"Hassler's characters have old-fashioned values and typical human failings; they make this a novel to restore your faith in humanity." LOS ANGELES TIMES Agatha McGee is following a dream, though it might be late in the game. She's just retired from a career of teaching and travels to Ireland in search of the romance she never had time for. And along the way, she not only discovers people she would never have let herself know before, but learns through experience, at long last, that love is unpredictable, unstoppable, and never appears as we dream it will.

A Green Journey

Literature & Fiction

Hassler, Jon

Contemporary

Ballantine Books

Simon's Night

"A marvel. Out of Old Age, which our peculiar times have determined to view as a sort of generational sin, Jon Hassler has drawn forth a poignant, funny, wise novel about Eternal Youth." THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER Simon Shea, a retired professor of English at a small Minnesota college, has begun to forget things and is making dangerous errors in living. Thinking he needs to be cared for more closely, he commits himself to a private rest home, and opens a world of the strange, delightful, frightening, and comic, as he attempts to recover from his mistake.

Literary

"A writer good enough to restore your faith in fiction." THE NEW YORK TIMES It is only a week in the life of a 35-year old bachelor school teacher in a small Minnesota town. But it is an extraodinary week, filled with the poetry of living, the sweetness of expectation, and the glory of surprise that can change a life forever.... "Absolutely smashing....An altogether successful work, witty, intelligent, compassionate." THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

Staggerford: A Novel

Grand Opening

Twelve-year old Brendan tells the story, set in 1944-45, that begins with his parents' decision to buy a run-down grocery store in a tiny Minnesota town. What they discover about small town idealism, bigotry, and good old American values will change them and the town forever.... "A writer good enough to restore your faith in fiction." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"John Hassler is a writer good enough to restore your faith in fiction. Unlike so many contemporary writers, he creates characters you come to care about and believe in....His third novel is the kind of book that makes you want to buttonhole someone and say, 'Read this.'"THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWLarry Quinn lives in a college town in rural Minnesota. He is dying from multiple sclerosis and his best friend, Chris MacKensie, has fallen in love with Larry's wife, Rachel. The love for the dying and passion for the living form an uneasy bond, as the three of them face the truth of life together....

The Love Hunter

"Hassler's brilliance has always been his ability to achieve the depth of real literature through such sure-handed, no-gimmicks, honest language that the result appears effortless." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW After more than twenty years in the priesthood, Father Frank Healy is going home. But what he finds at the battered Our Lady's Church are very few believers and Libby Girard, a woman from his past, whom he thought he'd never see again. But Libby's life is unraveling, and as she becomes dependent on him, the lives around them erupt in a tangle of drugs and despair, alcoholism and death. Ultimately, Frank's vocation is tested at its weakest place: his continuing love for Libby. From the Paperback edition.

North of Hope

United States

"Hassler's brilliance has always been his ability to achieve the depth of real literature through such sure-handed, no-gimmicks, honest language that the result appears effortless." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW After more than twenty years in the priesthood, Father Frank Healy is going home. But what he finds at the battered Our Lady's Church are very few believers and Libby Girard, a woman from his past, whom he thought he'd never see again. But Libby's life is unraveling, and as she becomes dependent on him, the lives around them erupt in a tangle of drugs and despair, alcoholism and death. Ultimately, Frank's vocation is tested at its weakest place: his continuing love for Libby.

When St. Isidore's Elementary in Staggerford, Minnesota is closed, Miss Agatha McGee, who has taught there her whole life, is thrown back on her friends to sustain her. She finds her friends wanting. Fleeing unhappiness at home, Agatha sets off on a pilgrimage to Italy, unaware that her old soulmate and nemesis, Father James O'Hannon of County Kildare, Ireland, is waiting to meet her. There, in the golden light of Assisi, Agatha and James begin to rebuild their friendship . . . and their love. From the Paperback edition.

Dear James

When St. Isidore's Elementary in Staggerford, Minnesota is closed, Miss Agatha McGee, who has taught there her whole life, is thrown back on her friends to sustain her. She finds her friends wanting. Fleeing unhappiness at home, Agatha sets off on a pilgrimage to Italy, unaware that her old soulmate and nemesis, Father James O'Hannon of County Kildare, Ireland, is waiting to meet her. There, in the golden light of Assisi, Agatha and James begin to rebuild their friendship . . . and their love.

The New York Times Book Review praised the characters in Jon Hassler's last novel, Dear James, as"so exquisitely rendered that even a first-time visitor to Staggerford will come to love them as old friends." Now, in Rookery Blues, Hassler once again brings to life an oddball group of Midwesterners, as they brace themselves and each other for the turmoil of the late 1960s on a small college campus. Rookery, Minnesota, is about as far north as you can go and still be in the United States, and Rookery State College is an academic backwater if ever there was one. The campus is populated by students seeking draft deferments during the height of the Vietnam War and misfit teachers who can't get a job anywhere else. Even so, some of the faculty at Rookery State long for a meeting of the minds, the companionship of soulmates. And then, one frigid afternoon, the Icejam Quintet is born in the improbable basement apartment of Neil Novotny, an unkempt English instructor and obsessed novelist. With Leland Edwards on piano, Neil on clarinet, Victor Dash on drums, and Connor on bass, the group comes together with the help of its muse, the lovely Peggy Benoit, who plays saxophone and sings. The most gifted and spirited of the bunch, Peggy instills the harmony that allows the Icejammers to produce the kind of jazz they've all dreamed of playing, bringing them satisfaction they never thought they'd experience. But even isolated Rookery State will be touched by the great discontent sweeping the country. News of a salary freeze electrifies the rabble-rousing Victor, and the first labor union in history comes noisily to campus. As a teachers' strike takes shape, threatening both the draft-dodging students and the complacent administration, the five musicians must struggle with their loyalties--to the school, the town, their families, and each other.... As he does in all his novels, Jon Hassler infuses the story of this unlikely collection of eccentrics with wry wit, deep feeling, and ultimately, his faith in human beings to endure despite their own sadly comic foibles. Like his beloved Staggerford novels, Rookery Blues is about the sheer need for community that everyone harbors--even in the unlikeliest places.

Rookery Blues

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hassler, Jon. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hassler, Jon

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hassler, Jon. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Green Journey

Simon's Night

Staggerford: A Novel

Grand Opening

The Love Hunter

North of Hope

North of Hope

Dear James

Dear James

Rookery Blues