Disclaimer: The Page 69 Test is not mine. It has been around since 2007, asking authors to compare page 69 against the meat of the actual story it is a part of. I loved the whole idea of it and so I'm stealing it specifically to showcase small press titles - novels, novellas, short story collections, the works! So until the founder of The Page 69 Test calls a cease and desist, let's do this thing....
Set up page 69 for us
Kenny
McLuher is the protagonist. Page 69 takes place in the basement of the
protagonist’s coworker, Wayne, a townie who works as a cook in the University
of Virginia catering service where Kenny, a student and history major from
Wisconsin who is about to graduate and return to the Midwest, has a part-time
job. Wayne likes Kenny and has invited him to join Wayne and his lifelong
pal Fats Trustell, in a game of “Dungeon Lord,” a role-playing game that Wayne
has adapted from the more famous Dungeons and Dragons, so that Wayne can
wield more power as the game master calling all the shots. This page
happens after the reader has become familiar with Kenny’s mostly failed
attempts to understand, or at least to fit in with, the American South.
What Settle Down is about
Settle
Down
will speak to anyone finishing college and wondering where to start their ‘real
life’ or anyone reflecting back on a time when ‘home’ felt like a choice they
had to make. It’s also a novel about growing up the child of migrant
parents who have come from a very different part of the country, in a family of
gifted storytellers. Ultimately, it’s about the stories we tell about
ourselves and how we make sense of our world and where we belong.”
Do you think this page gives our readers an accurate sense of what the book is about? How does it align itself with the book’s theme?
I
think so, in a couple of ways. First, this page pulsates with a slightly
comedic energy readers will find in other interacts Kenny has with friends,
family and even strangers. (It should feel like the comedy we encounter
regularly in real life, in situations where people encounter strangers who know
each other, then converse with them. Recently in a YMCA whirlpool I was engaged
in a situation with two very tight-lipped and serious elderly women who shared
some concerns about sandhill cranes and their role in the “ecosystem,” after
which another older man sitting across from them said, apropos of who knows
what, “I just saw this video about how a raccoon can drown a golden
retriever.”)
Like the witness to
scenes like this one in the hot tob, Kenny is a little hapless, often coming
into a situation thinking one thing is going to happen but only to find it’s
something else entirely—and then trying to roll with it, to give it a chance.
We have also just learned that Fats is Black (Wayne, his best friend, is
white), which creates an unusual response in Kenny, an earnest liberal
Midwesterner trying to sort out what he has been taught about race while not
judging, generalizing, or categorizing people—but simultaneously trying to
learn how to pronounce the name of the fantasy warrior he has just been
assigned to play in this game of imagination.
Finally, we get a
sense of the dialogue and of how regionally and age-specific it can be in this
book. Accents are quite important in the story, and in who Kenny thinks
belongs where and why.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Page 69
Settle Down
“So, yeah, um,” said Kenny, not yet sure if he should sit
down, “you guys known each other for a while, then, um…?” He was unsure if he
had heard the guy’s name right.
“Fats,” said Fats.
“Yeah, um. Fats,” said Kenny,
shifting in his chair.
“I know,” said Fats, grinning. “It’s
kind of a funny name, for a dude my age at least. Kind of like a older guy’s
name.”
“I guess that’s true,” said Kenny.
The introductions done with, Wayne
sat down to his duties. Installed on a folding chair, he began doing something
with dice and paper, behind a black cardboard screen decorated with a Van Halen
logo that looked like a salvaged tenth-grade art project.
“I rolled your character, Kenny. For
the rest of the game, you are Gawain Deathslayer, fighter-wizard of Berg
Krocken. Fats’s character is Nor-Fer, Ring Thief. Also of Berg Krocken.”
“Gawain and Nor-Fer,”
said Kenny, slowly, testing the pronunciation of the names.
“It’s actually a honor,
Wayne,” said Fats, his head tilting a little sideways. “Fats Domino. Minnesota
Fats. Think about it. Like, musicians, and probably your gangster here and
there, too. You know, in the past.”
Wayne rolled a die methodically
behind the screen, “If I was a gangster, they’s no way I’d call myself Fats.
It’s like saying, Hey, y’all should chase me down and catch me after
we rob this bank, ‘cause I’m fat and slow.”
“You don’t get it, man. It’s like a
honor.”
“You already done said that.”
“That’s ‘cause you didn’t grasp it
the first time.”
Wayne remained focused on whatever
he was working on behind the Van Halen screen. He rolled another die.
Kenny was unsure what was supposed
to happen next. “Do I get some kind of sheet to study, or refer to, or
whatever?”
“What about Baby Face Nelson then?”
said Fats, looking up from his sheet of paper at Wayne.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ritt Deitz teaches French at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. An accomplished songwriter and musician, he is also a Kentucky Colonel and a Knight in France’s Order of Academic Palms.
About the book:
Releases 9/16/25
A college kid endowed with
hypnotic powers keeps telling himself there’s got to be more
waiting for him after
graduation than family in the neighborhood and an okay catering job. Maybe he
just needs to get his story straight.
Kenny
McLuher is far from his native Wisconsin, in his last year at the University of
Virginia, majoring in history with no idea what he’s going to do with it. At
his catering job, Kenny’s old Southern folktales keep putting his co-workers to
sleep, and in Kenny’s dreams President Abraham Lincoln sure seems to be trying
to tell him something.
Maybe the pieces will come
back together after graduation when Kenny returns to Madison, where he can ask
the big question: What is home, anyway?
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