When Jeremy Mc Ginnis, a 15-year-old in the sleepy Gold Rush town of Murphys, discovers a retired teacher spasming with an asthma attack and out of medicine, it’s a no-brainer to get him to the hospital. But the local media suddenly turns Jeremy into a hero, his second ‘fifteen minutes of fame’. As he gets to know the teacher, Lester Crump, a man who has invested his life savings in three breeding Vietnamese miniature potbellied pigs and a trailer, he raises Andy Warhol’s comment into an intense and engaging study of personal integrity.
Outside of town Eliza Hewlie, a 65-year-old widow brokering the sale of an abandoned gold mine just upstream from Lester, has to contend with the threat of the deal contaminating the town’s groundwater. As Jeremy and Lester design a project which becomes a huge environmental scavenger hunt, involving dozens of high school students and half their parents, the tale of a town galvanized into action is told in alternating chapters by Jeremy and Eliza. In parallel coming-of-age stories, both begin feeling frustrated and trapped at the opening of the story but free and in control of their lives at the end for the first time.
‘*****THE EXECUTION IS THOUROUGHLY ENTERTAINING. People are never what they are made out to be. ‘The Extraordinary Pupfish of Calaveras County’ is a story with two unique view points. One follows Jeremy Mc Ginnis, a fifteen-year-old whose reputation is overblown as a hero when he helps an old man suffering from an asthma attack. The other follows Eliza Hewlie, a sixty-five-year-old faced with a decision that could wreak havoc on the town’s environment. ‘The Extraordinary Pupfish of Calaveras County’ seems unusual in set up, but the execution is thoroughly entertaining, leading it to a recommendation.’ Midwest Book Review, Oregon, WI
About the author
Joel Schwartz has worked with runaway youth in Hollywood for twenty years, having served as a founder and first Executive Director of the thriving Los Angeles Youth Network. An award-winning screenwriter, playwright and novelist, Joel lives in a grove of redwood trees in Men-docino County and is no stranger to rural living.
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