The Adventures of Flash Jackson - Softcover

Kowalski, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552771384 ISBN 13: 9780552771382

Publisher: Black Swan, 2004

Synopsis

Returning to the quirky small town of the acclaimed EDDIE'S BASTARD, Kowalski introduces the unforgettable Haley Bombauer - a truly offbeat and endearing heroine - as she teeters on the brink of womanhood. 'On my very last day of being 16 years old, I fell through the roof of our barn and broke my leg in three places. I was just in a climbing mood I guess - the kind of mood that can overtake a girl sometimes on a hot July day, thinking that if something glamorous doesn't happen soon, right that minute, she'd go crazy. 'Haley Bombauer, a.k.a 'Flash Jackson' seems doomed to spend the summer in a cast, absolutely bored out of her skull. But in a strange twist of fate, Haley's 'imprisonment' gives her peculiar grandmother the chance finally to see what the girl is made of - and maybe pass on to her some of the mysterious and mystical arts that only she knows. As Haley comes to understand just who her grandmother is, and what the old woman can teach her, she is transformed - from tomboy to extraordinary woman.

About this title

About the Author:

William Kowalski is the author of EDDIE'S BASTARD, winner of South Africa's Exclusive Books Ama-Boeke Prize; SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF HERE, THE ADVENTURES OF FLASH JACKSON and THE GOOD NEIGBOUR, all published by Black Swan. Born in Ohio and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, he now lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with his wife and two daughters.

From Publishers Weekly:

This amusing, slightly bizarre novel by Kowalski (Eddie's Bastard) puts a supernatural spin on a familiar coming-of-age story. Seventeen-year-old tomboy Haley Bombauer lives with her widowed mother in upstate New York. Though they look much like anyone else, the Bombauer women are actually witches-or at least, Haley's reclusive grandmother is. Her mother has given up the family tradition, and Haley herself never took an interest until she breaks her leg and has to spend a summer recuperating indoors. She becomes so bored that she starts messing around with spells. At the urging of her mother, she moves in with her strict, forbidding grandmother, who teaches Haley the healing arts and some other skills. Though Haley is at first resistant, she gradually comes to embrace her special powers. When the outside world threatens to interfere with this dubious education, the old woman and her cabin vanish into thin air. Haley continues to live in the woods on her own; she eventually makes a partial return to civilization as the town healer, but not before she has an unlikely adventure with drug smugglers and a wild sexual encounter with a neighbor boy. Her exploits as a feral woodswoman are implausible even by the loose standards of this book and make for some comically absurd lines ("Note to self: When menstruating, bury used tampons very deep. Something has been digging them up lately. Something big"). Yet Haley is a winning narrator whose dry sense of humor keeps the celebration of womanhood from getting too syrupy.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Black Swan
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0552771384
• ISBN 13: 9780552771382
• Binding: Paperback