Goodjohn, B.A.

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Goodjohn, B.A.

(Bunny Goodjohn)

PERSONAL:

Emigrated from England to the United States, 1999.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Forest, VA.

CAREER:

Writer, novelist, short-story writer, and poet.

WRITINGS:

Sticklebacks and Snow Globes, Permanent Press (Sag Harbor, NY), 2007.

Contributor to books and anthologies, including Workers, Unite!, Blue Cubicle Press, 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Texas Review, Cortland Review, E2K, Smokelong, Literary Pot Pourri, Flashquake, and Wind Magazine.

SIDELIGHTS:

B.A. Goodjohn is a writer, novelist, short-story writer, and poet. Emigrating from England, she came to the United States in 1999. She is a frequent contributor of fiction and poetry to a variety of anthologies and literary journals. A resident of Forest, Virginia, Goodjohn lives near the state's famed Blue Ridge Mountains, where she coexists with a group "of tomcats and a small flock of rescue hens," noted a biographer on the Scribe Publications Web site.

Goodjohn's debut novel, Sticklebacks and Snow Globes, is set in a lower-income housing complex in the working-class London neighborhood of Stanley Close. The author focuses on the lives of four families who live in close proximity in this neighborhood and, as she tells their stories, she also considers important issues of family, personal integrity, dealing with loss, and growing up. The novel's main protagonist is Tot Thompson, an eight-year-old girl who combines a sense of innocence with wiry determination as she navigates the inevitable course of maturation. Tot possesses a tendency to make telling observations about the people around her, and despite her age, she is closely involved in the lives of her sister, Dorothy; her friends, Keesal, Lily, and Stacey; and her mother.

Though perhaps wise beyond her years, Tot is afflicted with epilepsy, and she has to constantly be on her guard for the approach of a seizure, which she calls "Kit the Fit." A deep love for snow globes helps Tot remain grounded through her difficulties. For her part, Tot is fearful that her father, Donald, a trumpet player, will decamp from England to pursue his closely held fantasy of seeking his musical fame in New Orleans. To prevent his leaving, Tot makes a deal with God: if God can keep her father at home, she will catch seven stickleback fish from the local canal and will sacrifice them for seven consecutive Saturdays.

Elsewhere, Tot's friends and relatives are also enduring their share of trouble and unwanted change. Her mother vociferously resents her lot in life and the fact that she is forced to live in a council estate. Tot's friend Keesal, an Indian boy, is enduring the ravages of bullying. Lily falls in with a boy she thinks she loves, but is soon disappointed in him. Ten-year-old Stacey is terrified of the changes she's been told accompany the onset of womanhood, and seeks to avoid them by disguising herself as a boy and renaming herself David. Tot's sixteen-year-old sister, Dorothy, has been acting strangely since she acquired a boyfriend, who ultimately abandons her when she becomes pregnant. Tot's optimism is strained even further when her father suddenly decides to act on his musical fantasy and abandons the family for the Big Easy.

Throughout the novel, the characters navigate through Goodjohn's intricately drawn urban landscape, where the sense of poverty is palpable, where the local industry, an ink factory, is a menacing presence rather than a symbol of economic improvement, and where details of everyday life are incised in images of the small canal full of stickleback fish and the hollow oak tree that houses the girls' meeting place.

The novel "conveys a quiet air of authority and a sense of having been lived," commented Michael Cart in a Booklist review. Goodjohn succeeds in "evoking the dawning complexities that are promised by adolescence, and in illuminating the traits that can transcend class consciousness," observed Rob Duffer, writing for Time Out Chicago. Duffer further praised Goodjohn's portrayal of Tot and the other children, concluding that her writing "resonates most in the dialogue of the young characters." Gemma England, writing on M/C Reviews, commented, "What is amazing about Sticklebacks and Snow Globes is that it's not depressing and disillusioning, despite some of the content. Instead, Goodjohn's work is refreshing, uplifting, and often humorous." England also had a positive reaction to Goodjohn's main protagonist, saying, "Tot is such an original, beautiful character, always approaching life with an open mind and an open heart." A Publishers Weekly critic noted that "Goodjohn captures the feel and tenor of a working-class neighborhood," while a Kirkus Reviews critic called the novel a "magical debut" as well as a "cozy, richly written delight." In the end, England concluded that the book "provides a different way of looking at the world, and a few considerable laughs."