'In Zanesville': Tale of teen friendship and angst

By Jo Ann Beard

Little, Brown & Co.

304 pp. $23.99

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Reviewed by Martha Woodall

'W e can't believe the house is on fire. It's so embarrassing, first of all, and so dangerous second of all. Also, we're supposed to be in charge here, so there's a sense of somebody not doing their job."

With that tantalizing first paragraph, author Jo Ann Beard establishes the wry, observant voice of her 14-year-old narrator and ensures that smitten readers will follow her tale - wherever it's headed.

In Zanesville turns out to be a brisk, rewarding journey through adolescence in the American heartland circa 1970 with the unnamed narrator and her best friend Felicia - "Flea" for short - as our guides.

"Being a teenager so far hasn't gotten me anything beyond period cramps and nameless yearning, which I had as kid, too, but this is a new kind of nameless yearning that has boys attached to it," the heroine observes.

Beard, author of The Boys of My Youth, a collection of autobiographical essays, sets her debut novel in Zanesville, Ill., which the narrator calls "the farm implement capital of the world."

By turns hilarious, scary, and moving, it's a tale of the friendship, angst, and growing pains of two dreamy teens. The pair try to negotiate family dramas while teetering between childhood and the strange, baffling terrain of adulthood. Their bodies are changing, their emotions are in turmoil, and they are too young to drive.

"I wish my mother wouldn't mention bras in front of my father; I don't know how much he knows or doesn't know about certain matters," the narrator confides. "My mother's own bras are large quilted things that I used to think were funny. Now when I see them on the laundry table, one cup folded into the other, I have a sense of impending doom. It's like being on your way to the Alps and knowing that when you get there you'll have to wear lederhosen."

The narrator's family includes an older sister, Meg; 7-year-old brother Raymond; a hardworking mother; and a dad with a drinking problem.

" 'I'll say this about that!' my dad shouts again," the narrator reports. "It's one of his famous drunk sayings, and he will repeat it anywhere from twenty to fifty-five times before my mother makes him stop."

The novel begins in the summer between eighth and ninth grades when the 14-year-olds endure a series of misadventures in babysitting, caring for the six children of a couple who daily ride off on motorcycles in matching "King Dong" leather jackets. The teens rescue a trio of abandoned kittens, hold sleepovers in a canvas-covered camper, and slip out at night without qualms to wander the streets of a hometown that is small enough they not only know their neighbors but can name all their dogs.

Self-described late bloomers, the duo exchange witty sayings, drop literary references, speculate about sex, and sometimes speak to each other in improvised British accents apparently borrowed from the 1968 movie musical Oliver!

When school begins, it's clear the narrator and Flea are not part of the "in" crowd or among the academic elite. They occupy the large, middle stratum of the social order at John Deere Junior High School, rarely creating a ripple. But when they defect from the marching band during a Halloween parade, the resulting week of detentions stirs up the first hints of romance.

"This delirious, buzzing feeling is neither unpleasant nor unfamiliar," the narrator explains. "I used to get it lying in the mildewed hammock in my grandmother's backyard, utterly relaxed in body if not in mind, the tops of the trees moving back and forth across the sky, the rope creaking. . . . "

In Zanesville offers a glimpse into a time that was simpler and more innocent in some ways. Ninth graders are agog at the prospect of a public kiss in the stands at a football game; contact lenses are a novelty; the going rate for babysitting is 75 cents an hour; and a cup of Coca-Cola with an aspirin dropped into it is considered a recreational drug.

But Beard also reminds us that horrors lurked in those less sophisticated days. Child abuse was not reported; people just averted their eyes. And alcoholism might be an open family secret, but it wasn't treated.

Thanks to Beard's precocious narrator, her dead-on emotional observations, and sparkling writing, In Zanesville captures all the terror and the wonder of being 14. This memorable novel deserves its own spot on the bookshelf of coming-of-age literature.