Northern Lights

January 15, 2019
In 1997, a Minnesota teenager searches for his mother amid the temptation of sex and drugs.Strom's debut novel follows Shane Stephenson, who's trying to find his mother following the sudden death of his father. Shane's mother abandoned them a long time ago, leaving her son a $100 bill and sending him a Christmas card with a return address in Holm, Minnesota. Shane has long hair and an androgynous appearance, and he clearly doesn't fit into the small town of Holm, where he's gone looking for his mother. The people there vilify homosexuality, and femininity is not welcome in anyone other than a woman. He quickly meets a group of teenagers that includes Jenny, J, Mary, Sven, and Russell. As it goes with teenagers, the members of the group engage in a series of romances. Sven stands out as the town bully, cruelly attacking Shane both verbally and physically every time he sees him, calling him "faggot" whenever he can, and organizing a parade with his friends dressed in traditional Klan attire holding Confederate flags and screaming for freedom and justice. Although Shane came to Holm with the specific goal of finding his mother, who turns out to have left just over a year ago, he quickly falls prey to the activities of bored teenagers in small towns: He starts up a drunken relationship with Russell, shoots up speed with J as often as he can, and deepens his relationship with Jenny between fixes. Strom paints a portrait of small-town life that is sure to make readers shiver. He sets up a narrative space in which a young boy is looking for his mother and quickly swerves, giving us death, alcohol, addiction, drugs, sex, bigotry, all wrapped up in the neat package that makes up Holm. Shane is heartbreaking, and readers will have a hard time parting with him after the book is over.A powerful depiction of the currency of intolerance and addiction in one small town.

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December 1, 2018
One of the first lines in Strom's powerful first novel is, Are you a boy or a girl? And from the moment we meet Shane Stephenson, we feel his confusion. Looking for his mother, Shane has gone to Holm, Minnesota, her last known address. She abandoned him years earlier after his father died and after Shane's guardian uncle threw him out to fend for himself. Shane is a survivor in more ways than one, as readers will discover. Now that he is about to start college, he wants to make amends and tell his mother he forgives her. Unfortunately, fate has other plans for him, most of them troubling and, ultimately, violent. Shane must come to terms with his past and his identity as a queer, androgynous teen living in a hostile environment. Though set in the pre-Trump Midwest, the characters and dead-end towns Strom portrays could easily be found now, and he has a sure hand as he addresses such timely issues as identity, sexism, prejudice, drug abuse, conformity, and community from a queer perspective.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)