Book read features Minnesota author

Read Jon

Hassler's

'Grand Opening'

this winter

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- A fiction book with threads of actual events is the winter book read at the New Ulm Public Library.

Jon Hassler's "Grand Opening" centers on a year in the life of the Foster family that moved from Minneapolis to Plum in 1944. Hank and Catherine invested their hopes and life savings in a grocery store in a small town in southeastern Minnesota.

In Plum, Foster's son Brendan entered the seventh grade. Catherine's 80-year-old father, the fourth family member, was disoriented by the move.

For that matter, the entire family was disoriented in the tightly-knit, insular town as strange as a foreign country.

Catherine never foresaw the mutual suspicion that divided the Lutherans and Catholics in the tiny village.

They soon learned that their success depended not on how much energy they put into the store but to a larger extent on the friends and enemies they made among the villagers and the drama surrounding that subject.

After the popular Oprah (Winfrey) Book Club came about, communities in Minnesota and across the nation created community read programs.

Reading helps avoid winter cabin fever and gives you something to talk about besides the weather, according to New Ulm library board member Judy Sampson.

"Many people want to read more than they do but aren't sure how to find a book they'd like," Sampson said. "A suggestion like this can be a good starting point."

She added that the book should be of interest to men and women of all ages.

After a number of people read the book, discussions of it will be held at the library next January, February and March. Actual dates are pending.

Sampson said the library hopes for feedback from readers so community reads can become twice a year events.

Copies of the book can be checked out at the New Ulm Public Library or at area libraries with the help of inter-library loans.

The author of a number of novels, Hassler was a writer-in-residence at St. John's University in Collegeville. His books, often set in rural Minnesota that deal with universal, human issues and the complexity and ambiguity of life, Sampson said.

The books published form 1977 to 2002, include Staggerford, Four Miles to Pinecone, Simon's Night, The Love Hunter, Jemmy, A Green Journey, Rookery Blues, Underground Christmas, North of Hope, Dear James, The Dean's List, Keepsakes, My Staggerford Journal, Rufus, Good People and the Staggerford Flood.

The Jon Hassler Theater in Plainview continues to feature professional theater in a former International Harvestor implement building throughout much of the year.

(Fritz Busch can be e-mailed at fbusch@nujournal.com).