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Cal Gant #1
Until They Bring the Streetcars Back
Until They Bring The Streetcars Back serves up a nostalgic journey through the streets of post-war 1949 Saint Paul-- those wistful days of ten-cent sodas, big band music, and burning leaves. Stanley West weaves rollicking humor, riveting suspense, and a bittersweet love story into the fabric of those optimistic times. Through a seemingly harmless prank and a chance conversation, Cal Gant, previously secure in the friendly neighborhoods of his idyllic life, stumbles onto the naked face of cruelty, incest, and murder. When he attempts to rescue a strange and haunting girl, he finds himself in a heart-stopping struggle with her ruthless father, leading Cal to the brink of self-doubt, terror, and death itself. Can he find within himself the backbone to stand against the horror and the daring to concoct some scheme to set Gretchen free?
276 pages, Paperback
First published January 5, 1997
53 people are currently reading
1487 people want to read
About the author
Stanley Gordon West
7 books123 followersStanley Gordon West was born in 1932 and attended St. Paul Central High School in Minnesota. He lived in Bozeman, Montana for several years, and now resides in Shakopee, MN. All of his novels are popular book club selections: Blind Your Ponies, two other novels set in the same time and place as Until They Bring the Streetcars Back - Finding Laura Buggs and Growing an Inch - and his most recent, Sweet, Shattered Dreams. His novel Amos was made into a CBS Movie of the Week starring Kirk Douglas that stirred national controversy over abuse of the aged in America. When Kirk Douglas testified before Congress and wrote in the New York Times on the issue, he pointed out that animals had been protected by law for one hundred years before children or the aged. While Amos focused on elder abuse, Until They Bring the Streetcars Back explores the other vulnerable end of the age spectrum.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 216 reviews
January 15, 2019
One of the Sisters (nuns) at my work (elder living facility) recommended this to me, and I took her up on it. I'm always game to read a book by a local author. I actually really enjoyed it. It wasn't as innocent as I was expecting it to be (profiling, I know). And it's always fun to read about someplace where you can picture the streets and intersections the author is writing about. :)
July 7, 2009
I was a teensy bit annoyed by the narrator of this book when I first started it, what with his excessive use of words like “crummy, lousy and droopy” to describe the things and moods around him and I started to worry that maybe I was dealing with a crummy Holden Caulfield knock-off. But as soon as I realized that Cal Gant, the teenaged narrator of “Streetcars” was not only not a psychopath but a decent average joe who got just happened to get sucked into the tortured, secret life of the class reject, I couldn’t put the book down.
The book is fairly short and a quick read. It only took me a couple days to get through it and keep in mind, my normally quiet husband can’t resist the urge to strike up a conversation and pour his heart out the instant he sees me sitting somewhere with my nose in a book.
It’s set in St. Paul, MN and the city backdrop is as important to the story as the characters and events that unfold within its pages. As someone who was born in St. Paul, MN and who has been a Minnesota resident for 90% of my life, I thought this book was an interesting look back into the city’s recent but very foreign past.
I think it’s also interesting that the book addresses the issues of sexual abuse and incest but it isn’t a book about sexual abuse and incest. It adds an element of suspense to the story but doesn’t turn it into a huge, emotional ordeal which I wouldn’t have thought was possible given the subject matter.
I am curious about other books this author has written—if anybody has any recommendations to make, I’m currently taking orders!
The book is fairly short and a quick read. It only took me a couple days to get through it and keep in mind, my normally quiet husband can’t resist the urge to strike up a conversation and pour his heart out the instant he sees me sitting somewhere with my nose in a book.
It’s set in St. Paul, MN and the city backdrop is as important to the story as the characters and events that unfold within its pages. As someone who was born in St. Paul, MN and who has been a Minnesota resident for 90% of my life, I thought this book was an interesting look back into the city’s recent but very foreign past.
I think it’s also interesting that the book addresses the issues of sexual abuse and incest but it isn’t a book about sexual abuse and incest. It adds an element of suspense to the story but doesn’t turn it into a huge, emotional ordeal which I wouldn’t have thought was possible given the subject matter.
I am curious about other books this author has written—if anybody has any recommendations to make, I’m currently taking orders!
February 1, 2011
This story is set in St Paul, Minnesota, in 1949. Cal Grant is a senior at Central High School. His family isn’t wealthy but they get by. They don’t own a car because his father is a streetcar driver and feels the family doesn’t need a car. They rent an apartment that they get a discount on because they are also the caretakers.
Cal is a fairly popular kid at school – he’s a decent football player and an outstanding basketball player. There’s a girl at school that he thinks he’s in love with, he has a group of friends to hang out with and a job at the nearby grocery delivering groceries.
One day, he and his entire study hall class draw detention and he is introduced to Gretchen Luttermann when she sits down behind him in the auditorium and says that her father will beat her. Gretchen had not participated in the prank that caused the entire class to get detention, but the teacher didn’t let her off.
After this, Cal starts to learn more about Gretchen, nicknamed Gretch the Wretch, and how her life is a living nightmare. Cal wants to help her, but she has sworn him to secrecy.
This leads him to make some heartbreaking choices to help Gretchen.
I chose to read this book because it’s set in St Paul and I always like to read stories that are set in places that I know. What I wasn’t ready for was how much I would be drawn into the story. I found myself crying for Cal and Gretchen.
Cal is a fairly popular kid at school – he’s a decent football player and an outstanding basketball player. There’s a girl at school that he thinks he’s in love with, he has a group of friends to hang out with and a job at the nearby grocery delivering groceries.
One day, he and his entire study hall class draw detention and he is introduced to Gretchen Luttermann when she sits down behind him in the auditorium and says that her father will beat her. Gretchen had not participated in the prank that caused the entire class to get detention, but the teacher didn’t let her off.
After this, Cal starts to learn more about Gretchen, nicknamed Gretch the Wretch, and how her life is a living nightmare. Cal wants to help her, but she has sworn him to secrecy.
This leads him to make some heartbreaking choices to help Gretchen.
I chose to read this book because it’s set in St Paul and I always like to read stories that are set in places that I know. What I wasn’t ready for was how much I would be drawn into the story. I found myself crying for Cal and Gretchen.
August 6, 2024
Entertaining, funny, sappy, serious, silly, and sad. A pretty quick read. Can’t help but love the main character even though he is the most classic ridiculous teenage boy. He exaggerates everything. Made me miss the 1950s….#takemeback
July 9, 2009
This book was really good! It told the story of Calvin (Cal) Gant. The year is 1949 and Cal is in his Senior Year at St. Paul Central. He is in Football and Basketball. He has a set of friends that he pals around with. And he has an after school job so he can save up for his own car. Everything is pretty darn good - and then he meets Gretchen Luttermann. This sad beat up little waif of a girl catches Cal's attention and his life changes. Suddenly his worries about Basketball and girls seem a little less important.
I don't want to add spoilers on this - but I have to say this wasn't quite what I expected. I thought it would be all seedy and more of a Double Indemnity kind of a thing. Instead I found myself really liking Cal and feeling bad for Gretchen. When I started reading it I was concerned that it was being narrated from a 1940's era teenage boy. I was expecting a "Golly Beave!" at any moment. It never happened of course. The characters had that understated simplicity about them that you get with some of the great writers. Where they let motif and atmosphere and action define the character rather than telling you straight out. It was really fun to find myself thinking about the importance of animals in this story for example. Those are some muscles in my head I do not flex very often anymore!
As for the end - it was satisfying but just a little too neat for me. I don’t think it was incrediably realisitic - but it was satisfying.
I don't want to add spoilers on this - but I have to say this wasn't quite what I expected. I thought it would be all seedy and more of a Double Indemnity kind of a thing. Instead I found myself really liking Cal and feeling bad for Gretchen. When I started reading it I was concerned that it was being narrated from a 1940's era teenage boy. I was expecting a "Golly Beave!" at any moment. It never happened of course. The characters had that understated simplicity about them that you get with some of the great writers. Where they let motif and atmosphere and action define the character rather than telling you straight out. It was really fun to find myself thinking about the importance of animals in this story for example. Those are some muscles in my head I do not flex very often anymore!
As for the end - it was satisfying but just a little too neat for me. I don’t think it was incrediably realisitic - but it was satisfying.
March 9, 2023
Couldn’t put it down. Loved all the references to St Paul MN ❤️
September 5, 2016
A well-done coming of age novel set in 1950 Saint Paul. The protagonist tells us in first person of his success at sports, his longing for the homecoming queen, and his bonding with his sports oriented buddies. He struggles to relate to his stern father, who came back from the war a changed man. Then he meets Gretchen, the school’s least popular girl, and learns she has a dark secret. He has a good heart, so he works at finding a way to help Gretchen, ultimately risking his own future. I am not a fan of first-person narrative, but S.G.West makes it work. The key, as I’ve noticed with Stephen King, is to overload the direct observations (a street car rumbled across the intersection, sparks cascading where the trolley passed over the intersecting wires,) and minimize the indirect (I saw a street car up ahead. I saw the sparks cascade when the trolley crossed the intersecting wires.) This reads exactly as it would in third-person-limited and has the same effect: it puts the reader in the scene. That’s what West does really well, and it makes a good story really sing.
June 21, 2017
Typical Stanley Gordon West and he did NOT disappoint! This Minnesota author has such an amazing way of writing! I love recognizing the various settings mentioned throughout the novel! Although every book I have read of his is slow to start, they never disappoint me nor am I ever reluctant to read another one! Love him!!!
January 7, 2022
read this for school and it’s the perfect example of a four star book. the humanity the main character is beautiful and the events that occurred are disgusting but seeing how he turned it around is empowering. this book is set in the years after the depression in saint paul. beautiful beautiful story.
October 12, 2023
Wow, best book I have read in some time. The author described the time in the 50’s so well and as I remember. Growing up I spent a week one summer in St Paul with some friends and I remember riding a street car to downtown St Paul. Then living there after graduation I was familiar with all the landmarks. Such a gripping story that made it hard to put this book down. The description of the parents were truly how parents, in my opinion were back then. Difficult issues but such a heartwarming ending.
December 25, 2022
It wasn’t the most groundbreaking story ever but the fact that I went to the highschool and live in the city that it takes place in made it a really good read.
May 16, 2023
4.75❤️
December 18, 2025
i was stressed out in the best way reading this book, and cal's and gretchen's friendship is so 😭😭😭 once again the book i'm required to read for english does not disappoint
⭐️4.5/5
⭐️4.5/5
January 10, 2024
This was a book I read for the Centennial Library Book Club. A novel set where I live by a locally born author, it's a book I've seen around for years. The title, the cover photo- I had some vague impression it was a history of the streetcars in St Paul, and without it being the month's read for Book Club, it's unlikely I'd have pursued reading it.
However, the adage "Don't judge a book by its cover" was indeed my folly regarding this book.
I read it in one sitting, intending to get a start on it- having two weeks to finish it. I found it a page-turner and I had to get to the end of. (Thankfully, it was a weekend when I was afforded the luxury of reading a book in one sitting!) The writing was excellent. The plot was good, and the character development was good. It was a really good story. I thought it was going to be all darkness 'themes of cruelty, incest,' as one review noted, is not my general cup of tea. But the book was beautiful. Surprising.
Calvin Gant, Gretchen Luttermann, Steve- Cal's friend who had gotten polio, Lola- the 'it' girl, Cal's sister Peggy... characters I loved meeting and loved.
"The first time I met Gretchen was like walking through poison ivy- you don't know you're in trouble until a few days later."
Steve- who had gotten polio- it's an event in history I've not thought much about. Cal is sent up north in the summers to escape the threat of polio. The vaccine wasn't introduced until the early 50's- what a threat it must have seemed, to parents particularly. Steve suffered- his younger brother dying, his parents seeming to blame him, and his attempt at jumping off the Ford bridge.
"When he was in sixth grade he got polio and his right leg kind of shriveled and ended up shorter than his other leg and it was real skinny, but he was lucky because he didn't die like a lot of kids did when they couldn't breathe and they stuck them in iron lungs and things. My parents sent me up north to live with my uncle Emil the summers when polio was running wild in St. Paul and I never got it."
"Could he have found out I'd been rolling marbles down on Whalmen? We never knew what was bothering him and that's what made it so scary, like maybe you were the one he was mad at."
His father's experience in WW2 ("a part of him never came back from the bombardments”) and his love for his profession, sadly, a dying profession, a street car driver.
“My mother…. She was always doing that, acting cheerful, you know, to make it seem like this was a happy-go-lucky family or something, but you could always tell when she was faking it. I don’t mean we weren’t ever happy or anything, because we were, we really were, lots of times, but it’s just that sometimes she’d try real hard to make things happy when they weren’t; sometimes it seemed my mother thought she was responsible for making everybody happy, that it was up to her to make things come out well, not just for us but for half the civilized world.”
Pastor Ostrum, the former basketball player in college-
“While the six-foot-six minister flipped through his notes like a deck of cards and said things like Love wasn’t having a warm feeling but it was a decision you make, and Love is not something we wait to have happen to us, but something we do, I thought about the first time I saw Lola.”
The book contrasts his ‘love’ for Lola and his ‘love’ for Gretchen.
Senior in HS- the English tests-
“There were questions like He said lie/lay down to his dog. Everyone knows since the beginning of time that you tell your dog to lay down, but do you think that’s the right answer? No, you’re supposed to say Lie down according to the M.R.s. Huh! There isn’t a dog in the universe that’d know what you mean if you told him to lie down.
“When I opened the back door of the apartment building, I hesitated. You could hear McCluskey’s dog quietly whining, not loud enough to bring a beating, but like he couldn’t quite muffle his loneliness.”
“The sun dropped somewhere behind Minneapolis, and it sprayed the sky with all these incredible colors like it didn’t want us to forget it right away. I don’t know how to explain it, swinging down Marshall in the afterglow, singing with my friends, but for just a minute or so it was like someone opened a door to all the happiness in the world, like a big crack in the sky, and happiness was pouring down on all of us, and right then it was like everything would turn out okay, Lola and me, my dad with the streetcars, the atom bomb and the Communists, everything. It only lasted a minute and down under the railroad bridge the song ended, the sunlight faded and in a second it was gone.”
“I gulped down my milk, but I could tell my mother didn’t swallow my story, and I wished there was a Humane Society for kids.”
Hot-foot, the rabbit. The ‘mystery of the disappearing carrots solved,
‘Last night I saw a carrot walk out of the kitchen with Peggy, ’ my dad said without looking up.”
The neighbor McCluskey’s dog. Cal’s dad did call the humane society.
Sandy, Cal’s friend. Adopted and wrestling- wasn’t I loved?
The Runner- ding dong ditch- later finding out, he loved it, the chase, the kids. Didn’t catch them on purpose.
“She looked into my eyes for a second like she was searching for something she could believe in- bravery, guts, balls? I wondered what she’d found there when she turned away, if she’d noticed my courage tiptoeing down the alley?”
Spence, an older, friendly fellow inmate, a Ph.D. in philosophy
“Homo sapiens is a mammal species that needs physical skin to skin, touching and affection to survive, ‘, old Spence told me one gray afternoon. ….. Same goes for adults. They don’t fall-down-and-quit-breathing die, but they die. “What do you mean?” I said. ‘They substitute material things for love and hoard them; they use alcohol and drugs to numb the pain; they hide in the sterile world of the intellect; they escape by slipping off into insanity; or they strike out in rage, stealing and destroying and killing. But without physical love, they die.
More Spence wisdom:
“I've been thinking about how brave we all are….. We keep on trying, we go on and on and on without love, searching, hoping…carrying on another hour, another day. …. You know what?...here’s the kicker. We keep wanting someone to love us…. Surprise, surprise, I think, finally, the love we need the most is our own… we never learn to love ourselves.”
“I glanced back at the soggy-looking workhouse. I ‘d learned what it was to be locked up and I remembered Spence’s words and I knew how brave they were. Spence and all those lonely men, and I caught the Como-Harriet for home.”
Graduation:
“The Commissioner of Education told the class that they had been preparing for life these four years, and now they were crossing the threshold into real life. Jeez, what planet had that guy been living on? Before basketball games we had time to warm up, but one thing I’d learned for sure: in life you don’t get any warm-up, you’re in it up to your eyeballs right off the bat and it all counts, there isn’t any practice.”
“I always thought Lola was my reward for trying to help Gretchen but it doesn’t work that way. Steve was taking Gretchen to the Commencement Dance at the Calhoun Beach Club, and I was happy that she’d be there with her class. I hope they could help each other; they were my good friends and they’d been wounded and scarred and crippled in what that jerk of a Commissioner called preparing for life.
“You climbed on, now you gotta ride it out.”
“Spit on it.”
However, the adage "Don't judge a book by its cover" was indeed my folly regarding this book.
I read it in one sitting, intending to get a start on it- having two weeks to finish it. I found it a page-turner and I had to get to the end of. (Thankfully, it was a weekend when I was afforded the luxury of reading a book in one sitting!) The writing was excellent. The plot was good, and the character development was good. It was a really good story. I thought it was going to be all darkness 'themes of cruelty, incest,' as one review noted, is not my general cup of tea. But the book was beautiful. Surprising.
Calvin Gant, Gretchen Luttermann, Steve- Cal's friend who had gotten polio, Lola- the 'it' girl, Cal's sister Peggy... characters I loved meeting and loved.
"The first time I met Gretchen was like walking through poison ivy- you don't know you're in trouble until a few days later."
Steve- who had gotten polio- it's an event in history I've not thought much about. Cal is sent up north in the summers to escape the threat of polio. The vaccine wasn't introduced until the early 50's- what a threat it must have seemed, to parents particularly. Steve suffered- his younger brother dying, his parents seeming to blame him, and his attempt at jumping off the Ford bridge.
"When he was in sixth grade he got polio and his right leg kind of shriveled and ended up shorter than his other leg and it was real skinny, but he was lucky because he didn't die like a lot of kids did when they couldn't breathe and they stuck them in iron lungs and things. My parents sent me up north to live with my uncle Emil the summers when polio was running wild in St. Paul and I never got it."
"Could he have found out I'd been rolling marbles down on Whalmen? We never knew what was bothering him and that's what made it so scary, like maybe you were the one he was mad at."
His father's experience in WW2 ("a part of him never came back from the bombardments”) and his love for his profession, sadly, a dying profession, a street car driver.
“My mother…. She was always doing that, acting cheerful, you know, to make it seem like this was a happy-go-lucky family or something, but you could always tell when she was faking it. I don’t mean we weren’t ever happy or anything, because we were, we really were, lots of times, but it’s just that sometimes she’d try real hard to make things happy when they weren’t; sometimes it seemed my mother thought she was responsible for making everybody happy, that it was up to her to make things come out well, not just for us but for half the civilized world.”
Pastor Ostrum, the former basketball player in college-
“While the six-foot-six minister flipped through his notes like a deck of cards and said things like Love wasn’t having a warm feeling but it was a decision you make, and Love is not something we wait to have happen to us, but something we do, I thought about the first time I saw Lola.”
The book contrasts his ‘love’ for Lola and his ‘love’ for Gretchen.
Senior in HS- the English tests-
“There were questions like He said lie/lay down to his dog. Everyone knows since the beginning of time that you tell your dog to lay down, but do you think that’s the right answer? No, you’re supposed to say Lie down according to the M.R.s. Huh! There isn’t a dog in the universe that’d know what you mean if you told him to lie down.
“When I opened the back door of the apartment building, I hesitated. You could hear McCluskey’s dog quietly whining, not loud enough to bring a beating, but like he couldn’t quite muffle his loneliness.”
“The sun dropped somewhere behind Minneapolis, and it sprayed the sky with all these incredible colors like it didn’t want us to forget it right away. I don’t know how to explain it, swinging down Marshall in the afterglow, singing with my friends, but for just a minute or so it was like someone opened a door to all the happiness in the world, like a big crack in the sky, and happiness was pouring down on all of us, and right then it was like everything would turn out okay, Lola and me, my dad with the streetcars, the atom bomb and the Communists, everything. It only lasted a minute and down under the railroad bridge the song ended, the sunlight faded and in a second it was gone.”
“I gulped down my milk, but I could tell my mother didn’t swallow my story, and I wished there was a Humane Society for kids.”
Hot-foot, the rabbit. The ‘mystery of the disappearing carrots solved,
‘Last night I saw a carrot walk out of the kitchen with Peggy, ’ my dad said without looking up.”
The neighbor McCluskey’s dog. Cal’s dad did call the humane society.
Sandy, Cal’s friend. Adopted and wrestling- wasn’t I loved?
The Runner- ding dong ditch- later finding out, he loved it, the chase, the kids. Didn’t catch them on purpose.
“She looked into my eyes for a second like she was searching for something she could believe in- bravery, guts, balls? I wondered what she’d found there when she turned away, if she’d noticed my courage tiptoeing down the alley?”
Spence, an older, friendly fellow inmate, a Ph.D. in philosophy
“Homo sapiens is a mammal species that needs physical skin to skin, touching and affection to survive, ‘, old Spence told me one gray afternoon. ….. Same goes for adults. They don’t fall-down-and-quit-breathing die, but they die. “What do you mean?” I said. ‘They substitute material things for love and hoard them; they use alcohol and drugs to numb the pain; they hide in the sterile world of the intellect; they escape by slipping off into insanity; or they strike out in rage, stealing and destroying and killing. But without physical love, they die.
More Spence wisdom:
“I've been thinking about how brave we all are….. We keep on trying, we go on and on and on without love, searching, hoping…carrying on another hour, another day. …. You know what?...here’s the kicker. We keep wanting someone to love us…. Surprise, surprise, I think, finally, the love we need the most is our own… we never learn to love ourselves.”
“I glanced back at the soggy-looking workhouse. I ‘d learned what it was to be locked up and I remembered Spence’s words and I knew how brave they were. Spence and all those lonely men, and I caught the Como-Harriet for home.”
Graduation:
“The Commissioner of Education told the class that they had been preparing for life these four years, and now they were crossing the threshold into real life. Jeez, what planet had that guy been living on? Before basketball games we had time to warm up, but one thing I’d learned for sure: in life you don’t get any warm-up, you’re in it up to your eyeballs right off the bat and it all counts, there isn’t any practice.”
“I always thought Lola was my reward for trying to help Gretchen but it doesn’t work that way. Steve was taking Gretchen to the Commencement Dance at the Calhoun Beach Club, and I was happy that she’d be there with her class. I hope they could help each other; they were my good friends and they’d been wounded and scarred and crippled in what that jerk of a Commissioner called preparing for life.
“You climbed on, now you gotta ride it out.”
“Spit on it.”
February 24, 2017
I didn't think I'd like this as much as I did, but it was actually a really good book. Also, it's set in St. Paul which is pretty cool
November 29, 2011
I loved this book! This is the story of Cal Gant who is a high school student in St. Paul. By accident, he has a conversation in school with Gretchen who is a girl no one wants to be caught having a conversation with. Word has it that her older sister went crazy and was sent to an insane asylum and Gretchen isn't far behind. She wears awful clothes, never makes eye contact with anyone much less talks with others, and has no friends. Gretchen sees something compassionate and caring in Cal and eventually confesses to him that her dad abuses her. She insinuates that he does so sexually and physically with a belt. The rest of the story is the continued story of Cal getting to know Gretchen and a plan he sets in motion to help her. He ends up losing a lot in the end to help his friend. I really liked the narration of this book, the idea that it was set locally, and the historical nature of the plot line (Cal's dad drives one of the last streetcars before they are removed from St. Paul to make room for the automobile). I would highly recommend this book!
June 16, 2012
This was a book that I felt at home in. It took place in St. Paul, MN, right where my alma mater is located, so I recognized all the sreet names. I even did my student teaching at Monroe High School, a school rival in the story. What fun! The story features a young man who is a student at St. Paul Central High School. He befriends a fellow student, a girl, who is living in a disfunctional family where she is being abused. It gets him in trouble, but the story ends on a positive note. I could imagine living in the city when the streetcars were still running.
January 14, 2016
I will start this out by saying this was a really, really good book and I'm not the least bit surprised. I will also say that for me it was not on the same level as the author's "Blind Your Ponies" but that could just be that I relate to the story and characters more. All of that said, this book had an engaging plot. The characters fell a little flat for me for some reason but I was still so sucked in. My family loved the descriptions of Minneapolis and it was definitely a good book that everyone should pick up and read. It's a short, easy read and well worth it.
March 31, 2009
i started reading this last year when i was subbing...now i'm going to read it to get ready to teach it...
March 2, 2013
Very good book. Takes place in the Twin Cities so it is fun to picture what areas look like now that are mentioned in the book. Not sure just when I read this, before 2006
October 24, 2024
I’m back from my reading hiatus. Review: good book good Minnesota history. Every HS senior should read this in school… main character is like the Luigi to Holden caulfields waluigi..
May 31, 2019
This book was well written, it was just the story plot that was personally tough for me. Not because it wasn't written well, just because it hit close to my neighborhood. Years ago we had neighbors, mother, 2 adolescent daughters and a step dad. The step dad was odd, simply odd. He walked past our house everyday, to and from work, and was dressed in black from head to toe, just like his name, Larry Black. Why do I remember his name? Simply because behind closed doors he took advantage of his step daughters, starting in on the oldest one until she was able to escape to college on a sports scholarship and flee across country. Then he started in on the younger sister when she was a freshman in high school. I sensed something was wrong, but just couldn't put my finger on it other than the mother was a clueless ditz. My neighbor radar was up, but what was that 'something' I simply didn't know. They probably never told or if they did, would their mother believe them? The mother walked in on the step dad on the youngest daughter and the mother saw, turned around and tiptoed out of the room. She 'didn't want to bother them' is what she told Stacie, her precious daughter later. The older sister, Virginia left a few baseball bats in the house before escaping to college. I would have found a baseball bat and used it, starting on the back of his head. Of course a divorce happened shortly thereafter, court, cross country visit back from the college student and Larry got 7 years in state prison for violating his 2 precious step daughters. This story hit too close to home. In my story the mother was just a 'clueless and non supportive' as in the book. Calvin was my hero in this story and good for him! What a great kid, even tho he had to be creative to get the story out, he did it at all costs! Yeah Calvin!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 3, 2017
The Setting is 1949 in the Central High School neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. All of the the places, the character types and dialogues were still in true from 1957 when I was traveling that neighborhood from my home on St. Paul's East Side and Johnson High School. Still true in the 1980's and 90's when our daughters attended Central High School.
The underlying theme about streetcars involves organized crime as it dominated business in the Twin Cities. One of the best metropolitan electric transit networks literally was ripped out of the streets from 1950-53. What a mess! Rework was necessary in the 1990's. General Motors, Standard Oil of California, Firestone, and others were convicted of criminal conspiracy. A $5000 dollar fine resulted. The conversion to diesel fuel buses was an environmental plague, as well as costing hundreds of jobs.
My mother and I were on one of the final runs of the Selby-Lake streetcar to downtown Minneapolis. The main characters in this fictional history rode that streetcar route often.
The underlying theme about streetcars involves organized crime as it dominated business in the Twin Cities. One of the best metropolitan electric transit networks literally was ripped out of the streets from 1950-53. What a mess! Rework was necessary in the 1990's. General Motors, Standard Oil of California, Firestone, and others were convicted of criminal conspiracy. A $5000 dollar fine resulted. The conversion to diesel fuel buses was an environmental plague, as well as costing hundreds of jobs.
My mother and I were on one of the final runs of the Selby-Lake streetcar to downtown Minneapolis. The main characters in this fictional history rode that streetcar route often.
July 25, 2025
Was drawn to this by its being set in the city in which I currently reside, St. Paul, MN (yay St. Paul! <3). Set in 1949, it's a quirky mix of coming-of-age with a major subplot focused on some pretty gnarly child-abuse with an ugly murder in the mix as well. It did take some time to get used to the Holden Caufield-like narrator's voice—it feels contrived, but then you just get used to it, basically. The novel is pretty entertaining—though I felt it needed pruning here and there, especially in the mid-section, which meanders waaay too long while our young hero decides what to do about the gnarly-child-abuse-with-murder situation (I mean, IRL I would meander too, but this indecision really hampers the narrative flow). It's fun to read a book set in your hometown, visualizing all the streets and areas of town that are so familiar—albeit almost 80 years ago! Overall, a fun read, especially if you're a Twin Cities denizen.
August 30, 2017
Loved this book. It's so evocative of its time and place. I lived in this neighborhood a couple decades after the story's events, so knew the streets and sites. The focus is on a group of students at St Paul Central High.
The author plumbed his own high school class to provide characters' names, so I was delighted when I knew the real-life version. The story is a treat to read for much more than connecting with an old neighborhood, however. Read this author's other books; some are also in St Paul, but others are set in his adult home: Montana.
The author plumbed his own high school class to provide characters' names, so I was delighted when I knew the real-life version. The story is a treat to read for much more than connecting with an old neighborhood, however. Read this author's other books; some are also in St Paul, but others are set in his adult home: Montana.
November 20, 2017
I was givin this book as an assignment for one of my classes. I have to say that I was really pulled into the mystery behind it, and thought that it was a pretty gruesome, creepy, yet exciting book. The author basically smacked the themes the book contained right in your face. It seems as if the book was lightly written, but the message it passed on what true love is was really strong. 5/5 stars from me.
April 28, 2018
I've read other reviews commenting about the first part of this book & agree. The first 40 pages, I was thinking I might not read all of this book. Once I got past that, I was hooked! It was also incredibly interesting for me since I now live in the neighborhood that is the setting for this story. For starting out on a questionable note, I'm now adding others by West to my "want to read" list.
November 12, 2018
A great story about teen life 70 years ago. Life hasn't changed all that much for kids, except today, they are plugged into electronics and not streetcars. The language was also much gentler, with swear words being very rare. My favorite part is, they can ride around 8 to a car on their dates. Actually, U had many favorite parts, but this book is about young heroes and abused girls. I do not want to be a plot spoiler.
July 21, 2019
I read and loved most of Stanley Gordon West's books over 10 years ago, but enjoyed rereading this one for book club. The St Paul setting in the neighborhood where I worked and hung out with friends for the first 10 years of my working life was a plus, but I really enjoy West's writing. Teenages haven't changed. They still keep secrets from their parents, and create their own drama regarding romance and relationships.
September 14, 2020
A story about helping someone who needs it bad with limited means, by the at this point criminally-underrated writer Stanley Gordon West, this book was a workout. With all the stuff going on in my personal life while reading it, I feel like I was running all the icy streets and doing all the time. Impressively funny, fun, intense, scary, sad and real, highly recommended. This is the kind of stuff kids should be made to read to graduate high school.
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