Roads first. Then bike lanes. Maybe

I wish I knew who made the decision to turn the Twin Cities into the biking capital of the state, if not the country. The streets in both cities are a disaster, with sometimes dangerous conditions for motorists.

Yet the politicians seem to be ignoring this problem in favor of kowtowing to the minority of citizens who bike for how long — six months of the year — maybe? Four-lane streets are becoming two lanes, which makes navigating the roadways difficult.

Attempting to buy votes? Of course not — that would never happen in Minnesota.

Fix the streets first and then maybe, maybe, create bike lanes.

Bob Hart, St. Paul

 

Not above the law

Our Constitution limits the ability of any President to commit crimes in the context of official actions. It provides for impeachment of presidents and other federal officials for the crimes of treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors.

If the House of Representatives has proof that a current or former president has committed those crimes, it can bring a bill of impeachment, prove its case, and issue a penalty. And this does not bar that previous president from being tried for those crimes proven in a successful impeachment.

The difficulty will be separating official from unofficial acts. The Supreme Court has left that to the federal appeals and district courts to work that out.

No president has ever been “above the law,” and neither is he or she now.

Dave Racer, Woodbury

 

Trump’s ‘Gish gallop’

Imagine being in a debate and having your opponent make the assertion, “The moon is more important than the sun because the moon shines at night when we really need the light.”

How would you respond? It would probably take you a while to even know where to begin. Such was the debate I watched on Thursday night.

Ex-president Donald Trump dumped so many such non-sequiturs onto the stage, one on top of the other, that President Biden wasn’t sure where to begin. This debate style actually has a name; it’s called the Gish gallop. (Def. “The Gish gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm their opponent by providing an excessive number of arguments with no regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments.” Wikipedia).

I’m convinced that if the 90-minute debate was printed out and read as a narrative rather than viewed visually, Biden would be the easy winner. His answers to the pre-arranged questions were to the point and honest, while the world according to Trump was 95% fictional. The moderators seemed brain-dead to this fact. In fact, subsequent talking-head commentaries all were brain-dead to this.

G.J. Mayer, Lino Lakes

 

Now, jet lag?

President Biden’s handlers have used: “a cold,” not taking his medications (for what, I wonder), his jam-packed schedule (spare me!), and now jet lag as excuses. From travel over a week before the debate? And what about the weeklong entrenchment at his hideout in Delaware, supposedly prepping for the show? From what I’ve learned in the so-called media, he’s been rehearsing (in between naps) in a hangar that seems to be run by Hollywood’s central casting. No amount of production value can obfuscate this bad actor’s ineligibility for the role he’s pretending to and wants to continue to play. This is not entertainment people. It’s tragic, and Donald Trump is not orchestrating it. They are.

The DNC, his administration (bosses?), First Lady Jill Biden and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre should all be charged with malfeasance, criminal lack of transparency (outright lying) and elder abuse. The mainstream media should all lose their official press credentials and be held in contempt of the truth, or at least turn in their Pulitzers for not understanding what facts are. More to the point, not being willing to report them, not to mention the perpetual slander of President Trump. What’s next … his dog Commander ate his homework before attacking another Secret Service babysitter?

The rats are jumping from the ship in droves now, but they’ve hitched their fortunes to a false and fallen star. They’re left with unsaleable leftovers no one wants and aren’t even electorially viable at this late date anyways. “Hoisted on their own petard” you might say. The demise of this panoply is out there for all to see I’m afraid, for those honest enough to actually see it, and the whole world is watching. Friend and foe alike.

Peter K. Cudworth, St. Paul

 

Time for a split

The red and blue gangs gave us two old men — Evil and Feeble.  It’s time to split them both. National, Economical, Liberal and Labor. Wouldn’t it be great to have a real choice?

Quentin Roggenbuck, Lauderdale

 

Compare the records

Granted, Biden did not show his best self at the recent televised debate. The next day in Raleigh, N.C., however, he made an excellent comprehensive stump speech. We shouldn’t forget his most recent passionate State of the Union Address. While Trump may have been more forceful, his bluster was filled with his typical lie-laced schtick.

We should be comparing Biden’s presidential accomplishments to those of Trump’s. Marc Thiessen, respected conservative pundit, called Biden’s first two years’ accomplishments the most productive of any president since JFK. And, that assessment didn’t factor in the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, the Election Reform Act, the CHIPS Act and the Infrastructure Plan. Of critical importance to these successes was Biden’s appointment of quality people to his cabinet and White House staff.

Trump, on the other hand, put in place a bunch of scallywags, many of whom proved jail worthy. Bottom line, compare Biden’s accomplishments the past four years with Trump’s evolving “rap sheet” of immoral and illegal behavior. Biden has earned a second term.

Pete Boelter, North Branch

 

Consequences

Much has been said about the recent presidential debate, which showed how age and stress have diminished President Biden’s ability to communicate without the aid of a teleprompter. What hasn’t received as much attention is the fact that if elected, he is  unlikely to be able to complete another four-year term.  A vote for Biden is a vote for Harris for president.

Regina Palosaari, St. Paul

 

‘Fit for office’

It is so reassuring to hear our governor report to us, after his meeting with the president, that Joe Biden is “fit for office,“ presumably for four more years. After his days running the government of Minnesota, Tim Walz will have a banner career selling used cars. Holy cow, what politics can compel people to do and say.

T. J. Sexton, St. Paul

 

Independence?

On the evening of our latest July 4, I hear the sounds of many crackles and pops of fireworks celebrating our nation’s independence. After a loud boom, I am jolted and reminded that today’s July 4 is, sadly, a celebration of a nation of dependence.

Mark Kirchner, St. Paul

 

Best court money can buy

Let me see if I understand this ruling correctly. If a president commits a crime and claims it is an official act then he is immune from justice. So much for no man is above the law. For the last 24 years l’ve witnessed the most tone deaf court ever assembled. Citizen United gave us the best Supreme Court money can buy. What’s next? If they had their way they would change the Ten Commandments to the Ten Suggestions.

Dan Mitchell, Roseville

 

More on athlete Greg Larson

Last Sunday’s Pioneer Press sports section had a very short mention of the passing of Greg Larson. His sports accomplishment in Minnesota deserve more mention.

Greg played three sports at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, and their basketball team won two state titles. He was inducted into their Hall of Fame.

He was an unrecruited walk-on player for the University of Minnesota football team. A three-year letterman, he was the team captain and All Big Ten selection when the Gophers won their last national championship in 1960. He was enshrined into the M Club Hall of Fame in 2010.

He played 13 years for the New York Giants and was named to the Pro Bowl in 1968.

This year Greg was named one of the top 100 New York Giants of their 100-year existence.

Greg turned to golf after football and won several club championships.

When he played for the Gophers he played for Murray Warmath.

Larry Sewall, Woodbury

 

Concerns about community cats

Very soon, the community cat population in the Twin Cities is going to rise. Vulnerable kittens will be found in more boats opened in the spring. Pregnant cats will give birth under more decks. Injured cats will show up at more playgrounds. More bird, rabbit, and squirrel babies will be found dismembered. Independent cat rescuers, who usually step up to help the cats and people in these situations, will no longer be able to do their part.

Independent cat rescuers are the people you see getting tagged in the Facebook post about the cat eating from the dumpster at McDonald’s. They get the text that a lactating cat got hit by a car and there are neonatal kittens crying in a garage. The neighbor knocks on their door when cats are left behind in a vacated apartment. Women, with full-time jobs and their own families and pets, do this unpaid work. They save cats on other people’s property during their own spare time. They use their own money to purchase traps, food, litter and other supplies.

The main tool in the arsenal of the independent cat rescuer is trap-neuter-return, known as TNR. By spaying and neutering the unsocialized cats in the community, independent cat rescuers (and a few organizations, like Pet Project Rescue) prevent the suffering of cats and other creatures in the community. Historically, Animal Humane Society (AHS) has been the linchpin of TNR in the Twin Cities. For a decade, AHS has provided free spay/neuter appointments for unsocialized cats in traps. The program prevented disease spread, curbed the mating and cat fight noises in the community, and stopped a next generation of cats from living outside.

AHS has been systematically dismantling the TNR program in recent years. At the high point, they were offering 90 appointments per week. Today, that number is 15. Previously, rescuers could bring cats in traps to AHS on a walk-in basis. AHS changed to using a call center where people could call during business hours and AHS would generally provide an appointment available for TNR the next day. Recently, AHS switched to a portal where people need to request appointments. The portal is generally open about 15 minutes per week. AHS then assigns an appointment several weeks in the future with no regard for the schedule of the person who is trapping the cat. AHS announced that they will start charging $75 per cat on July 1, 2024.

Independent cat rescuers do not want to lose the most important tool we have to help the cats, people, and wildlife in our community. We want our trusted partner to continue to provide vital TNR services to the community.  We don’t want cats to suffer, we don’t want songbirds to get killed, and we want to answer the calls about cats in need from people in our community.

Jada Fehn, Columbia Heights

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“Inside Out 2” delivers a fresh crop of emotions for Riley, the film’s 13-year-old protagonist, who begins the story at the cusp of puberty. Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy and Ennui join the core emotions from the original film: Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust and Sadness.

The most consequential of the new arrivals is Anxiety, whose well-meaning but chaotic influence pushes Riley and the other emotions to the edge of mental and social catastrophe. Voiced by Maya Hawke and bursting with discomfiting character details — unruly hair, bulging eyes, a grand-piano grin — Anxiety emerges as the hit sequel’s breakout star and unstable center of gravity.

In a series of interviews, the team at Pixar that brought the character to life — director Kelsey Mann, character designer Deanna Marsigliese and animation supervisors Evan Bonifacio and Dovi Anderson — broke down Anxiety’s anatomy and discussed taking inspiration from psychology research, the bird kingdom and the produce aisle. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.

Q: What was the initial idea for the character? Who was Anxiety?

MANN: Initially, she was a shape-shifter. She was going to be this person who was lying about who she was. I wanted somebody that was almost made of clay. Kind of a monster character, almost like a lizard. But we eventually got rid of that twist because it made the movie really complicated.

MARSIGLIESE: By the time she came to me, other ideas had already been tried, but they weren’t working in the story. They were a little bit more sinister, more antagonistic. I thought maybe we could try to soften the character, see if we could do something a little more approachable. I did about a dozen-and-a-half, maybe two dozen thumbnails — very tiny sketches. After a few days, I chose 10 and put them in front of Kelsey. He chose the first one I’d ever done.

MANN: They were just fun. You don’t want the audience to root for the antagonist, but you do want them to enjoy when they’re on-screen. Whenever the earlier version of the character showed up, I just didn’t like watching it.

Q: Where did you look for inspiration?

MANN: Deanna had a really great idea to link her a little to Fear, because they are kind of distant cousins.

MARSIGLIESE: Every time I looked up a definition for anxiety, it always started with “A fear of.” “Anxiety is a fear of what may happen.” So I started to think, “OK, Fear and Anxiety are different, but clearly they’re related,” so I designed her with that in mind.

MANN: The more research we did, the more we realized that Anxiety is really there to help and protect us, which encouraged us to lean into a more fun design. Jason Deamer, the production designer, pointed out that the male emotions seemed to be more stylized. Anger is a square and Fear is this kind of raw nerve. I remember him saying it’d be really great if we could do that for a female character.

MARSIGLIESE: Anxiety and Fear share those really expressive, hypervigilant eyes. That was tent pole No. 1. But where Fear is really vertical in design, I decided that for contrast, Anxiety would be more horizontal. That’s where we got that really broad mouth.

MANN: I remember one of the animators doing some birdlike references for the fast little movements of her eyes.

BONIFACIO: The concept was that somebody who was anxious would be constantly scanning the room trying to look for problems and plan for the future.

MARSIGLIESE: To me, it’s almost like a kettle. There’s this simmering, constant nervous energy just below the surface that very gradually builds. And like the steam in a kettle, it’s going to need avenues for release.

MANN: She’s the opposite of Ennui. Where Ennui is like, “I barely need to move unless I have to,” Anxiety is just constantly moving. We always said she’s got restless leg syndrome.

BONIFACIO: The animators did a lot of explorations of how she would move in the environment that ended up influencing the story. Her apologetic nature is an example — the idea that she’s touching the console and taking over headquarters but she’s sorry but she can’t help herself.

Q: What other physical traits did you use to express her personality?

MARSIGLIESE: I chose a lot of features that would support nervous tics and habits, her clothing being one of them.

MANN: I remember somebody had the great idea that she’s going to have a really itchy sweater. If you look at Sadness, the sweater, it’s very warm. It’s very cozy. It feels like it’s cashmere. But Anxiety, she has this itchy wool that kind of added to her anxiousness.

MARSIGLIESE: She’s got the high collar, which I imagine she’d be tugging on a lot. It’s a little suffocating. She’s got stretched-out sleeves, which is her doing. She’s got her pants hiked up, which isn’t the most comfortable. And her boots are just a little too tight. Everything is built to aggravate her just a little bit.

MANN: Her hair was a big part of the character, too. It’s wild even when she’s trying to present herself as together, like she’s trying to tame the chaos. The simulation department, who does hair and cloth, added a lot.

MARSIGLIESE: I used the top of a carrot as a reference. The way the leafy bits exit the carrot top really stiff and strong but then get flimsy and light toward the tips. I wanted it to be a conduit for all her trembling and twitching.

BONIFACIO: The hair itself had a bunch of poses, probably five to eight: Stiff and straight up, a more relaxed groom, a softer groom, a wiry groom. If Anxiety screamed in the script, the animators could say, “Go from a soft groom to a stiff, more upright groom at this exact second.”

Q: What was the hardest part of the character to animate?

BONIFACIO: The mouth. Building the rig — the thing that’s underneath the skin of the character that allows the animators to pose out the arms, the head and the face.

MARSIGLIESE: The teeth were a big thing. They were meant to rattle and move around the mouth. It’s unsettling. A lot of my choices were about asymmetry: being off-center, off-kilter. She was put together in a way to make you be like, “Are you OK? Are you going to fall apart? Can you stand up?” I really wanted her to make the other emotions and the audience feel a little bit nervous by proxy.

ANDERSON: We were curious what it was going to look like when the character was talking. Are the teeth going to be moving too much? How can we make it so it’s not too hard to follow the dialogue?

BONIFACIO: If you look at the drawings, there’s no denture. There’s no jawbone. It’s just this sort of big, open shape. We had to figure out a way to give her a wide range of expressions but still have the teeth anchored to something.

ANDERSON: A standard mouth rig has like 300 controls. For Anxiety, we probably had 1,000.

BONIFACIO: There were two full sets of controls for the mouth, and each tooth could be controlled individually if needed.

ANDERSON: Even though she had a very challenging design, the fundamentals of animating her were the same as anyone else. The animators are performers — it’s their job to figure out what the performance is going to be. What am I? What is the subtext? What’s going on inside the character’s head? How do I communicate that to the audience? Many would go into an acting room, turn on a camera and act the scene out with their own human anatomy and limitations. Then the question is, “How do I translate that into this design?”

Q: What’s your favorite Anxiety scene?

MANN: There’s a scene where Riley experiences a panic attack at the end of the film. I wanted Anxiety to come in and take over the console and drive too hard on Riley.

ANDERSON: She starts moving really fast and turns into this whirlwind. He ended up animating 106 Anxieties in about eight shots. In one shot, there might have been upward of 10 or 15 Anxieties — multiple arms and heads going around in circles.

MARSIGLIESE: Anxiety for some people is really debilitating; they’re not activated by it, they’re paralyzed. Other people get really activated and kinetic. It was important that we start her at one extreme and then walk her to the other, so that everyone with anxiety could see themselves and their behavior in her.

MANN: There’s a really great line in that scene where she says, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Joy. I was just trying to protect her.”

MARSIGLIESE: I think there’s a single tear.

MANN: I’m really proud of the way it turned out, because it takes the entire team of artists and filmmakers at the studio to pull that off.

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Today is Sunday, July 7, the 189th day of 2024. There are 177 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 7, 1981, President Ronald Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Also on this date:

In 1865, four people were hanged in Washington, D.C. for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln: Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt and Mary Surratt, the first woman to be executed by the federal government.

In 1898, President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution, approving the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii.

In 1930, construction began on Boulder Dam (known today as Hoover Dam).

In 1976, the United States Military Academy at West Point included female cadets for the first time as 119 women joined the Class of 1980.

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In 1990, the first “Three Tenors” concert took place as opera stars Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras performed amid the brick ruins of Rome’s Baths of Caracalla on the eve of the FIFA World Cup final.

In 2005, terrorist bombings in three Underground stations and a double-decker bus killed 52 people and four bombers in the worst attack on London since World War II.

In 2010, Los Angeles police arrested and charged Lonnie Franklin Jr. in the city’s “Grim Sleeper” serial killings. (Franklin, who was sentenced to death for the killings of nine women and a teenage girl, died in prison in March 2020 at the age of 67.)

In 2013, Andy Murray became the first British man in 77 years to win the Wimbledon title, beating Novak Djokovic in the final.

In 2016, Micah Johnson, a Black Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, opened fire on Dallas police, killing five officers in an act of vengeance for the fatal police shootings of Black men; the attack ended with Johnson being killed by a bomb delivered by a police robot.

In 2021, a squad of gunmen assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and wounded his wife in an overnight raid on their home.

Today’s Birthdays:

Musician-conductor Doc Severinsen is 97.
Former Beatle Ringo Starr is 84.
World Golf Hall of Famer Tony Jacklin is 80.
Actor Joe Spano is 78.
Actor Shelley Duvall is 75.
Actor Roz Ryan is 73.
Actor Billy Campbell is 65.
Basketball Hall of Famer Ralph Sampson is 64.
Singer-songwriter Vonda Shepard is 61.
Actor-comedian Jim Gaffigan is 58.
Actor Amy Carlson is 56.
Actor Jorja Fox is 56.
Actor Robin Weigert is 54.
Basketball Hall of Famer Lisa Leslie is 52.
Actor Kirsten Vangsness (“Criminal Minds”) is 52.
Actor Berenice Bejo (BEH’-ruh-nees BAY’-hoh) (Film: “The Artist”) is 48.
Actor Hamish Linklater is 48.
Olympic figure skating medalist and current US Ambassador to Belize Michelle Kwan is 44.
Guitarist Synyster Gates (Avenged Sevenfold) is 43.
Pop singer Ally Brooke (Fifth Harmony) (TV: “The X Factor”) is 31.
Pop musician Ashton Irwin (5 Seconds to Summer) is 30.
Country singer Maddie Font (Maddie and Tae) is 29.

Here are two debut novels from talented Twin Cities-based authors and a new thriller from an award-winning Minnesota series writer. All perfect summer reading.

(Courtesy of the author)

“The Sirens of Soleil City”: by Sarah C. Johns (Random House, $18)

Donna swam too slowly, leading to Phyllis bumping into her, which led to Donna stopping to curse Phyllis out. When the order was reversed, Ilona got kicked in the back by Donna, which led to Dale jumping in between them to prevent a physical altercation. A bird flying above would have seen chaos. Wet, angry women who couldn’t swim together in a simple shape. — from “The Sirens of Soleil City.”

Sarah C. Johns (Courtesy of the author)

It’s a writer’s dream to have their debut novel published by one of the biggest publishers in the country. St. Paulite Sarah C. Johns made it happen with “The Sirens of Soleil City,” which she’ll launch Tuesday, publication day, in Minneapolis.

There is so much right in this novel about three generations of women in one family at different stages of life. The setting is West Palm Beach., Fla., in 1999 where senior citizen women live in a slightly run-down apartment building. They are a bonded group, even though there is bickering. They are on either side of 70,  and they’ve lived full lives. Now they’re content to gather around the pool at sundown, gossiping and keeping track of one another’s well-being. There is a tenderness to Johns’ treatment of these women. Yes, they have aches and pains, but they are mostly tough and not surprised by much of anything. They are worried about the possibility of leaving Soleil City because the building needs repairs and the manager does nothing about it.

Among the residents is Dale, who’s led a colorful life. Dale left her daughter, Cherie, when the child was 5 so she could go to Mexico. Cherie grew up to be a fixer, a problem-solver to whom people turn when they need help. She has money and she is well-organized but nobody knows that she’s having second thoughts about her marriage. Then there’s Marlys, who also lives at Soleil City, the woman who raised Cherie. Marlys is dying but nobody will talk about it. Pregnant Laura, Cherie’s daughter, is leaving her husband just a few months before her baby’s birth.

When Cherie arrives at Soleil City to visit her “two mothers,” she already has a plan. Could the women form a synchronized swim team and win enough money to have the apartment building repaired? So Cherie recruits daughter Laura to be the team’s reluctant coach.

The story is told in alternating voices of Dale, Marlys and Laura. Their lives are revealed in intimate conversations and there is hilarity in the Soleil City women’s efforts to learn the basics of team swimming, including kicking aged legs high out of the water.

This is a delightful book with everything you want in a story — an intricate plot, lively and well-drawn characters, good dialogue, humor, and three generations of love.

Johns, who lives in St. Paul, is a writer and video producer who studied in South Africa, Hungary, Israel and Germany, graduating from McGill University in Canada before attending film school in Australia.  She will launch her novel at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 9, at Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls., in conversation with award-winning Gretchen Anthony, author of “Tired Ladies Take a Stand” and “The Kids Are Gonna Ask.” The program is free but registration is required. Go to magersandquinn.com/events.

(Courtesy of the author)

“City of Secrets”: by P.J. Tracy (Minotaur Books, $28)

They veered off in different directions, always staying within sight of each other as they went room-to-room. All their senses were honed to painful clarity by the slipstream of adrenaline that was carrying them both. Nolan’s heart had climbed up to her throat, and with every step, every breath, it hammered harder, threatening to suffocate her. — from “City of Secrets”

P.J. Tracy launches (Courtesy of the author)

A lot has happened to Los Angeles police Detective Margaret Nolan since she debuted in P.J. Tracy’s “Deep Into the Dark” in 2021. Nolan didn’t much like other humans when the series began. She was an emotionally cold cop who teamed up with Sam Easton, a Gulf War vet whose face was mangled by an IED explosion. In “City of Secrets,” fourth in the Nolan series, Maggie and Sam are both in better places in life. Nolan is drawn to a colleague, Remy, and Sam is in a relationship with Melody, a recovering alcoholic who was a major character in the first Nolan thriller. Thanks to Melody, Sam has mostly overcome his PTSD  and no longer cringes when people look at his ruined face. He’s also a consultant for the police department’s SWAT team.

But crime never goes away in Los Angeles, and Remy is thinking of leaving law enforcement because of it.  He thinks the city “had a shrill, dangerous hum that hadn’t existed five years ago, and it scared him.”

As “City of Secrets” begins the body of a man is found in his car in one of the city’s worst neighborhoods. Why was a well-to-do guy there in the middle of the night? Nolan and her partner, Al Crawford, learn the victim was the head of a pet food company about to sell for millions. He was also a sex addict so there were plenty of women who might have wanted him dead.

A day after the body is found, the wife of the man’s partner is kidnapped. The partner, a sweet guy who would never hurt anyone, hasn’t been involved with the company for years. Then, he’s also abducted. Remy, meanwhile, is pursuing a street rumor that the Angel of Death has returned. At the center of the plot seems to be someone known only as Mimi, an elusive woman whose motives aren’t clear. The case gets murkier, and more violent, as the team finds connections going all the way to an aristocratic family’s winery in Spain and a brutal betrayal.

Tracy, who lived in Los Angeles for 10 years, writes spot-on dialogue, and her characters are complex  She brings the beauty and ugliness of Los Angeles alive as her characters move from the elegant Bel-Air hotel to the seedy neighborhoods where murder is nothing new.

P.J. Tracy is the pen name of Traci Lambrecht, who wrote eight books in the  Monkeewrench series with her mother, P.J., and two more after P.J.’s death. Books in the series won almost every mystery/thriller national award. Other titles in the Margaret Nolan series are: “The Devil You know,” “Desolation Canyon” and “Deep Into the Dark.”

Tracy and Allen Eskens, award-winning author of nine novels, including “The Life We Bury,” will tag team in a lively discussion about their work at Minnesota Mystery Night at 7 p.m. Monday, July 15, Axel’s Restaurant, 1318 Sibley Memorial Highway, Mendota. The program is free, but reservations are required at 651-686-4840. Pre-program dinner is available. Those making reservations should mention Minnesota Mystery Night. For information go to minnesotamysterynight.com. Tracy’s book, to be published in August, and Eskens’ forthcoming novel “The Quiet Librarian,” due out in February, 2025, are available now for pre-publication sale.

(Courtesy of Third State Books)

“Edison”: by Pallavi Sharma Dixit (Third State Books, $29.95)

…he returned to his apartment of men with the thought that he was cursed by the principal paradox of his country: an obsession with big-screen love stores matched only by the inordinate amount of time spent arranging marriages and forbidding dating. How could practically every Hindi movie ever made involve the subject of love when love was wholly prohibited by parents across the country and throughout the diaspora? — from “Edison”

Pallavi Sharma Dixit (Courtesy of the author)

All the immigrant Indians in Edson, N.J., thought Prem Kumar was just a “pumpwalla” who worked at a gas station. They didn’t know Prem came from one of India’s wealthiest families and ended up in Edison because Prem’s father got tired of him sitting around watching Hindi films all day. Prem was tired of people telling him he needed a plan for his life, so he found himself in Edison, sometimes called Little India because it was a center of the Indian diaspora.

Prem didn’t do well at first. Just off the plane he was robbed by two guys, one of whom even felt sorry for this clueless nerd. He lived in an apartment with other guys, sleeping on a mattress under a bag of onions. Then he got a job at a nearby grocery and fell in love at first sight with the owner’s daughter, Leena, who returned his loving looks. For a while they found ways to be together, but her father found out about their relationship and told Prem he could marry Leena when he made a million and one dollars. (The extra dollar is for luck.) For the next decade Prem loves Leena, even though he rarely sees her and her engagement is announced. Prem, always a lover of Hindi movies, becomes a prominent producer of shows featuring major Indian film stars but life is meaningless without Leena.

In her debut novel, Dixit takes us into the lives of Prem’s friends, all of whom want to become entrepreneurs. These are not immigrants from India who came in the first flood — doctors and lawyers — but men and women who work hard to grab their part of the American dream. Woven through the story are glimpses of the future in which these newcomers make their dreams come true.

This is also a story of the town of Edison, where the author grew up and where her parents still live. She describes how the the city morphed into Indian-owned businesses as Edison became “the name that became synonymous among expatriate Indians and those in the homeland as a homeland in America.” For instance, Indian-owned businesses moved into Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen without changing the buildings’ basic architecture. One of Prem’s most lovable friends, Beena, runs a catering business out of her apartment, constantly chopping vegetables while Prem curls up on her sofa when he’s despondent even after the successes of his big shows.

This is a fun, happily-ever-after story the publisher calls “a Bollywood-style love story in the guise of literary fiction.” There are lots of references to Indian films, stars and music, but the author translates the titles into English when necessary.

Publishers Weekly describes Dixit’s novel as an “effervescent debut. This romp is one to savor.” Kirkus praised: “A sparkling epic worthy of Bollywood’s silver screens.”

“Edison” is so lively, and Prem is such an endearing character, the reader is happily transported to Little India with all its zest for life, including the foods and colors these good-hearted folks brought to the United States.

Dixit, who was born in India, won the first annual Asian American Writers’ Workshop Pages in Progress prize, co-sponsored by Third State Books. She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has been aided by grants and fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board and others. She lives with her husband and two children in Minneapolis.

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