Six Degrees of Separation - from All Fours to The Wonder Test

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. This month’s starting point is All Fours by Miranda July (2024).

First Degree

I haven’t read All Fours but I know it’s about a wild road trip, which reminded me of On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957), based on his cross-country travels with friends. There are a lot of books about road trips: I need to do a whole post about them at some point.

Second Degree

Kerouac grew up in Lowell, MA where Lyddie by Katherine Paterson (1991) is set. Hoping to help her family pay off its debts, Lyddie gets a job in Lowell’s textile mills. This is a vivid look at life as a factory worker for a girl who should be in school. Lowell, about an hour from where I live, still has several mills, although many have been repurposed for commercial and residential use.

Third Degree

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1855). Margaret’s adjustment to life in a mill town is difficult (it would be worse if she were working but she is a member of the genteel middle class) but once she becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers, she develops a passionate sense of social justice and appreciation of a certain mill owner.  I'll use the miniseries art because it was so good it brought people to the book who might not have read it otherwise.

Fourth Degree

Another intelligent young woman at a crossroads in her life becomes involved in social justice when she befriends local immigrants. In Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace (1950), Emily is disappointed not to attend college like her friends but finds unexpected purpose at home in Deep Valley, MN, realizing you create your own luck.

Fifth Degree

Also set in Minnesota are the Stevens and Windermere books by Owen Laukkanen. Book one, The Professionals (2012), is about a group of recent college graduates who can’t get jobs so decide to become professional kidnappers. No one can stop them until veteran state investigator Kirk Stevens and hotshot young FBI agent Carla Windermere begin working together.

Sixth Degree

As well, a determined FBI agent features in The Wonder Test by Michelle Richmond (2021). Lina is on leave from her FBI job in New York to go through her deceased father’s possessions in California. Her teenage son enrolls in the local high school, which seems amazing from the outside, but soon they learn that some of the students have been kidnapped. Obviously, Lina has to do some digging . . . (I've been hoping the author would write a sequel).

See how I connected All Fours, which starts in Los Angeles to The Wonder Test, which is set in Silicon Valley, with stops in Lowell, MA, the North of England, and Minnesota.  Next month (July 5, 2025), Kate has chosen Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser.

Off the Blog:

Trump's attacks on my alma mater are vicious and nonstop.