The book you've been waiting for is here! Orders for A Born Maniac, or Puddles's Progress are shipping daily, and you can order a copy in the Bookshop.
In other news, The Cheerleader is now in its fifth printing. A related article is below the panel, at left, and there's a press release too.
Snowy touches some chord in me. She's as real as anyone I've ever known.
—Jennifer, a fan from Massachusetts
With the addition of A Born Maniac, or Puddles's Progress, readers may continue to enjoy Snowy, Bev, Puddles, and the rest of the Gang. Each title is a complete story in itself, but most fans of the series would suggest beginning with the first volume, The Cheerleader, now in its fifth printing. Click the panel menu bar, above, to learn more about each volume. Titles are listed in order.
In 1998, on the 25th anniversary of the publication of this national best-seller, The Cheerleader was rereleased as a trade paperback. This rereleased version is now in its fifth printing. (see related story, below).
Searchingly honest, achingly real, The Cheerleader recalls all the joy, excitement, and pain of crossing the bridge from childhood to young womanhood in the Fabulous Fifties, when sex was still a mystery and goals were clearly defined--perhaps for the last time.
The Detroit Free Press said, "One of the truest portraits of an American girl ever written . . . Everything works in MacDougall's book. She captures the times, the attitudes, the emotions with the authority of one who was once there and knows the route back by heart."
The second, third, fourth and fifth printings of this rereleased version include a foreword by Ann V. Norton of St. Anselm College.
More about this book
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Trivia Quizzes
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What happens when ex-cheerleaders grow up?
For Snowy, the cute, blond, ponytailed cheerleader at Gunthwaite High School in the 1950s, did anything ever match the glory of those days?
This is the story that the multitudes of fans of the best-selling The Cheerleader have clamored for, a story that new readers will respond to with equal eagerness. While chronicling Snowy’s next thirty years, it explores the complexities of friendship as it follows the lives of her best friends, beautiful Bev and outspoken Puddles, and her first love, Tom.
What happens when the Silent Generation grows up?
Snowy describes how Snowy and her friends, who came of age in the security of the 1950s when roles were defined and accepted, develop in the next decades, coping with college, marriage, and careers, their experiences unique and universal.
About This Book
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* Bookshop courtesy of Frigate Books
"Our generation," Snowy says in Henrietta Snow, "is 'the disappeared'. We've dropped out of sight between our parents' generation—The Greatest Generation—and the baby boomers. Remember how we were called 'The Silent Generation'? Nobody knows about us."
But you will know!
Here are Snowy and Bev and Puddles, Tom, Dudley, the twins and all the Gang from Gunthwaite High School, in the next stage of their lives. How do they adjust to limitations, deal with grief, and face the realization that this is their last chance at love, success, and happiness? How do they face death?
With humor, for one thing. Like The Cheerleader and Snowy, Henrietta Snow is funny, honest, and indelible.
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* Bookshop courtesy of Frigate Books
Bev was tall, with short thick auburn hair. She looked older, more finished, than the other girls in their class. And she was green-eyed and beautiful, but she loved to make faces.
That was Bev Colby at age fifteen in The Cheerleader. Now, at sixty, her hair is white but she has remained a beauty and she still loves to make faces.
The co-captain of the basketball team, Roger was tall and coolly jaunty, a senior and so suave.
That was Roger Lambert, Bev’s boyfriend. After college Bev married Roger, they had four children and a comfortable life, but his problems with Bev’s desire for her own career in real estate resulted in a separation.
At the conclusion of Henrietta Snow, the third novel in The Snowy Series, Bev and Roger have decided to give their marriage another chance and to renew their vows.
“What happens next?” the readers always ask.
After the euphoria of the decision to get back together, Bev tries to face the reality of this prospect, while also trying to deal with her career and, even more important, a surprise with tremendous impact.
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* Bookshop courtesy of Frigate Books
Ruth Doan MacDougall writes, "Puddles has been on the back burner for so long, but she's clamoring for her turn. And, at long last, the fans who have been asking, (again!) 'What happens next?' will get at least part of the story."
Readers of earlier books in The Snowy Series may recall that originally Puddles came from Maine. Her family moved to Gunthwaite during her early teen years. Over the years Puddles has lived in several places, but her origins as "a born Maniac" haven't been forgotten.
What surprises are in store for readers as Puddles's life takes center stage?
In response to several queries from readers, Ruth shares some of ther thoughts about crafting Puddles's story. You'll find it right below this sliding panel, in the left columns, in "Ruth's Mailbox."
Scroll the text to read the entire article.
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* Bookshop courtesy of Frigate Books
May 10, 2012
I remember that when my father gave us a new edition of his 50 Hikes in the White Mountains, he inscribed it, “For Ruthie and Don—Old and new wine in a new bottle. Love, Dan.”
During the past year, Marney Wilde and I have been working on not a new edition of The Cheerleader for Frigate Books but the fifth printing. Although it’s a printing, not an edition, in its way it too is old and new wine in a new bottle. With this printing, the novel has entered the twenty-first century; it is the first printing to be digitized.
When the first trade paperback reprint was done by Frigate Books in 1998, the original 1973 hardcover copy was photocopied and new front matter was added, with a page of book-review quotes and an updated list of my books. A year later, in the second printing, Ann Norton’s foreword was added. Subsequent printings were made from the second printing.
Until now!
As you know, Marney is the Web master of this site. She is also a book designer, having designed the texts of The Snowy Series for Frigate Books starting with Henrietta Snow. When she began digitizing The Cheerleader, her goal was to retain the look of the original hardcover, but this was a challenge because fashions in type fonts have changed since the 1970s. I wasn’t worried, because I know that Marney can accomplish anything, and she has succeeded beautifully.
Ever since Marney created this site, Jan Schor and Jen Davis-Kay have been part of it as the trivia authors as well as providing other assistance. Now, in honor of the new printing, Jan wrote a new trivia quiz. And she cheered us on from her home in Israel.
And Jen, a freelance copy editor, asked if she could help. Yes! How wonderful to have Jen’s sharp eyes checking the pages! Thus, besides being a Web master, Marney became a ringmaster, handling our three-way copyediting conversation as we worked on the book—Marney in California, Jen in Massachusetts, me in New Hampshire. We called this our three-ring circus.
We conferred about the outside of the book too. In 1998 the cover had been copied from the dust jacket of the original hardback, and Frigate’s distributor had suggested adding this teaser: “What was it like before the Sex Revolution? A bittersweet best-seller about lost innocence.” We decided to remove these lines. As Marney pointed out, “I doubt that readers under fifty ever heard of the Sexual Revolution; that kind of freedom has always been theirs if family and/or local custom and traditions didn’t dictate otherwise.” Dick Hannus, who has designed The Snowy Series covers starting with Snowy, accomplished miracles recreating the cover, freshening up the green while keeping the original look.
Old and new wine in a new bottle. This was part of the copyediting work as well—spelling, usage, grammar, etc.; we updated some things while keeping most the way they were. When Marney and Jen and I found ourselves shooting e-mails back and forth discussing various utterly absorbing (to us) questions, such as the changing styles in “a” or “an” before pronounced “h’s” and italicizing the city in a newspaper’s title and should we stick to one “p” in “hiccuped,” we recognized that we were indeed copyediting nerds.
I had been tickled to read in Publishers Weekly that Diana Gabaldon had written in her Scottish Prisoner acknowledgments: “To the delightful copy editor, Kathy Lord, who knows ‘how many esses there are in nonplussed’ and who repeatedly saves my bacon by knowing how old everybody is and how far it is from Point A to Point B . . . ” Oh yes, saving one’s bacon! Jen’s sharp eyes and mind caught a mix-up that in 1973 had escaped my editor and copy editor, not to mention me. It occurs when the kids return to Puddles’s house after the post-junior-prom party at the camp on the lake. Jen wrote us, “Dear ones, I have a question about something that happens on p. 174. Tom pulls in behind Mike in the driveway at Puddles’s house, and then Mike leaves on p. 175—but Tom doesn’t move his car. How does Mike get out? (Other than: He slinks away in shame. Jerk.)” EEK!!! I hastily did a little rewriting, at Jen’s suggestion having Tom park in the street.
We couldn’t add an acknowledgments page to The Cheerleader because the number of pages had to remain at 288. But Henrietta Snow is dedicated to Marney and Jan and Jen, and to that I here add my gratitude for all this work and all this fun.
As her time permits, Ruth Doan MacDougall writes essays about life in and around her neighborhood. Topics vary, but something interesting is always going on in Ruth's Neighborhood!
Current Essay: "Mother West Wind" (5/12/2012)
50 Hikes in the White Mountains
50 More Hikes in New Hampshire
Details & Purchase Information
Indian Stream Republic: Settling a New Frontier, 1785-1842
by Daniel Doan, edited by Ruth Doan MacDougall
Details & Purchase Information
This book, published in 2001, is available from Frigate Books only as a downloadable e-book (PDF); it can be read on any device that supports a PDF Reader (such as Adobe Reader), including computers, iPad, tablets, etc. A special book-reader application is not necessary.
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Purchasing Information
Many have asked about obtaining e-books of the five titles in The Snowy Series. Frigate Books says that this project is underway, but it's not a simple process. Ruth originally wrote the last three books in digital format so those are easy to convert, but the first two were written many years ago, when authors still used typewriters. Frigate Books and Ruth are working closely to digitize those two books, but since neither is willing to settle for quick scans of the pages (and if you've read older books that have been digitized by this process you know there are often many errors) the process will still take some months. The Cheerleader is now digitized; Snowy is in process. Frigate wants to release the entire series at one time in e-book format.
