Tayari's Blog: Crackpots, by Sara Pritchard

Sara's debut novel, Crackpots, won the Bakeless Prize for 2003. (It's a great opportunity for new writers. You send in your manuscript; there's no fee. The winner gets a publishing deal with a very nice house and a fellowship to Bread Loaf. What's not to like?)

So now that I've established Sara's credentials, let me tell you about her wonderful novel. It is technically ambitious-- you keep asking yourself "is this a novel or a short story collection." But eventually, you make yourself shut up and stop fretting about categories so you can just enjoy this fine work.

I plan to Xerox a few pages for my creative writing class to teach about character development. You know that a writer has talent to spare when even the PETS in the novel are fleshed out enough to fill a character chart.

I hate summarizing books. Many good novels sound sort of dumb when you outline the plot. (My good friend, Quinn Dalton, has a metaphor for this. I am far too reserved to repeat it, but you should email her and she'll tell you herself.) That said, here's my clumsy attempt to tell you what Crackpots is about: The novel traces an enigmatic young woman, Ruby and her dogs (Go-Jeff, Roo, Walter Cronkite, et al) through her girlhood, marraiges, and finally her true womanhood.

See how dry that sounds? A reviewer for the NYT does it better, but still no summary captures the magic this gorgeous book: There's the mother who walks down the street playing her violin to attract the attention of a lover, the little girl who is fixated on the word SQUIRREL and the family's coping mechanism of spending days at a time underneath their beds.

Read this book. You'll be happy you did. I promise.