Beatles related. Their music is his major passion in life. His hesitancy arises from the person making the offer: the father of his new friend, George.

It’s the first real glimpse of many choices Lewis will face through the rest of the novel. The offer is genuine, but he’s worried first about accidentally damaging the album and how that apparent irresponsibility will reflect on him. Second, his own father has been largely absent from his life, and the uncle who lives with him is decidedly eccentric. George’s father frames the offer as a matter of trust in Lewis, and though he loves his uncle’s loose relationship to social expectations, Lewis has a desire for that kind of affirmation. Third, Lewis is keenly aware of the subservient nature of his mother’s jobs, cleaning house for wealthy white families, and he fears the act of taking the album will make him beholden to a white person, the way his mother constantly is, and that it will compromise him in similar ways.

From page 69:

“I’m happy to lend you the album,” he said, sliding a plastic bag from his side of the truck. “I thought you might want to listen to the whole thing. You can give it back to my boy at school, or just bring it the next time you’re over. I know you’ll take good care of it.”

I peeked in the bag and saw an album cover with Band on the Run on it, over a picture of what appeared to be a group of nine criminals, huddled close together, dressed in identical brown suits, and caught in a glaring spotlight in front of a brick wall. I recognized Paul McCartney as the person in the center of the group. “My ma would kill me if I took this,” I said, really thinking George’s dad would kill me if I messed it up. Albert and I were careful with albums, but our stereo just wasn’t all that good anymore.

“Son, my boy tells me about his friends, and I’ve met Artie and Stacey and a few of the others, but you’re the only person he’s really wanted to get to know since we arrived here. I trust his judgment, and I think you’ll like this. Please.”

That’s a lot of weight on a grooved vinyl disc in a cardboard sleeve, but those are the daily realities of Lewis’ life. By the end of the page, his passion wins out and he chooses to embrace the offer, which leads him into a whole other world.

Learn more about the book and author at Eric Gansworth's website.

My Book, The Movie: If I Ever Get Out of Here.

Writers Read: Eric Gansworth.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Guide for the Perplexed"

Dara Horn, the author of the novels All Other Nights, The World to Come, and In the Image, was chosen one of Granta’s "Best Young American Novelists" in 2007, and is the winner of two National Jewish Book Awards. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children.

Horn applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, A Guide for the Perplexed, and reported the following:

Page 69 happens to introduce one of the major themes in the book: the paradox of fate and free will. Josie, my main character, is a software developer on a three-week consulting gig at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt (yes, this is in contemporary times—and yes, it doesn’t end well). The cultural divide between her and Nasreen, the media specialist working with her, is much larger than Josie expected. On page 69, Josie discovers that Nasreen believes our lives are directed by forces beyond our control—the opposite of arrogant tech-nerd Josie’s worldview. Ten pages later, when Josie is abducted, both women’s opinions begin to change.

A Guide for the Perplexed is loosely based on the biblical story of Joseph. One of the puzzles of the Joseph story is that Joseph is able to interpret people’s dreams—the assumption in the bible being that dreams reflect one’s future rather than one’s past. We think of ourselves as rational people, but what’s amazing to me is the constancy of human belief in predestination—whether to a destiny determined by an omnipotent God, or by genetics or socioeconomics or brain chemistry. But the biblical Joseph story suggests that while we may be unable to control the future, we can in a sense control the past—not by changing past events, but by selectively remembering them in a way that turns our lives into a meaningful story. In the ancient Library of Alexandria and in the high-tech world today, what matters is not how much data we collect, but how we choose what’s worth knowing.

Excerpt from Page 69:

“Why would it be necessary to know me in order to understand my dream?” Nasreen asked.

This was baffling. Was it not obvious? “To know what these people and ideas mean to you, of course,” she said. The challenge of not condescending was immense.

“Why would it matter what they mean to me?” Nasreen asked. “The message ought to be clear on its own.”

Josie considered this. In fact the dream did have a rather obvious interpretation, but it didn’t seem like one Josie should share. “That would depend if you think dreams are internal or external,” she said. “I suppose the message ought to be clear to anyone if you believe that the dream’s source is something outside of your own mind. But if the dream’s source is in your own mind, then it should matter what these people meant to you.”

“In the end it is not that different, is it?” Nasreen said, her dark lips set in a smug grin. “There is a message either way, just as I said.”

For a moment Josie was silent, hovering on the edge of a respectful nod. But then she could no longer contain her irritation—with Nasreen, with the library, with the radiance of the past buried under the nonsense of the present, with the thick walls of illogic that had been closing in around her from that very first moment at the airport, when she had been sagely informed that she was a mistake.

“It’s actually extremely different,” Josie said. She no longer held her exasperation under her breath. Her voice rose. “If the dream is some sort of supernatural message, or something reflecting the—the will of God, so to speak—then it should matter a lot, and you should care a lot about what it’s trying to tell you. And if the dream is that kind of supernatural message, then presumably what it is trying to tell you is some sort of—prophecy, as you put it. Some kind of prediction or warning about the future that you couldn’t otherwise know.”

“Precisely,” Nasreen said.

Learn more about the author and her work at Dara Horn's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 99 Test: The World to Come.

The Page 99 Test: All Other Nights.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Outside"

Laura Bickle’s fiction for adults and young adults includes The Hallowed Ones, Embers, and Sparks. Her newest release is The Outside, a young adult thriller that received a Kirkus starred review.

Bickle applied the Page 69 Test to The Outside and reported the following:

Page 69 of The Outside is the stubby end of a chapter. But it’s still pretty representative of the rest of the work:

it down. “Probably not. If gas was scavenged, then there’s probably nothing else left for us to use.”

The door swung open, and Horace whinnied. The hair rose up on the back of my neck.

“Alex, don’t!” I screamed.

Pale hands reached out of the darkness of the trailer and dragged him inside.

The Outside is the story of a young Amish woman, Katie, who’s been kicked out of her community to face the vampire apocalypse in the world beyond. These aren’t brooding, romantic vampires contemplating the states of their eternal souls - Katie’s monsters are Old World revenants, contagious and violent creatures who will stop at nothing to devour the living. They’ve chewed through everything in their path, leaving few survivors and very little hope for civilization.

In the scene leading up to this snippet, Katie and two of her friends have come upon an abandoned truck stop to scavenge for supplies. They’ve scraped what little food they can use from the convenience store and have advanced upon a tractor-trailer in the parking lot, thinking that there might be something there.

And there is, just not what they were hoping to find.

Learn more about the book and author at Laura Bickle's website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Writers Read: Laura Bickle.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Lookaway, Lookaway"

Wilton Barnhardt is the author of the novels Lookaway, Lookaway, Emma Who Saved My Life, Gospel, and Show World. A native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he teaches fiction in the master of fine arts in creative writing program at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he lives.

Barnhardt applied the Page 69 Test to Lookaway, Lookaway and reported the following:

This is fairly representative of its chapter. Big Man on Duke University campus (in the late 1960s) Duke Johnston meets younger, eager, future literary figure Gaston Jarvis:

Duke Johnston, showing up to the candidate debates with his limp and his cane, handily became the student body president. He got to go to Washington to meet and shake hands with former Vice-President Nixon (a Duke alum), had lunched with the governor and asked Senator Erwin, who had come to Durham for a lecture, to one of his famous barbecues at Arcadia House—and Senator Sam said yes! What a college career, what greatness was portended… and now, in his first year at law school (Duke University forbade him from heading up north to Harvard or Yale, gave him every fellowship, threw every prize and scholarship they could find at him), insignificant wretch Gaston Jarvis was going to a house party at the next-to-campus mansion known as Arcadia, was going to meet the golden youth and his legendary coterie of smart, gifted young men and the gifted ladies who adored such men, Duke Johnston, surely a future president…

Gaston Jr. hated his father Gaston Sr., but he had to give his old man credit for allowing him to keep up appearances at Duke University. Gaston Jarvis, Sr., had always been a bit sensitive about the provenance of his own law degree, so after a lifetime of belittling his son, he nonetheless was willing to pay for a Duke University education, so as better to allow a confusion, a sense that maybe son followed father to his ol’ alma mater, a few backslaps in the club, a bit of “yes, just like the old man!” when asked how his son was getting on at Duke. Nor did he wish his son to show up as some rube with one Sunday suit.

Learn more about the book and author at Wilton Barnhardt's website and blog.

Writers Read: Wilton Barnhardt.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Wise Young Fool"

Sean Beaudoin's books include You Killed Wesley Payne, Going Nowhere Faster, which was nominated as one of YALSA's "Best Books for Young Adults," Fade to Blue, which was called "Infinite Jest for teens" by Booklist, and The Infects. His short stories and articles have appeared in numerous publications.

Beaudoin applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Wise Young Fool, and reported the following:

From page 69:

It's not even second period and Lacy DuPlais is already pretending to fix her heel by my locker. She's wearing mascara, a pearl necklace, and a cabled sweater that has gift from Grandma written all over it.

"Hi Ritchie!"

"Lacy doo-play," I say.

"Wow, you got big over the summer.

"Big as in tall? Or you mean big as in huge 'cause the 'roids have finally kicked in."

"Huge," she says, deadpan.

I bust out the trembling Hulk Hogan flex. Then I wonder what in hell I'm doing a stand-up routine for.

"Maybe we'll have a class together," she says, playing with her necklace. "You can make me laugh when it gets too boring."

"You got seven periods of remedial?"

"No."

"Then we're not gonna have any classes together."

I would say this excerpt from page 69 of Wise Young Fool is highly representative of the rest of the book. So, yeah, it passes the test. It shows the main character, Ritchie Sudden, in his typical mode, hiding his insecurities behind a wall of sarcasm. His obliviousness. His need to connect while standing on the outside, watching himself perform.

Ritchie goes on to have a much more complicated relationship with Miss DuPlais, as you may have guessed, but it almost certainly does not go in the direction you'd predict. After all, he has his eye on Ravenna Woods. And he will end up performing on a much larger stage. Like, an actual stage. In front of amps, and groupies and fan-boys and hundreds of screaming fans.

But that all happens on page 169.

Learn more about the book and author at Sean Beaudoin's website and blog.

My Book, The Movie: Wise Young Fool.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love"

Sarah Butler lives in London. She runs Urban Words, a consultancy which develops literature and arts projects that explore and question our relationship to place. Ten Things I've Learnt About Love is her first novel.

Butler applied the Page 69 Test to Ten Things I've Learnt About Love and reported the following:

Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love alternates between the voices of Alice – a woman in her late 20s struggling to come to terms with her father’s death and her difficult relationship with her sisters – and Daniel – a homeless man in his late 50s who walks the streets of London searching for the daughter he’s never met.

On page 69, we are with Daniel in a homeless shelter in North London. He has met a Polish man, Anton, the evening before, and on page 69 they are having breakfast together, and forming a tentative friendship. Discussing their plans for the day, Daniel half makes an offer for Anton to join him on his city wanderings:

“If you want, you could –” I stop myself. It’s been a long time since I got involved with someone else.

The novel is in large part a book about connection: how we succeed and fail in connecting with other people. Looking at it in isolation, this moment with Daniel and Anton does seem symbolic of the book’s wider themes.

Daniel has synaesthesia: every letter is associated with a specific colour. On page 69, Anton declares he wants to go to Buckingham Palace:

Anton spins his cup on the plastic tabletop. “Buckingham Palace.” “Buckingham” – a rich mahogany word, the colour of an old-fashioned dresser – sounds unfamiliar when he says it. “I want to see Buckingham Palace.”

And later, Daniel describes Anton’s clothes:

Anton wears white trainers. His jacket looks like an old army sleeping bag, a puffed-up, shiny olive-green, the color of his daughter’s name.

Daniel’s synaesthesia runs throughout the novel. At the beginning we meet him by the river Thames, collecting colors. He spends his days seeking out rubbish the color of specific letters, which he then arranges into ‘words’ and leaves around London in the hope his lost daughter might see them, and on some level, understand. This ‘writing’, which goes back to the idea of connection, develops throughout the book.

The connection between Daniel and Anton is in part driven by the fact that they both have daughters – Daniel has never met his, Anton is estranged from his. Daniel recognises this commonality:

I consider telling him about you, but decide against it, even though – perhaps – he might understand. I recognize how his eyes flick away from whoever he’s talking to, and I know that I do the same.

Throughout his narrative, Daniel addresses ‘you’: the daughter he yearns to find. After this scene on page 69, Anton and Daniel spend a day in London which ends in a library where, helping Anton write a letter to his daughter, Daniel finally finds the information he needs to locate his own daughter. It is this connection, and what comes from it, that sits at the very heart of Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love.

Learn more about the book and author at Sarah Butler's website.

Writers Read: Sarah Butler.

--Marshal Zeringue