One of them is Pauls Toutonghi’s “Red Weather” (more about that another day) and the other is “Girls in Peril,” a coming of age novel -- out in paperback -- set in Cudahy and written by Milwaukee area native Karen Lee Boren, who says that she couldn’t have set her debut novel anywhere else.
“I feel place to be extraordinarily important to this novel,” says Boren from her home in Rhode Island, where she teaches literature and creative writing at Rhode Island College.
“Could these girls have existed elsewhere? Possibly, but I knew for sure they could exist here. And I really consider Lake Michigan -- Lake Michigan on the South Side of Milwaukee -- to be a character in the novel. It's a part of these girls, and they can't resist its pull. Like life, Lake Michigan is so much more vast than one can really fathom while at the same time one is always aware it is contained, not amorphous and endless in the way of the ocean.”
“Girls in Peril” is the story of five neighborhood girls on the brink of their teenage years and the importance of the group ethic shines through in the author’s use of a first person plural narrative voice. The girls play together, gossip together and learn about life together and then -- in a powerful twist -- one day everything changes.
The story is set in the late 1970s, a time that clearly is meaningful for Boren; after all it was the era of her youth. She says that moment in time is as important to her story as the location.
“Of course, the neighborhood is also quite particular, but not only in terms of place but in time. I certainly hope that some kids still get this sense of neighborhood growing up, the combination of freedom and watchfulness that exists in the novel, but I'm certain it's less likely today with all the scheduling, protections, and organized play kids have.”
So, is “Girls in Peril” Boren’s own story rendered in engaging, creative fiction?
“The book is autobiographical only insofar as the experience of coming-of-age is represented in the book. I remember quite keenly the trauma of the realization that one is alone in the world. So the movement I wanted to explore in the book is from that sense of a collective self who has little awareness of the world beyond the security of the immediate group to an individual self who is aware of the larger constructions of the world -- constructions such as class, race, etc. -- and one's individual placement within this larger world. Thus my hope is that the book conveys not only a sense of loss but also a sense of discovery.
“As to the actual girls in the story, I consider myself to be all of them and none of them. Some of them are my sisters, some friends, but no one girl is a particular person I ever knew.”
Keen-eyed readers will recognize all sorts of nods to Milwaukee -- Sheridan Park, George Webb, WOKY, for example -- but don’t forget “Girls in Peril” is a work of fiction, reminds Boren.
“As for the actual occurrences in the book, well, it's fiction, but it's also mythology, the mythology of youth and neighborhood. For example, I never knew anyone with an extra thumb, but my sister knew a girl who claimed to have been born with one that was removed at birth. As a child, such an amazing oddity as an extra thumb takes on fantastic significance, even when it isn't actual.
“As I say to my students, art is about artifice, creation, imagination. That's what makes any type of art so great. That said, part of the craft of fiction, realistic fiction anyway, is to make it feel real, which I hope this book does.”
Boren lives far from Milwaukee these days, and she says that she’s trying to get comfortable away from Brew City. But it’s not always easy for a Cudahy girl.
“I enjoy living in Rhode Island now,” says Boren. “My husband, Paul, and I live in a little seaside house, and I'm trying to understand the ocean -- although, seriously, what's with all the salt? But my true love is Milwaukee. I love its quirkiness. I love the people, the accent, the architecture, the history. I love the polka. I love the festivals. I still have family here, and I return as often as I can to see them. Each time I return, I walk and drive by the lake, and I feel like I've returned to my best friend.”
Boren visits her best friend on Thursday, June 22 for a 7 p.m. reading at Schwartz Bookshop, 4093 N. Oakland Ave., in Shorewood. A couple weeks later, she says, you can hear her dad’s polka band, The JBO at Sheridan Park on July 4 … rain or shine.
The Web site for Tin House Press, publisher of “Girls in Peril,” is tinhouse.com.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
