Six Degrees of Separation – from Butter to The Blue Castle

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is a Japanese mystery, Butter by Asako Yuzuki, which I have not read.

First Degree

However, I was reminded of an author named Dorothy Gilman Butters who wrote Four-Party-Line (1954), a young adult novel about four recent high school graduates from different backgrounds who get jobs as telephone operators. Each young woman is likable despite personal challenges, and I found the details of their work quite interesting. Dorothy herself worked as an operator at one point but lived to see cell phones become ubiquitous.

Second Degree

After writing children’s books for more than ten years, Dorothy Gilman dropped the Butters and started writing humorous mysteries about a middle-aged New Jersey housewife turned spy. In The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax (1970), Emily Pollifax receives a call from the CIA asking her to undertake a mission halfway across the world. At the time the series began, it was quite unusual to have a heroine of this age but Mrs. Pollifax and her skill in tight situations became extremely popular.  As I have mentioned before, I once just missed meeting Dorothy Gilman at a party at the Black Orchid bookstore.  By the time Bonnie, the owner, told me to look for her, she had gone home! Why didn't I send her a note saying how much my sisters I and liked her books?  

Third Degree

The original title of my next link is The Amazing Mr. Blunden by Antonia Barber (1969). I remember finding this delightful book for the first time as a child at the Brighton Public Library – a poor but worthy widow agrees to become the caretaker of an old house and is relieved to have found a good home for her children, Lucy and James. All goes well until the siblings realize their new friends are ghosts.  Has anyone seen the movie?

Fourth Degree

In The Ghost by the Sea by Eileen Dunlop (1996), just as in her book The House on the Hill, which I read recently, two cousins learn that a ghost is haunting the house and they have to find out why so the ghost can rest in peace. Dunlop is a Scottish author of memorable juvenile fantasies but only a few of her books were published in the US. 

Fifth Degree

As you can probably tell, I’ve always loved those books where the impoverished families inherit a mysterious old house in the country or have an adventure in one they live in already. Our Castle by the Sea by Lucy Strange (2019) falls into this category and was one of my favorite books last year. Set during WWII, it’s about sisters living in a lighthouse with their English father and German mother, confronted by local prejudice. My review.

Sixth Degree

Another book about a figurative castle is by L. M. Montgomery, best known as the author of Anne of Green Gables. The Blue Castle (1926) is a standalone novel with an adult heroine, Valancy Stirling, emotionally abused by everyone in her family until she runs away to the Ontario woods for love and adventure.

So I connected a Japanese mystery to a romance in the Ontario woods, with stops in New Jersey, Istanbul, England, and Scotland. Next month (July 6, 2024), Kate will start with the 2024 winner of the International Booker Prize, Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck.

Off the Blog: NBA Finals begin on Thursday – Boston Celtics vs. Dallas Mavericks!