"The Brothers Boswell"

Philip Baruth is an award-winning commentator for Vermont Public Radio and a graduate of Brown University with an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Irvine. His novel The X President (Bantam, 2003) received wide critical acclaim. He teaches at the University of Vermont.

Baruth applied the “Page 69 Test” to his new book, The Brothers Boswell, and reported the following:

I imagine for a lot of authors, selecting a random page produces strange, random results. But in this case, page 69 speaks directly to the heart of my novel, The Brothers Boswell. Smack in the middle of the page is a short dialogue in which the younger (soon to be insane) Boswell confronts his (soon to be famous) older brother, for daring to consider a Catholic actress as a potential wife, and even worse, for daring to consider conversion to Catholicism himself. This is Scotland, 1759, and Catholics are legally forbidden just about everything of value. At the height of the exchange, John accuses James of insanity:

“You are mad.”

“I am a writer, sir. And I am in love.”

“Twice mad.”

“And if that is madness, then I am not afraid of it. I welcome it.”

“Thrice, then.”

“I embrace it, I tell you.”

“Quadruple Bethlehem-Hospital mad, then. Stark-staring, spittle-flecked, pissing-your-own-shoebuckles Bedlam mad.”

When tempers have cooled, John regrets what he’s said; the Boswell family had a history of madness, and accusations of insanity were no joke in their household. But the greater irony is that in my novel it is John who will lose his sanity a few years hence, and eventually begin stalking his older brother and Samuel Johnson through the streets of London. And throughout that cat-and-mouse game, John will continue to try to piece together the place of art in affairs of the heart, the difference being a writer makes to one about to kill or be killed. So in my particular case, and in the case of my latest book, page 69 says just about all there is to say about just about everything else.

Read an excerpt of The Brothers Boswell, and learn more about the novel at the publisher's website.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Running from the Devil"

Jamie Freveletti is a trial attorney, martial artist, and runner. She has crewed for an elite ultra-marathon runner at 50 mile, 100 mile, and twenty-four hour races across the country, and both practices and teaches Aikido, a Japanese martial art.

She applied the “Page 69 Test” to Running from the Devil, her debut thriller, and reported the following:

I was surprised to see that not only does the Page 69 test work for my novel, Running from the Devil, but it’s a perfect page to see what may be in store for the characters. In Running, Emma Caldridge’s plane is hijacked and downed in the Colombian jungle. She’s thrown free of the wreckage, and watches as the other passengers are taken hostage. With no compass and no idea where she is, she’s forced to follow the guerrillas as they march the passengers deep into the jungle.

Emma has some unique talents, and at page 69 we see the first indication of what she can do. She comes upon a passenger suffering from heart problems, gasping for air and in dire need of her digitalis medication to regulate her heartbeat. Emma’s a chemist and scours the earth looking for medicinal plants. She tells the woman that she saw some foxglove, the plant from which digitalis is made, on the path. She races back to retrieve it in an attempt to save the woman.

Emma’s ability with plants is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because she can identify helpful plants from those that are toxic, but a curse because her knowledge has set in motion events that could end up destroying her and everyone around her.

Browse inside Running from the Devil, and learn more about the book and author at Jamie Freveletti's website and blog.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"A Trace of Smoke"

Rebecca Cantrell majored in German, Creative Writing, and History at the Freie Universitaet of Berlin and Carnegie Mellon University.

She applied the “Page 69 Test” to A Trace of Smoke, her first book, and reported the following:

I was shocked when I realized just how representative page 69 is of the rest of A Trace of Smoke. The novel is set in Berlin in 1931, the year that Germany was lost to the Nazis. Nazi Storm Troopers and Communists fight in the streets. Wealthy Jews and intellectuals think of fleeing. Desperate sexual and social outcasts cram Berlin’s famous nightclubs to wring out one last dance.

And Hannah Vogel lives alone and works as a crime reporter. On a routine assignment, she finds a picture of her brother’s dead body. But since she loaned their identity papers to escaping Jewish friends, she cannot identify him and demand an investigation.

So she tracks the killer herself. Her investigation leads her to flamboyant drag queens, Hitler’s right hand man, and a young boy who claims to be her son. Can she find the killer and save the boy?

On page 69 she is talking to one of her brother’s former lovers, a teenage Nazi, about an openly gay Nazi leader named Ernst Röhm (based on a real historical figure).

Here is page 69 of A Trace of Smoke:

Behind Wilhelm the musicians took a break, putting down their shiny instruments and waddling up to the bar like penguins.

“My father told me and he should know because he’s Röhm’s top lieutenant in Berlin.”

“Does it bother him that Röhm’s queer?”

Wilhelm laughed incredulously. “He worships Röhm. It’s fine for Röhm to do whatever he wants. It’s just not fine for me. Plus I don’t act manly enough.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ernst used to coach me on ways to act manly around my father.”

I winced. Ernst certainly had experience in that.

“He called it the Code of Manliness. You should know all about it. He said you made it up.”

“I did, to keep him safe from our father.”

“The tyrant.”

“Is that what Ernst called him?”

“That was the nicest thing Ernst called him.” Wilhelm laughed. “I’d have to apologize to say what he said in front of a lady.”

“That sounds like Ernst,” I said, smiling.

A tall, overweight man dressed in a badly tailored flapper dress with black fringe wobbled over to our table. He looked like a circus tent about to unravel. “Hi, darling,” he said, to Wilhelm. I remembered him from my previous visit to El Dorado. Lola.

Wilhelm pulled out a chair and watched the man with calculating eyes.

“Nice falsies,” the man said to me, through his garish coral lipstick. “You’re a convincing woman.”

“And you are a convincing man,” I said, “which I’m guessing was not your intention.”

He blushed and gave me a genuine smile. I smelled the floral odor of Vasenol body powder. “I’m sorry, esteemed lady,” he said. “My vision isn’t so good and I thought you were, well, you know.”

I laughed. “Hannah.” I stuck out my hand.

He took my hand in his moist hairy one. “I’m Lovely Lola.”

I think the readers skimming that page would be inclined to read on to find out what Hannah is doing there and what happens to Wilhelm, the teenage boy.

Read an excerpt from A Trace of Smoke, and learn more about the book and author at Rebecca Cantrell's website and blog. Watch the video trailer for A Trace of Smoke.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"War of Words"

Simon Read is the author of On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Malloy, In the Dark: The True Story of the Blackout Ripper, and The Killing Skies: RAF Bomber Command at War.

He applied the “Page 69 Test” to his new book, War of Words: A True Tale of Newsprint and Murder, and reported the following:

When a gun-toting newspaper publisher collided with a hellfire preacher whose lust for the ladies equaled his craving to be mayor, sparks and bullets flew—with the citizens of San Francisco caught in the crossfire. Such is the plot of War of Words: A True Tale of Newsprint and Murder, the story behind the founding of the San Francisco Chronicle in 1865 by Charles de Young and the wild events that led to his fatal shooting in 1880.

Charles de Young used his paper to indulge his lust for power, promoting politicians he favored and lambasting those he opposed. De Young eventually focused the Chronicle’s firepower on the Rev. Isaac Kalloch, a golden-tongued preacher who had arrived in San Francisco to escape the stain of an adultery trial in Boston. Kalloch’s reputation for womanizing was legendary, with sordid rumors following him from one coast to the other.

When Kalloch decided in 1879 to run for mayor, it was more than de Young could stand. In his paper, he ran a series of scolding articles denouncing Kalloch’s past and labeled the man a “brute” and “demagogue.” Kalloch responded with a sermon at his Metropolitan Temple in front of a large congregation. “If the devil in hell has an organ on earth,” Kalloch proclaimed, “it is the San Francisco Chronicle.” Kalloch concluded his sermon in a spectacularly vile manner. “The de Youngs are the bastard progeny of a whore,” he said. “Conceived in infamy and nursed in the lap of prostitution.”

In the wake of Kalloch’s comments, de Young took up arms and turned the streets of San Francisco into a shooting gallery in his quest for vengeance. Gunfights and beatings ensued with deadly results...

Page 69 of War of Words depicts a scene from Kalloch’s 1856 adultery trial in Boston. A witness, who has testified she saw Kalloch in tryst with a woman other than his wife, has just been exposed on the stand for sleeping with her husband before they were married—a big no-no back in those days:

From the public gallery, there came a collective gasp. Mrs. Griffin, her pre-marital sin now part of the public record, lowered her head and scurried from the courtroom as the defense called character witness Thomas Frye, a physician and ten-year resident of Rockland, Maine. “I’ve known Mr. Kalloch for twenty-one years. I boarded at his father’s house,” Frye testified. “Mr. Kalloch’s general character for chastity and purity of character is good. It was good until this charge was made against him.”

Page 69 is not typical of the whole book, which is a rowdy tale of gunfights, irresponsible journalism and the lawlessness of 1800s San Francisco. It is, however, part of a chapter that sets the tone for Kalloch’s perverse character. The book, like Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, weaves the stories of two very different men into a violent climax.

Learn more about the author and his work at Simon Read's website and blog.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Water, Stone, Heart"

Will North is the pen name of the award-winning author and ghostwriter of more than a dozen non-fiction books, William Nothdurft. Will turned to fiction for the first time two years ago with his highly successful debut novel, The Long Walk Home, which was selected by both the Doubleday and Rhapsody Book Clubs, chosen as a Readers’ Digest “Select Edition,” and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He lives with his partner, Susan, and their two dogs on an island in Washington’s Puget Sound.

He applied the “Page 69 Test” to his latest novel, Water, Stone, Heart, and reported the following:

I like to call Water, Stone, Heart a prickly love story for grownups. In a sense, it asks, “What happens when two damaged adults meet in extraordinary circumstances and find their usual defenses utterly ineffective?” Nicola Rhys-Jones, painter, is a woman in hiding from a history of abuse. Andrew Stratton, professor, is a man hiding from the pain of divorce. They meet in Boscastle, a tiny village on Cornwall’s stormy Atlantic coast. From the start, Nicola and Andrew are both drawn to each other and at daggers drawn, their witty flirtation serving as both sword and shield. For all the humor, however, there is a very serious issue at the core of the story, the question of whether a woman who has been sexually abused as a child can ever find the trust to enter a normal intimate relationship in adulthood. It takes Lee, a nine year-old girl wise beyond her years, a catastrophic flood, and a touch of Cornish witchcraft to break down both Nicola’s and Andrew’s walls and reveal how much they mean to each other.

On page 69, Nicola is walking her Siberian husky, Randi, in the narrow, wooded valley of the Valency River, which empties into Boscastle’s little harbor. She’s distracted by her confused feelings about the visiting American, Andrew:

#

They’d passed the wide part of the stream behind the weir that once had shunted water to the mill down by the bridge, when Randi stopped and looked up into one of the trees. He looked at Nicola, looked up at the tree, and looked at Nicola again. Lost in a reverie of her own having vaguely to do with the American, she kept walking. But Randi didn’t follow and eventually he barked once. This was unusual. She walked back to the tree by the river and the dog looked up again.

“What?!” Nicola said, exasperated.

The dog barked again, but kept looking up.

That was when she heard the giggling. She recognized it immediately.

“Lilly Trellisick! What are you up to?!”

“I’m up to about half the whole tree,” Lee said, giggling louder now.

“Well you’re driving Randi around the twist, so come on down and walk with us.”

There was a scuffle of boots on bark, a shaking of leafy branches, and then a pair of skinny, tan legs emerged from the canopy. Nicola caught Lee as she dropped the last few feet to the ground and gave her a hug.

“Listen here, you ragamuffin; you’ll break your neck one of these days.”

“Uh-uh!”

“Uh-huh!”

“Will not.”

“Will too!”

“Will not, ‘cause that’s my special tree and we have an agreement.”

“An agreement?”

‘Yup. If I climb it carefully, it won’t let me fall.”

Nicola looked at the girl and realized there was no rebuttal to such an argument. So she changed the subject.

“So tell me about this Andrew Stratton.”

“I told you.”

“What?”

“He’s a nice man. We’re chums. That’s all. Why? Wait! You like him, don’t you!”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“You do, you do! Nicki and Drew, Nicki and Drew!”

“Stop that! What’s he doing here? That’s what I want to know.”

#

Because adults are exceptionally adept at avoiding the truth, especially in relationships, I like to have a “truth-teller” in each of my stories. Sometimes it’s an elderly character, who has seen it all and has nothing to lose by saying what he or she sees plainly. Sometimes it’s a child, whose clarity of observation and candor in speech are as yet uncorrupted by societal rules.

Water, Stone, Heart is about recognizing and finding the courage to seize second chances.

Read an excerpt from Water, Stone, Heart, and learn more about the book and author at Will North's website and blog.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Woodsburner"

John Pipkin holds a Ph.D. in British Romantic Poetry and once served as the Executive Director of the Writers' League of Texas, a non-profit organization promoting the literary arts. He has published articles in Studies in English Literature, Good Life Magazine, Austin Monthly and the Common Review.

He applied the “Page 69 Test” to Woodsburner, his debut novel, and reported the following:

Well, I guess I have to say that page 69 of Woodsburner both is and is not representative of the entire work. Woodsburner is a historical novel based on a forest fire accidentally started by Henry David Thoreau in 1844, one year before he went off to live alone at Walden Pond. The story of Thoreau’s attempts to extinguish the fire is based on true events, but Thoreau’s story is also interwoven with the stories of three fictional characters: Oddmund Hus, a Norwegian immigrant and farm hand who is pining for the love of his employer’s wife; Eliot Calvert, a bookstore owner and aspiring playwright struggling to support his art with his business; and Caleb Dowdy, an opium-addicted preacher tormented by a terrible secret from his past.

Page 69 of Woodsburner describes Oddmund’s fateful journey to America as a boy on board the Sovereign of the Seas. In style, tone, and pacing, page 69 is representative of the entire novel, which paints a portrait of life in America in the early 19th-century. But in terms of the plot, this page really only represents about 25% of the book, since Oddmund’s story is only one of the four that are interwoven in Woodsburner.

Read an excerpt from Woodsburner, and learn more about the book and author at John Pipkin's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Pilo Family Circus"

Will Elliott's debut novel The Pilo Family Circus was published after winning the ABC fiction award, beating 900 entries from across Australia.

Once published, it co-won the Aurealis award for best horror, won the Golden Aurealis for best novel, the Australian Shadows Award, the Ditmar, the Sydney Morning Herald "Best Young Novelist Award" for 2007, and was short-listed for the 2007 International Horror Guild Award, up against, among others, Stephen King.

He applied the “Page 69 Test” to The Pilo Family Circus and reported the following:

'And this sad critter is the apprentice,' said Gonko. 'Now he's basically meat with eyeballs, and not for long, mark my words. And guess what sport? You got his job, in case you're wondering where that piece of the jigsaw puzzle goes.'

Jamie stared down and tried not to envisage his own face beatan as badly out of shape as the one oozing at his feet.

On page 69, Jamie has just been dragged into the circus and told he's the newest clown recruit. No one directly threatens him, but as you can see, lessons abound about the nature of his new home and career. Such as, Gonko is the clown boss, and you may laugh at him, but it's not wise to dispute the fact.

I'm not sure how representative this snapshot can be said to be of the story as a whole. It probably reveals what kind of ride the character (and ideally the reader) is in for: expect the unexpected, as long as someone gets hurt. Come get your chuckles...

Of course on page 69 we don't meet Jamie's alter-ego JJ the clown, who will be brought to life (in Jamie's body) via use of the magic clown facepaint. (The same process made clowns out of all the others we meet on this page.) Aside from his friendship with Winston, that's the most important thing that happens to Jamie: the Jekyll-Hyde effect as a clown version of himself steps into his shoes.

But page 69 does include the very important moral: slapstick has consquences. As do sack beatings. Alas, all too true.

Read excerpts from The Pilo Family Circus, and learn more about the author and his work at Will Elliott's website.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Water Ghosts"

Born in Sacramento, California, the child of parents who met during the Vietnam War when her father was stationed in Taiwan, Shawna Yang Ryan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and received an M.A. from the University of California, Davis. In 2002, she was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan. Her debut novel Water Ghosts (originally published in 2007 as Locke 1928) was a finalist for the 2008 Northern California Book Award.

She applied the “Page 69 Test” to Water Ghosts and reported the following:

This is how page 69 ends:

She creeps a little closer, as if sizing up the house, then leans against a tree. The light in the kitchen still shines. Should she wake Sofia? She and Sofia have been sneaking out for a month now, nightgowned and barefoot into the summer nights. Chloe can think of no better relief for the monotony than this scrap of brightness, running around with the wine-haired girl who was the first girl outside the brothel to—

This is what happens in the middle of page 69: Chloe is creeping around Sofia’s house, which is attached to the town church, imaging what it looks like inside, what it would be like to sneak inside and find Sofia.

Sofia, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the preacher, and Chloe, a seventeen-year-old prostitute, are in love. However, it is 1928, and neither of them have the language or consciousness to realize this. All they know is how they feel. And they spend the course of Water Ghosts pulled and pushed by this feeling, which fits into no paradigm that they know.

But the little town they live in, Locke, California, is a kind of place that finds itself outside of many paradigms. It is a town built by and for the Chinese. It is a town of bachelors. It is a town where women out number men 20:1. And it is a town where the only relief for these men separated from their wives in China are the white prostitutes who work here, despite the anti-miscegenation laws on the books all across America.

Water Ghosts is multiple love stories: Poppy, the anomalous Chinese brothel madam, is in love with Richard. Ming Wai, Richard’s abandoned wife who shows up one day on a mysterious and tattered boat—supposedly smuggled in from China—is in love with her husband. Richard, a Chinese man who has tried to forget his name, Fong Man Gum, and the place from which he came, is in love with America. He may also be in love with Chloe, the girl who came to Locke only because she was going into labor on the riverboat and this strange town of Chinese men was the most convenient stop. And Chloe, of course, is in love with Sofia.

This is how page 69 begins:

--without pasts or stories. They could be anyone.

Learn more about the book and author at Shawna Yang Ryan's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Everything Hurts"

Bill Scheft, a 15-time Emmy-nominated writer for David Letterman, is the author of the novels The Ringer and Time Won't Let Me, which was a finalist for the 2006 Thurber Prize for American Humor. He has also written for the The New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire and Sports Illustrated.

He applied the “Page 69 Test” to his new novel, Everything Hurts, and reported the following:

Everything Hurts is, simply, a book about a guy trying to get rid of a psychosomatic limp.

Phil Camp tries to pay off the rest of his alimony by writing a parody of a self-help book, Where Can I Stow May Baggage? Unfortunately, or fortunately, the world takes the books seriously and "Marty Fleck" (the name under which Phil wrote the book) becomes an international self-help guru. Embarrassed by the acclaim, Phil hides behind Marty, only emerging twice a week with a syndicated self-help newspaper column, "Baggage Handling." All is well, until Phil develops a mysterious limp, which leaves him in constant pain, even though there is nothing physically wrong with him. Desperate, he seeks the aid of Dr. Samuel Abrun, a legitimate self-help guru who wrote a legitimate book (The Power of "Ow!") that has cured thousands with mind-induced chronic pain.

Phil embraces the unorthodox methods of Dr. Abrun passionately, but manages to save some passion from his daughter, Janet, herself a doctor with her own theories. We meet Janet at one of her father’s patient discussion groups, as it turns out, on PAGE 69:

What was wrong with her? Nothing that he could see. She was slacks, t-shirt and LL Bean car-coat crisp. Two pieces of jewelry and makeup if she felt like it. Every twenty minutes or so (not that he was keeping track), she would readjust whatever was clipping or securing whatever precinct of a vast county of dark hair. Dark. If there isn't a shade at the colorist called "Fuck It -- More Black," there should be, and this would be it. The right hand made all readjustments. The left was buried just over the ear, holding up what had to be, had to be, a smart head, that spent the entire hour staring at Samuel Abrun in various arrays of skepticism.

What was wrong with her?

Read an excerpt from Everything Hurts, and learn more about the book and author at Bill Scheft's website and blog.

Check out the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Yes, My Darling Daughter"

Margaret Leroy was born in England and studied music at Oxford. She has worked as a music therapist, teacher, and psychiatric social worker. Her novels include Trust, Alysson’s Shoes, Postcards from Berlin, and The River House.

She applied the “Page 69 Test” to her new novel, Yes, My Darling Daughter, and reported the following:

Grace's four year old daughter Sylvie is frightened of water, has terrible tantrums that her nursery school can't cope with, and refuses to call her mother "Mum". On p. 69, Grace has brought her daughter to see a child psychiatrist, Dr. Strickland, in an attempt to find out what's wrong with her. Grace is desperate, as her life is slowly collapsing around her. The psychiatrist has his own ideas about what's wrong with Sylvie.

I wonder what he is going to say about me. I feel a dull, heavy ache in my chest.

He leans toward me, his fingertips pressed together in mock prayer.

"There was something that concerned me when I saw the two of you play." His voice is intimate, confiding. "I noticed that she doesn't call you Mum or Mummy. And I wondered why you'd objected to that?"

"It was Sylvie's decision," I tell him.

A picture slides into my mind. Sylvie is two, and we're in the garden by the mulberry tree. I kneel in front of her, cradling her face in my hands. Sweetheart, I want you to call me Mum. That's what children do, that's what Lennie calls her mother... She turns away from me, her silk hair shading her face. No, Grace.

"She's never called me Mum," I say.

Doubt flickers over his face. I know he doesn't believe this.

"You see, what concerns me here is your rather weak boundary setting. That there isn't a clear enough boundary between yourself and your child. That's so important for successful parenting. Sylvie needs to know you're the adult, that you're the one in charge. It's not so healthy for children to feel their parent is their best friend."

"I don't think she sees me like that," I say.

But I know he isn't listening.

Yes, My Darling Daughter is in a way a ghost story, about a child who seems to be haunted by a past life. What I especially loved in writing the story was the sense of the unseen breaking in on the present, and the collision between the everyday and the uncanny. So Grace lives in a familiar world of Hallowe'en parties, playdates, Shaun the Sheep rucksacks - yet has to deal with something that can't be explained. Why does Sylvie sob in the night and say she wants to go home? Why is she so obsessed with a picture of an Irish seaside town called Coldharbour? The people around Grace - other mothers, nursery school teachers - come up with all sorts of sensible explanations for her daughter's disturbed behaviour - as in this scene, where Dr. Strickland blames Grace's parenting style. Yet his theories, like everyone else's, are absolutely no use in making sense of Sylvie - a child who weeps for a life she has lost, and exactly remembers a place where she has never been.

Learn more about the book and author at Margaret Leroy's website.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"The Turtle Catcher"

Nicole Helget grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota, a childhood and place she drew on in the writing of her memoir, The Summer of Ordinary Ways. She received her BA and an MFA in creative writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Helget applied the “Page 69 Test” to The Turtle Catcher, her first novel, and reported the following:

Page 69 of The Turtle Catcher introduces the burgeoning love of Herman Richter and Betty Mathiowetz, the doctor's daughter. Herman thinks to impress Betty by presenting her with a dead bird. He's twelve. Together, they study this animal and decide that they love each other.

I began my writing career by writing about my dead dogs. I don't know that there's any topic so universal (I see this story in its various forms appear in my students' papers every year) than our first experiences with death. For those of us who are lucky, these stories are about animals rather than people. But, even as my writing life evolves, I find I'm still obsessed with the lives and deaths of animals, probably because I grew up on a real farm. I've taken some heat for my "brutal" look at animal life, but I'm not deterred by those criticisms. People are so unaware (my pet's sick or dying, so I think I'll whisk it off to the vet to be humanely put to sleep) and so far removed from their food sources (what lovely packaging on this frozen chicken and how nice that the innards have been cleaned or removed!) that they have the luxury of judging without knowing what animal suffering, animal death, decomposition, or butchering really looks like. I do. When I eat beef, I’m aware that the protein comes from an animal. I’ve gone back and forth about vegetarianism. I am truly bothered by the ways in which animals are now bred, housed, and butchered since small farms such as the one I grew up on have been eliminated by big argribusinesses who couldn’t give two shits about the quality of animals’ lives and haven’t yet made the connection between the quality of the animals’ lives and the quality of the meat.

So, while I figure this out in my personal life, when I do eat meat, I try to buy and eat consciously, with an educated purse and a grateful mind and appetite. In work like The Turtle Catcher, if the only thing sections about animals do for readers is make them aware, then I’m happy with that, even if it turns the reader’s stomach. I'm really not interested in romaniticizing any part of the human condition or animal condition with pretty packaging.

Read an excerpt from The Turtle Catcher, and learn more about the book and author at Nicole Helget's website.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Fifty Grand"

Adrian McKinty is the critically acclaimed author of Dead I Well May Be, the award-winning The Dead Yard, The Bloomsday Dead, and Hidden River. McKinty was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and educated at Oxford University. After ten years in Colorado, he currently lives in Melbourne, Australia.

He applied the “Page 69 Test” to his latest novel, Fifty Grand, and reported the following:

The page 69 test was difficult for me and I'll tell you why. I hate looking at the finished copy of a book I've just written. I am physically unable to do it. When I go to a book reading I always read from the galley rather than the actual book because on the rare occasion when I have looked at a copy of the actual book I found a word I wanted to change or a comma that was unncessary or a line of dialogue that could have been cut for pace etc. When I read from the galley I can fool myself into thinking that I probably made those changes before the final proof was put together. Most normal people don't worry about that little stuff but it drives me into a paroxysm of humiliation and despair. To think that the whole world will be looking at that comma in the wrong place...yikes! Yes, I know this is a problem. Anyway just for you I did peek at page 69 of the real book and it appeared to be a chapter ending where "Maria" has just arrived in the upmarket ski town of Fairview, CO during a raid by the INS.

"Maria" has come from Mexico to work as an illegal in Fairview (which is a cross between Aspen, Vail and Telluride) but she's really there to investigate a hit and run which killed a family member of hers a few months earlier. A hit and run that was hushed up because of course the dead man was also a Mexican illegal whose life was worth less than nothing. Of course the dead man had secrets and she has secrets herself: she's not just a maid (she's really a cop) she isn't from Mexico and she's not called Maria.

The story came from my own experiences as an illegal immigrant in New York City, where I worked for three years in the underground economy and then from the decade that I lived in Colorado.

Learn more about Fifty Grand at the publisher's website, and visit Adrian McKinty's blog.

McKinty appears on Brian McGilloway's top 10 list of modern Irish crime novels.

Visit the complete list of books in the Page 69 Test Series.

--Marshal Zeringue