"A Hole in the Universe," by Mary McGarry Morris (2004) If you read (or saw the movie of) Mary McGarry Morris' great novel, "Songs in Ordinary Time," you must know what a remarkable writer she is. What I had forgotten, until I picked up this book, is that she is a New Englander, from Massachusetts, in fact, and she sets her stories within this familiar framework. "Songs in Ordinary Time" was set in a small Vermont town. "A Hole in the Universe" is set in Massachusetts, virtually on my own doorstep. I was jarred into this realization in Chapter 2, when a character used the word "mingya." If you've never heard this term before, I wouldn't be surprised; my understanding always was that folks who said "mingya" were 99% likely to be from Methuen, Massachusetts. Maybe Italian, maybe not. Maybe an urban myth, maybe not... But suddenly the story came alive for me.
The characters are strong and vivid, the dialogue is authentic, and the setting is gritty and terrifying.
This is the story of Gordon Loomis, recently released from prison after serving a 25 year sentence for murder, a murder committed when he was 18 years old. It is the story of his attempted re-adjustment into society; it is also so much more.
It is the story of the decline of a neighborhood, of a city; the fictional Collerton will be recognizable to residents of the Merrimack Valley as the real, decaying sister city downriver from my own hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts.
It is the story of Gordon's successful brother Dennis, attempting to set Gordon on the road to a good life, but whose own feet stray from the path.
It is the story of Delores, trying to build a relationship with Gordon, who can barely maintain a relationship with himself.
It is the story of 13-year-old Jada, living in the sordid world of her crack-whore mother, struggling to hang on to something, anything, in order to survive.
And as all these lives intersect, the tension builds and builds --- I was so sucked in that by the 3rd chapter that I could literally not put the book down. I read all 376 pages in one day!
Masterfully written; highly recommended.
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originally more people from Lawrence said mingya, but now that lawrence is 65% hispanic it seems that methuen has inherited that honor. it reputedly means something nasty. working it into print is definitely a benchmark.
ReplyDeleteI first encountered the term (also spelled "minga") when I was a freshman in college (1968) at Lowell State, and made friends with a group of girls from Methuen. They used it liberally, and led me to believe that it was totally a Methuen thing, but I figured out eventually that it included Lawrence in the demographic. The word is generally used to mean someone or something is stupid, but it's literal Italian translation is a "certain male body part." There is a Facebook page called Mingya Valley -- you should check it out!
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