I loved this book, and I think it’s mostly been missed. I am fairly sure it hasn’t been reviewed on any other blog, and I haven’t seen it talked about anywhere.  It’s one of those quiet little books that often slips through the cracks – just the kind of book that an independent bookseller will take to heart and put out into the world.  So I’m taking it to heart and putting it out into the world, and I hope some of you will pick it up.

Junebug is almost thirteen, and she spends every summer at the Blue Moon Playhouse, a summer stock theatre that her parents own. Her dad is the director (and sometimes the star), her mother designs costumes, and her sister is stepping into her first major role. And Junebug? She’s been just about every sort of backstage worker there is, and is longing to tread the boards herself.

Even more than that, however, she’s longing for her family to return to normal. Her mother’s moved out of their house and back in her mother’s house, three miles away on the other side of the farm where Blue Moon sits. Her parents let them choose where they would spend the summer. Stella and Junebug, both theatre-mad, chose to stay at the Playhouse, while their brother, Beck, always more interested in farming than acting, went with their mother. Junebug’s father has cast himself in the leading role in every play and seems to be eyeing up one of the leading ladies. Stella’s moved into her role as a teenager fully and no longer seems interested in spending any time with her younger sister or doing her share of the chores they are supposed to split.

And to top it all off, Junebug’s father agreed to take on an intern – a weird boy named Trace with a stutter – and has given Junebug the task of “showing him the ropes.” He seems to be an endless resource of theatrical knowledge, which Junebug considers mostly useless and annoying, and privately nicknames him Thespis. Her father makes things even worse when he suggests giving Junebug’s properties job to Trace for one of the plays, leaving Junebug with…nothing. Her mother’s left, her father hardly talks to her, her sister ignores her, her brother’s elsewhere, the Playhouse has smaller audiences than ever, and the new intern takes over the last part of her summer that was going well. Junebug’s familiar, comfortable world seems to be collapsing, and she doesn’t like it one bit.

It will take a lot of changes for Junebug to begin to recognize her world again.

Henson navigates those changes, Junebug’s varying moods, and the dynamics of a family in trouble deftly. The book is written partially in a clever manner that never feels contrived. Several times in each chapter, passages like this appear:

HERE’S HOW I SEE IT:

The curtain falls for the night on my huge Broadway hit. Flowers rain down on my head. Friends gather in my dressing room after the show to congratulate me. Fans wait for me outside the stage door.

“Ms. Cantrell, you were magnificent tonight!”

“Ms. Cantrell, you are an inspiration!”

I try to sign as many autographs as possible before my agent hurries me to my waiting car.

“Ms. Cantrell must rest now,” she says to the crowd. “You must understand. The play is so very demanding.”

My driver takes me home to my hip downtown loft. There are flowers everywhere, from my countless admirers. There are close friends everywhere – actors, directors, artists – and we sit up all night long, talking about life and art and theater.

HERE’S HOW IT IS:

The house is dark and empty. And so I go through every room.

“Lights up!” I command in a Coleman voice, flipping switches, illuminating every dark space.

I hate the dark.

In the kitchen I search the fridge and cabinets, hungry as any MARINER alone on a storm-tossed sea, but (alas, alack) the shelves are bare, except for some old milk and moldy cheese and an inch of peanut butter.

When I began reading, I feared that this stylistic choice might quickly get on my nerves. I was relieved to find out it was just the opposite. Junebug is unhappy for a lot of this book, and also does a decent job of making some of the people around her unhappy. The book could have been pretty depressing. However, she has a real flair for the dramatic (a combination of her background, of course, and of being almost thirteen) so her literary histrionics often lighten the mood considerably.

Henson also has Junebug introduce each new character in a fun, theatrical way:

RAY MONDELLO, character actor; round and jolly; a “hail-fellow-well-met” (that’s Shakespeare for “cool dude”).

COLEMAN, one name only; a light in the dark, Dad calls her, because she was named for a lamp, but also because she’s like a lighthouse on a stormy sea; as Stage Manager, she is the one who keeps everything running smoothly during the show.

I’m a big fan of books set in the theatre. I was in the majority of the school shows from 5th grade on, and during the summer between my junior and senior years, a new summer theatre for young people started up. I attended for two years before becoming first an assistant director and then a director, and when the theatre became year-round, I performed many, many roles there, both onstage and off. Henson gets the theatre stuff dead-on right, which is no surprise – she spent a great many of her childhood summers at a summer stock theatre. You definitely get a full picture of what the experience is like, in a very accessible way.

Highly recommended.

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