The Checkout Girl

Recently I read The Checkout Girl by Susan Zettell.

I started following Susan's blog in a round about way. Susan lives on the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia where my son lived for about a year and a half. He lived in a few places on the Cabot Trail one of which was a yurt. After moving to BC he was searching online to see if the lady who owned the yurt had a blog. What he did find was Susan's blog which pictured the yurt that he stayed in. The point I am getting at is I was perusing the blog, came across a reference to My Daughter in the Water by Louden Wainwright III. I commented on Susan's post, she kindly replied. We have found quite a few things in common. I am a reader and Susan is an author. Therefore I suggested that my good friend Lori purchase Susan's book for the St Mary's Library and lucky me I was the first reader of that copy.

Within the first few pages I was laughing in the middle of the night in my hotel room. Lots of early 70's stuff in this book so it is a bit of nostalgia for me. There are some interesting characters and situations, sex, drugs, abortion, hockey, skating, an autistic child, murder, growing up and finding oneself. The book contains humour and insight into life in a mid size industrial city. The setting is in a fictional town called Varnum with a resemblance to Kitchener which is about 40 minutes from where I live in Stratford, I could appreciate some of the local colour.

If you are looking for a light amusing read this may be the book for you.

As an anecdote I love the fact that some of the writing of this book was done in Susan's office which was a Trillium trailer! How cool is that!