Friendswood

June 16, 2014
Steinke’s latest (after Holy Skirts) comprises several story lines following residents of the titular small town, a Texas community adjoining a toxic waste dump. Lee is a bereaved mother whose daughter died of a blood disease that she’s convinced was caused by the toxic waste. Teenage Willa unwisely goes to a party at which she is the only girl and is gang-raped. The sensitive Dex, a classmate of Willa’s and a trainer for the high school football team, witnesses her assault. For Hal, a born-again Christian real estate agent, a big score always seems just out of reach. These and other characters move through their lives with a combination of determination and bewilderment. Steinke capably delineates her characters’ rather constricted lives, but the different parts of story never coalesce. Even when the characters appear in one another’s chapters, readers may not be convinced that they truly belong to the same community. Still, the characters are well drawn, and the stories taken individually are engaging. Agent: P.J. Mark, Janklow & Nesbit.

June 1, 2014
A hurricane uncovers widespread pollution in a small Texas town, and a lot of human toxicity as well.The third novel by Steinke (The Fires, 1999; Holy Skirts, 2005) alternates perspectives among a host of residents of Friendswood, where high school football, property values and Jesus Christ compete for the locals' esteem. Steinke zooms in on two in particular, though. Lee is a middle-aged woman who's been investigating carcinogen levels at a former refinery site since her teenage daughter died of cancer; Lee's discovery after the storm of a new batch of dumped chemicals has riled the town, particularly the local magnate who wants a housing development at the location. Meanwhile, Willa is a high school girl whose eagerness to get to know a boy leads to a drugged drink and gang rape by members of the football team. Steinke emphasizes the parallels in these two plotlines: Both exemplify the horrid consequences of a go-along-to-get-along culture where women are expected not to protest, and religion is deployed as an excuse to avoid asking difficult questions. A few of the characters symbolizing that ethos are a bit cardboard, particularly the parents oblivious to Willa's emotional despair and the condescending men telling Lee she's going too far. But the novel gets its spark from Lee genuinely going too far; Steinke expertly weaves in the stresses of Lee's past and present as she warms to the idea of committing acts of eco-terrorism. Steinke's message that the truth will out gives her novel the comfort of a commercial page-turner, but she hasn't simplified her lead characters to sell the notion. Willa in particular suffers from horrifying visions of creatures stalking her, and though she may learn to keep them at bay, it's clear some damage sticks around for a long time.A sharp, observant novel about the hard realities of challenging the status quo.

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Starred review from August 1, 2014

On the surface, 1993 Rosemont, TX, is as idyllic as a Norman Rockwell painting. But seeping up through the verdant meadows is a toxic stew of residue from an oil industry that is poisoning unsuspecting residents. Fifteen years after her daughter Jess died from the cancer that decimated Rosemont, Lee Knowles still nurtures an all-consuming grief that threatens to explode. The author masterfully characterizes several of Lee's former neighbors, now relocated to Friendswood, whose lives of psychic pain fatefully intertwine. There's Hal Holbrooke, a former alcoholic, relying on God to keep him sober, faithful, and successful as a realtor pushing a new development on the now EPA-approved land. There's sensitive teen Willa Lambert, an aspiring poet whose crush on popular football star Cully Holbrooke leads to a drug-induced assault and a terrifyingly imagined case of self-loathing. And there's Dex, the novel's moral compass, a kid who has a tough decision to make after ending up at the wrong house on the wrong afternoon. VERDICT Steinke, a National Book Award finalist for her novel, Holy Skirts, empathically depicts the quiet fortitude of the person next door, struggling daily to put one foot in front of the other. The author is particularly adept at capturing the fraught relationships between teens and parents, giving her novel great YA crossover potential.--Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2014
Lee and her family had to abandon their Texas home after hot-to-the-touch sludge, waste from an irresponsible chemical company, oozed up from the ground. Their lovely daughter contracted a rare and deadly blood cancer; many others became ill, and the town was declared a Superfund site. Years later a developer starts building new homes, and no one wants to listen to Lee's objections, even though she has evidence proving that the land remains unsafe. Hal, her born-again, reformed-alcoholic, struggling real-estate-agent neighbor, is desperate to get in on this opportunity even as the insidious toxins continue to sicken Friendswood in strange ways. Hal's high-school-football-star son callously and pointlessly destroys the life of a sweet, poetry-writing young girl plagued by harrowing visions. Alarmed and frustrated, Lee weighs the merits and risks of an outlaw protest. With exceptional perception and deft artistry, Steinke (Holy Skirts, 2005) traces a matrix of poisonous acts in this magnetizing and sensitive tale of hidden dangers, the tyranny of the status quo, trust betrayed, crimes personal and planetary, and individuals transformed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)