Crackpots

My Great Grandma Larose, or Babcia, as we called her, was like a museum exhibit to us when we were young. She lived in the backroom of my Grandmother's house, her daughter, and was wheeled out only on special occasions and holidays. The parade route from her back bedroom to the dining room table was littered with myself, my sister, and our four cousins, all spectators under the age of ten, awaiting the arrival of our new specimen. What drew us to her with such ferocious curiosity and intrigue, was not the little white haired woman herself, but the set of rules laid down by our parents beforehand. These rules were the equivalent of the forbidden fruit, the more we heard them, the more fragile they sounded. In the car on the way to Grandma's house was when we would get the briefing from my mother. She would spin around in the passenger seat of the 77' Buick Regal, and point her boney finger at us. That's how we knew she meant business. "Remember girls, no touching Babcia, no playing with her tanks or tubes, no mentioning Grandpa, and please, only believe half of what she says. Remember, she's... not right." My mother would then spin back around and my sister and I would giggle with anticipation. It had been discovered, last Thanksgiving, when I was up three nights in a row with nightmares, that Babcia had filled my head with stories of gypsies and witches. That's when the rules came into effect. It had also been discovered that when you squeezed and held a certain clear tube connecting Babcia to a white tank behind her chair, she would, after about ten minutes, start swatting at us, and yelling in Polish. Hence the amendment to the rules, stating no touching the equipment. When reading Sara Pritchard's Crackpots, one is to approach Ruby, the narrator and protagonist, with the same caution I used with Babcia. You feel like you can only believe half of what she says. This conclusion is drawn after reading halfway through this puzzle of a story that jumps tense, jumps format, jumps from first to second, and finally to third person. This book may not appear to make much sense. This book may confuse you, baffle you, you may have to reread some chapters to remember where you are going, but it is one magnificent ride. The story is told through a young Ruby's eyes, at first. Prichard manages to capture the bizarre, yet common, curiosities that consume childhood. In one very memorable scene, Ruby is in a bathroom, having locked herself in, and uses the medicine cabinet and shaving paraphernalia as her personal toy box. From her nurturing father to her beautiful, yet detached, mother, Ruby is affected deeply by her family and their idiosyncrasies. Pritchard never drops the ball, she takes us on a journey with Ruby through adulthood, and you, the reader, willingly go along. You don't bat an eye when Ruby and her husband live for two or so years in a circus tent, because it's so consistent with the character Pritchard has develope

She has an odd but engaging view of things. I liked this book a lot.

Sara Pritchard writes the words that you think but don't always record or say while you're experiencing your life. She still sees a five- or six-year-old's simple (and sometimes erroneous) comprehension of things adults don't explain to children, and brings Ruby into adulthood and midlife with the same complex thoughts we all have during the harsh realities of life. I found this book to be simultaneously provoking and enlightening, and couldn't put it down until I finished reading it.

Sara Pritchard's skill in linking words is so excellent it's almost distracting. Because of this, I immediately turned to page one and started reading the book again once I read the last page. I enjoyed it possibly even more the second time. It's not a fast read, which is fine, because it gives you time to savour her words, sentences, and stories.

Marketing is a funny business. What's seen as hype is often an honest attempt to cut through the competitive quagmire and alert a real, breathing, human being about the fact that there is something out there, poised and ready to fulfill him. That book promotion falls back on lines like, "The New Salinger" or "The New Mailer" uncovers a sad fact about publishing: The business of communications rarely communicates effectively itself.If it could, you would hear about Crackpots on late night TV. Every dinner party would be talking about Ruby Reese and her trombone and her brilliantly remembered, perfectly detailed 1950's childhood. Somewhere between fantasy and memoir, these pages are full of the kind of stuff your head holds on to when your brain can't take in a moments more pain. The wrapper from a candy or the smell of caps from a child's gun can take on an importance almost equal to the death of a parent when we are pushed to a limit of emotional overload. It's the way we protect ourselves from feeling too much. All of us have experienced it but no one I've ever read has captured it as deftly or with more lyrical resonance than Sara Pritchard does here in Crackpots. There have been no big newspaper ads for Crackpots. There is no bookstore display with words like 'gripping' or 'riveting' in bold type splashed all over the cardboard. Obviously, the publishing machine has no idea what to do with a talent of this dimension. Pritchard is not the New Salinger or the New Mailer or the New AAMilne. She is not the New Anything. She is very much herself and hooray for that. Crackpots is a work of the most tender and delicate personality. It is a completely unique voice and the voice of a natural storyteller who lets the reader know how the past felt and smelled and tasted. If there are moments when you wonder how much of this tale could have been true, you don't wonder for a minute that whatever the facts, this is certainly how it felt. The New York Times has hailed the arrival of Pritchard on to the national literary scene and we join them in doing so. Now, if only someone would tell the rest of America!