The Memory of a Teenage Golden Child Ripples Across Generations
Entering the lives of the Samuelson family in 1970s Altadena, Calif., feels like getting into a warm bath. Michelle Huneven's sixth novel, 'Bug Hollow,' instantly seduces even the most news-addled reader with its lovely, lucid prose, its spot-on period details (those pay phones!) and superb gift for description — of a sprawling cast led by a supportive engineer father, Phil, and a prickly elementary-school teacher mother, Sibyl; and especially of California's many wildly differing landscapes.
The Samuelsons' simple suburban world turns upside down when 17-year-old Ellis, the sunny eldest child of three, goes camping with his friends outside Santa Cruz and doesn't bother to come back. 'Some girl has snagged Ellis,' Sibyl frets. 'Good for her,' Phil says, and the marital tension is established: Dad is chill and Mom is a control freak.
Days turn into weeks with little contact from Ellis and a lot of panicking from Sibyl (is her son dropping out of college before he's even begun?), until the family tracks him to a rundown house in the Santa Cruz Mountains called Bug Hollow, the part commune, part crash pad where Ellis has moved in with Julia, an artsy, beautiful girl he met on the beach.
The young couple's joy brings back all the feels, as the kids say today — the aha-ness of falling in love for the first time — but Sibyl isn't having any of it, and brings her boy home to spend his last pre-college week with his family. As Ellis's youngest sister, Sally, the precocious and dryly hilarious narrator of the first chapter, puts it: 'Julia made a little speech about how she didn't want our parents to be mad at her because she and Ellis truly loved one another and would be together forever, and she hoped to love and be loved by his family, too.' My eyes filled.
It is not a spoiler to reveal that by Page 21, Ellis is dead: accidentally drowned in a quarry five days into his freshman year at Ole Miss. Phil goes down to Mississippi and returns with 'a box wrapped in shiny ivory paper and tied with a thick purple ribbon,' Sally narrates, thinking 'it was probably candy, and for everyone, another big assortment of chocolates he'd bought at the airport.' In fact, it is Ellis's remains. The lack of sentimentality surrounding this death is as shocking to the reader as it is to this repressed and soon-to-be fractured family who will carry this dead child along with them emotionally for generations.
The novel evolves from its innocent opening into something more intriguing. Nothing (aside from the book jacket summary) prepares the reader for the five-decade international saga that unfolds in 10 discrete but interwoven chapters, each narrated by a different member of the Samuelson family or its widening circle. Formally, the result is something like a narrative love child of Alice Munro's novelistic short stories and Elizabeth Strout's novels of interconnected short stories.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
71-Year-Old Jockey Perry Ouzts Approaching New Record
71-Year-Old Jockey Perry Ouzts Approaching New Record originally appeared on Paulick Report. "Ironman" jockey Perry Ouzts, 71, will start a new record for starts in a Thoroughbred horse race in this Saturday's fifth race at Belterra Park in Cincinnati, Ohio. The veteran jockey will enter the starting gate for a 53,579th time, eclipsing the previous record set by retired California-based rider Russell Baze. At this writing, Ouzts sports a record of 53,570 starts– 7,514 wins – 7,013 seconds – 6,694 thirds, for earnings of $53,055,913. The next active rider is Hall of Famer John Velazquez with 37,363 mounts and 6,703 is also the record holder as the oldest jockey to win a race in North America — a feat he accomplished last summer. Ouzts has spent most of his career riding in Northern Kentucky and Ohio. Though he has never won a graded stakes race, he was the subject of an award-winning 2015 documentary "Ironman Perry Ouzts," produced by the Hennegan ranks fifth all-time in wins, trailing only Russell Baze (12,842 wins), Laffit Pincay Jr. (9,530), William Shoemaker (8,833), and Pat Day (8,803).Ouzts told John Engelhardt that loyalty has been a key factor in his success. He credits the support of trainers W.J. Danner, Larry Holt, Joe Woodard, Bill Connelly, Matt Kordenbrock, Barb Riley and Larry Smith for the many winners they have put him up on. He has also had the same agent, Jamie Fowler, for 38 years. Fowler contracted throat cancer in February of 2023 and has undergone 50 radiation treatments, several surgeries, and 10 months of physical therapy. This week, Fowler was declared cancer-free. According to Ouzts: 'I asked if he could still do the job from home when it was discovered, and with texting, video replays and other on-line features, he hasn't missed a beat.' He has won 35 meet titles at River Downs/Belterra Park, 13 titles at the now defunct, Beulah Park and 2 titles at Turfway Park. He won the last race at River Downs and the first race there under its new name Belterra Park. He was the first jockey to win a stakes race at 70 years old. His richest races won were the $200,000 Cradle Stakes (2007), the $100,000 Queen City Oaks (1988) and the $100,000 Green Carpet Stakes (this season). He won four races on a horse named Oats N' Ouzts. He and his wife, Toni have two sons – Kyle (35) and Tyler (32). This story was originally reported by Paulick Report on Jul 24, 2025, where it first appeared.
New York Post
7 hours ago
- New York Post
Elizabeth Gilbert asks $1.19M for her light-filled NYC home
Eat, pray, list! Author Elizabeth Gilbert, whose readers have followed her journey from 'Eat, Pray, Love' — which became a 2010 film starring Julia Roberts — to this year's 'All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation,' has re-listed her Gramercy Park home for $1.19 million. It was asking $1.49 million early this year. She paid $1.69 million for it in 2017, according to property records — so she will be selling it at a loss. In a moving interview, Gilbert told Gimme Shelter that the home was her sanctuary and writing cocoon while she recovered from the loss of her love, Rayya Elias. Gilbert hopes it will creatively nurture the next person who lives there too. 8 Elizabeth Gilbert now spends her days in New Jersey. Getty Images for Pennsylvania Conference for Women 2019 8 Built in book cases frame the home office-slash-writing space. Rich Caplan 8 Pops of color and a dangling chandelier add depth to the space. Rich Caplan 'I bought the apartment right before my partner Rayya died [of cancer],' Gilbert said. 'I knew that it was going to be the place where I was going to heal from her death and live and learn how to live alone, and she saw it right before she died.' 'It's kind of something we set up together,' Gilbert added. 'Rayya said she wanted to picture where I was going to be, so she slept there one night, which I really felt was like a benediction. I knew when we left that when I came back, I would be coming back alone.' Elias — who had many talents — was a Syria-born Douglas Elliman broker, as well as an author, a filmmaker, a hairdresser and a musician. The sun-filled one-bedroom, one-bath home is at 224 E. 17th St., which is also known as 1 Rutherford Place. It was built in 1855 as a townhouse, and it's where Gilbert wrote her 2019 novel, 'City of Girls.' 'The apartment in that novel is based on this apartment, where my character late in life finds a place in the Gramercy area and settles down for the rest of her life,' Gilbert said. 'That was going to be my intention too. Then COVID happened, I left New York and moved out to the country [in New Jersey] and found that I didn't really want to come back, which I think is probably a pretty common story. Life has taken a different turn.' Gut-renovated, the classic prewar co-op features striking oversize casement windows and white oak floors. The second-floor spread comes with an elegant open living and dining room, and a windowed kitchen with a wine cooler. 8 The space is thoughtfully planned out. Rich Caplan 8 The kitchen is also a delight. Rich Caplan 8 The updated kitchen has everything you need in a compact space. Rich Caplan The apartment, Gilbert said, 'was like a nest. It's such a romantic space, with these windows overlooking Rutherford Place, which is this tiny little corner of New York that even people who live in the neighborhood don't know what it is. It was very magical to be there in my grief.' Gilbert says she is in the 'post-beauty' phase of her life, living 'like a 60-year-old dude' with close-cropped/shaved hair in comfortable clothes and shoes. She's spending the time in a home converted from an old church that she has owned for two decades in New Jersey, spending more time traveling, to destinations including Costa Rica. That's why, she said, it was time to 'let the apartment go.' 'It served its purpose and it sheltered me during a really delicate time and moment in my life, and maybe it will shelter somebody else and inspire someone else because it's also a very good place to write,' Gilbert said. 8 The bedroom also has its fair share of built-ins. Rich Caplan 8 The bathroom. Rich Caplan Gilbert said she bought the apartment from an architect who gut-renovated the apartment and was very intentional about maximizing its space. But while she was renovating, the architect heard a voice telling her that she was designing the space for a writer. 'When I showed up, she said, 'Oh, there you are. I was wondering who the writer was that I was making this for was!' So of course there is a very romantic, mystical part of me that is wondering who the next creative person who's going to live there will be, using the light and the space to make their own projects. I'm very curious to find out,' Gilbert said. 'There's great magic in the apartment,' she added. 'It's got great ju-ju.' The main bedroom also features a casement window, plus built-ins, a large custom closet and a windowed-bath. There's also a Lutron light system, lots of storage throughout the apartment and more storage in the basement along with laundry and bike storage. The listing broker is Serhant's Jessica Taylor, a cast member of the Netflix streaming series, 'Owning Manhattan,' and Ravi Kantha, also of Serhant. While Gilbert no longer lives in the city, she will be back on Sept. 9 as part of her book tour, speaking at the Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 E. Seventh St., sponsored by the Strand.
NBC News
7 hours ago
- NBC News
Chuck Mangione, jazz musician who crossed over with '70s pop hit 'Feels So Good,' dies at 84
Chuck Mangione, the jazz musician whose "Feels So Good" cracked the pop top 10 chart in the 1970s, died Tuesday, officials said. He was 84. Mangione died "peacefully" in his sleep at his home in Rochester, New York, according to his obituary. The mayor or Rochester confirmed his death in a statement praising "the gifted jazz musician and composer." Mangione's official cause of death was not announced. Born in 1940, Mangione grew up in Rochester, graduating from the New York town's Benjamin Franklin High School before attending and earning a Bachelor's Degree from Eastman School of Music, also in Rochester. According to the Bartolomeo & Perotto funeral home, Mangione taught at Eastman and later received an honorary Doctorate degree from the school. He also started the school's jazz program. Mangione's jazz career kicked off as a teenage flugelhorn player when he formed the Jazz Brothers alongside his brother, Gap, according to the obituary. It led to a decades-long career that yielded 14 Grammy nominations — and two wins — an induction into the Rochester Music Hall of Fame and more than 30 albums. Rochester Mayor Malik D. Evans called Mangione an artist "who earned international distinction, and Rochester's pride." In 1970, Mangione recorded his Friends & Love concert with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, which landed him a recording contract and ultimately his first Grammy nomination, according to the funeral home obituary. He released "Bellavia," a record to honor his mother, in the first year he signed with A&M records, which took home the Best Instrumental Composition award at the 19th Grammys. Mangione's biggest hit, "Feels So Good" soared to the number four spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978 and earned him a nomination for Record of the Year at the 21st Grammy Awards, bringing the musician to new heights.
