Until They Bring the Streetcars Back
Stanley Gordon West, 1997
Lexington-Marshall Publishing
274 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780965624763
Summary
Until They Bring The Streetcars Back serves up a nostalgic journey through the streets of post-war 1949 Saint Paul, those wistful days of ten-cent sodas, big band music, and burning leaves. Stanley West weaves rollicking humor, riveting suspense and a bittersweet love story into the fabric of those optimistic times.
A harmless prank, a chance conversation and Cal Gant (in the friendly neighborhoods of his idyllic life) stumbles onto the naked face of cruelty, incest and murder. When he attempts to rescue a strange and haunting girl from the slaughterhouse her life has become, he finds himself in a heart-stopping struggle with her ruthless father, leading Cal to the brink of self-doubt, terror and death itself. Can he find within himself the backbone to stand against the horror, the daring to concoct some scheme to set Gretchen free? Until They Bring The Streetcars Back is the gripping story of what Cal does. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1932-33
• Where—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Minnesota
• Awards—4 Emmy Awards for Amos
• Currently—lives in Montana
Stanley West was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. While growing up he got around town riding the streetcars. He graduated from Central High School in 1950. He attended Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, receiving a degree in 1955. He moved from the Midwest to Montana in 1964 and has made his home there since.
His novel Amos was produced as a CBS Movie of the Week starring Kirk Douglas and was nominated for four Emmys. The novel stirred national controversy over abuse of the aged in America. When Kirk Douglas testified before congress and wrote in the New York Times on the issue, he pointed out that animals had been protected by law for one hundred years before children or the aged. West's Amos focused on the aged. (From the publisher.)
West is also author of Sweet Shattered Dreams, Blind Your Ponies, To Ride a Dead Horse, Finding Laura Buggs, Until They Bring the Streetcars Back, and Growing an Inch. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
If you can accept the implausibility of much of the action and the flatness of some of the characters, you'll find that this story demands emotional involvement. Cal's life is substantially changed and threatened by his circumstances, his own actions and the weight of the law.
Armchair Interviews.com
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Until They Bring the Streetcars Back:
1. Talk about Calvin as a character. Do you find him a realistic portrayal of adolescent angst...or heroism?
2. Discuss Gretchen and her situation. Why, for instance, does her father make her wear ugly dresses? What else does he do to Gretchen? What does Gretchen tell Cal, and why does he decide to help her? How does he feel toward Gretchen at first, and in what way does his attitude change?
3. Talk about the Gant family—their interactions with one another, and the fact that none of them ever cries openly, only in secret. Are they typical, do you think, of the era...or not? How different are families today?... or not? What attitude, for instance, does Cal's father have toward parents who hit their children? Describe Calvin's relationship with his father, in particular? What does Cal learn about his father (Chapter 31)?
4. Pastor Ostrum defines love in this way: “Love wasn't having a warm feeling but it was a decision you make, and Love is not something we wait to have happen to us, but something we do." What does he mean and how does this concept play out in the course of the novel?
5. What do the two incidents—Gretchen and shoes and what Calvin attempts to do for the MCCluskey's dog—have in common; what do the two events reveal about Calvin?
6. How do the supposed protectors of the young—Cal's father, the counselor, pastor, police—respond to what Cal tries to tell them regarding Gretchen? Why doesn't Gretchen tell someone about her father? Does Mr. Luttermann ever get his just deserts?
7. Can breaking the law ever be justified, even if it's to help someone in trouble? In this case, did Calvin have an alternative? What else might he haven done?
8. Comment on the story about Uncle Emil that Cal remembers while he's in jail. And what about the line: "You climbed on, now you gotta ride it out." What does it mean to Calivn?
8. What is the role of public transportation in this novel? And what is the significance of the title?
8. How does Calvin change, what does he come to learn by the end of the book? Was what he gave up worth it? Who else changes by the end of the book?
9. If you're from St. Paul, what has changed from this book's depiction of the city in the 1950s? What has remained the same?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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