Two Jon Hassler novels

I recently finished two Jon Hassler novels, Dear James (1996) and Rookery Blues (1997).

The first is one of Hassler's Staggerford novels, featuring the sharp-tongued and redoubtable Catholic-school teacher Agatha McGee, who lives in the small Minnesota town of Staggerford. Forced into retirement by her school's closing, she doesn't know what to do with herself, and is deeply lonely from having ceased correspondence with an Irish friend, James, who turns out to be a priest. They rekindle their friendship in Italy--but at the same time, Agatha's neighbor reads James's letters, full of often unflattering references to people in Staggerford. She spreads the news around town, and when Agatha returns, she's persona non grata to nearly everyone.

This novel is full of love for small towns, even the gossip, and by the end Agatha is happy again, reconciled with her neighbors and deepening her friendship with James.

Rookery Blues is an academic novel set in 1969 a small Northern Minnesota branch campus--obscure, cold, and low-paying. When some of the professors decide to strike, trouble ensues.

After having read both novels, it's hard to find much to say about them. They're pleasant; the characters, whether sympathetic or irritating, can be very engaging indeed; even big changes in people or events don't seem to leave much of a mark. Agatha soon regains the town's respect, and soon enough the campus gets back to normal.

When you consider what some college campuses were like in 1969, Rookery's pitiful little strike in the freezing cold is absurdly insignificant. When you consider the challenges that have faced the Catholic church, the problem of some priests leaving to marry women seems bracingly normal. And because Hassler is writing in the mid-late 90s, he should know this (sex abuse scandals began to be reported in the mid-80s; Dear James is set in about 1984).

Still, these are excellent books to read while, say, recovering from an illness, or whiling away vacation days, or if you just want to spend some time with interesting but undemanding characters.