Against Gravity (1996) by Lucy Feriss

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Against Gravity (1996)

by Lucy Ferriss

Hudson River Valley, New York

New York: 25/105

Upstate New York: 22/23

     I will be so glad to see the back of the literary portrait of Upstate New York.  What a grim place!  A grim place, filled with stories about teenage girls either being murdered, getting pregnant or just being bored and unhappy.   I've already caught on to a central dynamic at the heart of the 1,001 Novels Project:  There are many, many, many places where they only people who stick around are 1) out of area do-gooders, back to make a difference (usually the mother of the nuclear family or a love interest) 2) local adult men who are either dumb but good hearted or smart and wicked or 3) sad teenage girls who can't get out because they can't drive or still in high school.  I would estimate that is about 75% of the characters from the books out of upstate New York.

   Against Gravity is a novel that dares to ask the question, "If you write a novel with a bunch of characters who are utterly uninteresting and accomplish nothing, will anyone read that novel?"  Based on the dour New York Times review, the fact that it's out of print and has two Amazon rating, I'm going to say the answer is no.  Certainly, I was grateful that I'd checked the hardback out of the library- which is the easiest, fastest way for me to read a book, and didn't have to subject myself to either an Audiobook or Ebook version.  

  Squarely inside the sad teenage girl stuck inside her room int he middle of nowhere genre that dominates the 1,001 Novels project, Against Gravity is about a teenage girl nicknamed Stick (because she is skinny) who lives in a sub-hamlet in the Hudson River Valley.  Mom manages a homeless shelter, Dad works at a local electronics plant.  Her best friend is a pregnant teen who gets knocked up the night of the Challenge explosion, which they had travelled en masse to watch.

   The first portion of the book revolves around dealing with her pregnant teen friend.  Snoozeville.  The second portion involves her going to NYC to be a tap dancer and then coming back to her nowhere hometown to take care of her dad after he falls off a roof.   There's also an utterly depressing subplot about a neighbor who is accused of molesting his foster children.   Maybe if I wasn't fifty novels deep into these types of books thanks to the 1,001 Novels project, I would have found Against Gravity, but as it stands this book is going to be at the bottom of my list for this part of the country.

  Last book up for upstate New York is the collected short stories of John Cheever, which clocks in at 700 pages.   I tried to read the Ebook but that didn't take so I'm waiting on a hard copy.  It's going to be a while.  Meanwhile, on the Bronx and Harlem.