Valley Currents

A new neighbor gave me her 2011 book. Finally got to it. Brooke Hauser’s The New Kids tells stories of newcomers to America at a Brooklyn high school for immigrant students. Every adventure could be a novel of its own. Journeys from China, Tibet, Sierra Leone, Burma. Beautifully written and true, it recounts these children’s harrowing paths to our shores and continuing travails. Yet, hope and inspiration prevails as the American dream is unique to each of them.

Northampton’s Peter Kobel finished a 5-year tome, The Strange Case of the Mad Professor: A True Tale of Endangered Species, Illegal Drugs and Attempted Murder. A twisted trail that leads an off-kilter academic to NYU Anthropology Department Chair. He went to jail in the early 1980’s for manufacturing LSD and quaaludes, ostensibly for research on lemurs in his lab there. When paroled, he sent poisoned chocolates to the sentencing judge. Back to jail.

Jason Reitman’s movie Labor Day, filmed in Shelburne Falls, is making its debut at the Telluride Film Festival. Based on Joyce Maynard’s novel, it’s timely for the holiday as her former paramour J.D. Salinger is back in the news.

Braised Hake. RecipeDetours.