Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks was a must read for me, having been a field hockey jock in my youth. I came for the hockey and stayed for the cool, wacky, collective-point-of-view narration; the thorough inclusion of 1980s popular culture; keen observations and poetic descriptions; and, of course, the witchcraft.
The 1989 Danver, Mass., Lady Falcons field hockey team was not looking so hot at the start of summer hockey camp. Just like they had been doing for years, they lost their first game. But goalie Mel Boucher had an idea for how to change the pitch: make a pact with the devil and write it down in a spiral notebook with Emelio Estavez on the cover. The next game she makes an astounding number of saves..
One by one, each team member adds her signature to Emelio’s book. The last holdout is Abby Putnam, descendent of the Putnams of the Salem witch trials. (Danvers, just down the road from Salem, was the actual site of the trials.) Eventually even she signs on.
The book follows the team, each chapter named after a match and devoted to a different team member's back story. As the season wears on, the team ups the ante with worsening (and sometimes criminal) behavior, culminating in locker fires before the state finals. The last chapter is a reunion, where we catch up with the team 25 years later and find out what really happened at the end of the season.
Along the way in this quirky literary novel, where every character is a misfit and there are plot twists a plenty, author Barry thoughtfully tackles race, religion, and gender, along with the history of witchcraft. Highly recommended for anybody who likes smart, pop-culture-inflected flights of fancy (on sticks or otherwise).
(Review also published on Goodreads.)
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