"Nelly, the protagonist in Julia Park Tracey's new novel, Whoa, Nelly! A Love Story (with Footnotes), is a single librarian in her 40s living in a small Northern California town whose only real friends are her two cats that she sleeps with. She, like Tracey herself, is also eternally fascinated by the Little House on the Prairie series of children's books by Laura Ingalls Wilder."
"Along the way she discovers that life on the prairie isn't as romantic as she imagined. She also falls in love for the first time, and by the time she returns home she's ready to finally confront her overbearing mother. Nine-time novelist and former Alameda resident Tracey will discuss Nelly's adventures at Alameda's Books Inc. on Jan. 8, when she returns to the island city to discuss her latest book."
"Because the novel is a meta novel, in essence a novel about a novel, Tracey employed footnotes throughout to help explain the narrative a novel approach that she says wasn't appreciated by publishers she approached after finishing the book in 2014. Nobody wanted it. It was too weird. Fiction doesn't have footnotes, says Tracey, who says the device is a way to break up Nelly's narration and talk directly to the reader."
Nelly is a single librarian in her 40s living in a small Northern California town whose only close companions are two cats she sleeps with. She is deeply fascinated by the Little House on the Prairie children's books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. After losing her library job to budget cuts, she takes a train to Wilder's home in De Smet, South Dakota, only to find prairie life less romantic than imagined. She falls in love for the first time and returns determined to confront her overbearing mother. The narrative uses footnotes to interrupt Nelly's voice and address the reader directly.
Read at www.eastbaytimes.com
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