A Small Crowd of Strangers
Published on 15. September 2020
396 pages
978-1-942436-84-3 (ISBN)
Description
Marrying the wrong man is easier than leaving him.
How does a librarian from New Jersey end up in a convenience store on Vancouver Island in the middle of the night, playing Bible Scrabble with a Korean physicist and a drunk priest? She gets married to the wrong man for starters-she didn't know he was 'that kind of Catholic'-and ends up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. She gets a job in a New Age bookstore, wanders toward Buddhism without realizing it, and acquires a dog. Things get complicated after that. Pattianne Anthony is less a thinker than a dreamer, and she finds out the hard way that she doesn't want a husband, much less a baby, and that getting out of a marriage is a lot harder than getting into it, especially when the landscape of the west becomes the voice of reason. A Small Crowd of Strangers, Joanna Rose's second novel, is part love story, part slightly sideways spiritual journey.
How does a librarian from New Jersey end up in a convenience store on Vancouver Island in the middle of the night, playing Bible Scrabble with a Korean physicist and a drunk priest? She gets married to the wrong man for starters-she didn't know he was 'that kind of Catholic'-and ends up in St. Cloud, Minnesota. She gets a job in a New Age bookstore, wanders toward Buddhism without realizing it, and acquires a dog. Things get complicated after that. Pattianne Anthony is less a thinker than a dreamer, and she finds out the hard way that she doesn't want a husband, much less a baby, and that getting out of a marriage is a lot harder than getting into it, especially when the landscape of the west becomes the voice of reason. A Small Crowd of Strangers, Joanna Rose's second novel, is part love story, part slightly sideways spiritual journey.
More details
Person
Joanna Rose is the author of the award-winning novel Little Miss Strange, which earned the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award. Other work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, Windfall Journal, Cloudbank, Artisan Journal, Northern Lights, Oregon Humanities, High Desert Journal, VoiceCatcher, and Bellingham Review. Her essay "That Thing With Feathers" was cited as Notable in 2015 Best American Essays. She established the Powell's Books reading series and curated it for fifteen years. She is an Atheneum Fellow in Poetry, and cohosts the prose critique group Pinewood Table. She also works with youth through Literary Arts' Writers in the Schools and with Young Musicians & Artists. She lives in Portland Oregon's urban southeast side with her husband and, at any given time, several dogs.
Content
- Intro
- ADVANCE PRAISE
- PRAISE FOR LITTLE MISS STRANGE
- COPYRIGHT
- DEDICATION
- A SMALL CROWD OF STRANGERS
- I. MONTCLAIR
- 1: THEY WERE CALLED PEEPS
- 2: UNCHASTE, UNMARRIED SEX
- 3: STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING
- II. ST. CLOUD
- 4: MY ANGEL
- 5: A GENEROUS SOUL
- 6: A STORY-LISTENING CHAKRA
- 7: THAT KIND OF CATHOLIC
- 8: NEVER DRINK CHAMPAGNE IN THE AFTERNOON
- 9: WHAT HEARTS DO INSTEAD OF BEING IN LOVE
- 10: RED WINE ON BEIGE CARPET
- III. TOFINO
- 11: THE DRIFTING FOG GAVE IT A FACE
- 12: WALKING IN THE SAME RAIN
- 13: SIXTEEN MILES AN HOUR
- 14: IT SEEMED SO SIMPLE
- 15: JUST STORIES
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- READING GROUP GUIDE
