New York Public Library Top Ten Best Book of the Year, and a Kirkus Best Book of the Year. Youngdahl hails from Paradise, California, devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire, which stirred her to write her latest novel, A Catalog of Burnt Objects. She now lives with her husband, two daughters, dog, and cat in Missouri where she is Associate Professor in the MFA in Writing Program at Lindenwood University.
Youngdahl applied the Page 69 Test to A Catalog of Burnt Objects and reported the following:
Page 69 of A Catalog of Burnt Objects begins a chapter called “Two and A Half Weeks Before,” The protagonist, Caprice is dropped off by her Gramps at Sierra’s Hole in The Dam Donuts to have a meeting about the app she is developing to promote tourism to her town. Here, she meets her best friend Alicia, who is “totally together,” and Caprice feels inadequate in her glued-together shoes. Gramps directs her inside and offers her money for donuts which she tries to refuse but he evades her. He suggests that it is her “job,” to eat the donuts and that she must complete this job because you “never take money for a job you can’t finish.” Then her brother, Beckett, and love-interest, River, pull up. Caprice reflects on how in the last week she’d only seen River at school and as she equates him with “firefly glimpses,” the page ends.Visit Shana Youngdahl's website.
Because of the chapter header this is a short page, but it still gets to the heart of a few things that are deeply important to this book. Caprice is shown with her loving Gramps. She adores him and he supports her. He is someone that helps set her morals about money and work, and toward the end of the book this conversation will be something Caprice reflects on as she figures out her path forward.
Gramps is mentor character who is there even when she isn’t confident in her new role as someone who has to run a meeting. Her ability to focus is challenged by being seventeen and having her love interest there. The good and bad of a new love during times of change is also an important theme in the book.
Hole In The Dam donuts is an important setting because its name is an example of one of the many “Dam puns” embraced by Sierra residents, a town that celebrates the history of their local dam with an annual “Dam Days” Parade. Caprice’s family is very involved with this parade, and it is the setting of the book’s final chapter.
Two and a half-weeks before is the countdown to the catastrophic wildfire that will decimate Sierra. The fire will force Caprice to confront all of her feelings of inadequacy head-on, and realign her understanding of home, her vision for the future, and her relationships with her friends and family. It’s ultimately all there, but you might want to read more than just page 69 to really feel it!
Q&A with Shana Youngdahl.
--Marshal Zeringue
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