Picket Fences

by Emma L.R. Hogg

Sloane Sawyer had it all planned—she and her best friend Stephie would graduate from high school, get out of Tippett Valley and have dazzling complementary careers. Sloane would become an award-winning graphic designer, creating band posters using Stephie’s artwork. She would also have a loving husband, the requisite two kids and a house with a white picket fence. As she turns thirty, Sloane has a boring job and a boss who ignores her. She has no children, doesn’t own a house, has gained fifteen pounds and questions how her video game-playing husband could possibly love her. And Stephie, working in a bar and living in Tippett Valley with the disreputable Randy, is increasingly distant. Even as Sloane clings to her dream, she comes to realize that she and Stephie won’t be able to move forward until they finally confront an old tragedy. A funny and poignant story about coming of age after you’ve already grown up.

316 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2020

About the author

Emma L.R. Hogg graduated from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada and started the writing of her first novel, which eventually became Mercedes Mudd, published three years later.

Following Mercedes Mudd (2006), Emma published Pitlin and Swoosh (2009), The Passenger’s Muse (2011), Portraits of Margot (2013), The Fourth Wall (2015), a non-fiction collection, 100: 1 Writer's Journey, 100 Musings (2016), and Winona Rising (2018).

In addition, her poetry has been published in Carousel magazine.

The Fourth Wall was Shortlisted for the Whistler Independent Book Award in 2017, and Winona Rising was a Finalist for the same award in 2018.

Emma's latest novel, Picket Fences, was released in October 2020 and published by Tidewater Press.

Reviews

[Helen Power · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picket Fences tells the story of a thirty-year-old woman whose life hasn’t turned out quite how she had expected.  She was passed over for a transfer into the graphic design department at her work, and her career aspirations seem to be slipping through her fingers. She’s been married for years, and she’d expected to have had a child with her husband by now.   Even her relationship with her husband has grown is lukewarm over the years.

There are two timelines in this novel--present day and the past, which begins when Sloan was in high school and first met her best friend, Stephie. Sloan’s idealism and excitement for what she thinks their shared future will look like is naive and sweet. The flashback chapters carry us through Sloan’s life experiences as she grows up.  She hasn’t attained the goals that she made in high school, yet she hasn’t let go of them either.  In late high school, someone close to Stephie passes away, forever changing who she is and what she wants from life.  Sloan refuses to acknowledge that both she and Stephie have changed because of this life-altering event, and tries to continue on as if it had never happened.

There are important messages carrying through this novel.  Sloan is unhealthily attached to her best friend, forcing this friendship to continue far beyond the time they normally would have drifted apart.  At work, she wants to become a graphic designer, yet she hasn’t done anything in years to further this goal.  She and her husband were trying to get pregnant, but with the complications, Sloan has withdrawn from him and stopped communicating about how she feels, or listening to him when he reaches out.  As the novel progresses, Sloan’s co-dependency with Stephie and other flaws become more and more clear.  By the end, there are some powerful lessons learned, transforming a somewhat bleak book into one of a powerful message of hope and perseverance.

The symbolism of picket fences floats throughout the novel, coming to the surface occasionally and bringing together a cohesive imagery that ties so beautifully with the story itself. There is other symbolism and imagery that I found quite poignant, including Sloan’s fitness tracker that her mother gifted to her. Sloan tries so hard to get the counter up to 10,000 steps every day, only to have it reset at midnight. This ties quite nicely to the concept that Sloan putting in effort in the wrong places, and her frustration from not making progress towards achieving satisfaction with her life.

This is a work of literary fiction that encompasses many themes that are relatable to millennial women, and it has some valuable messages that everyone could learn from.

*Thank you to Tidewater Press for the arc to review*

This review appeared first on https://powerlibrarian.wordpress.com/
Instagram | Blog | Website | Twitter
My 2020 Reading Challenge

[Sarah (more.books.than.days) · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the time you were old enough to pull petals off a daisy, you've known that romance comes and goes. Those same days spent sprawled in the lawn with a half-heart pendant resting on your chest, a twin around the neck beside you, were the days you knew best friends are forever. One day you would grow up, stand in each other's weddings, and your children would be best friends too. You would have the job, the house, the picket fence...

And then your friend broke your heart, or maybe it was you who did the breaking.

Platonic love is complicated, and when it breaks, the ache is no less real than that from a failed romance. We aren't taught to expect this kind of failure though. No movies with tubs of ice cream. No girls nights to celebrate being single again.

Usually it's a long, slow dying. The friendship is over while the titles of bestie chain you both to a memory.

Picket Fences is a book about all of this. Of The expectations of growing up, to find the person you've grown into isn't anything like you expected. It's a book of forgiving yourself and moving on by finding what lies beyond your expectations.

I found the dialogue hard to follow at times, and the device of casting back and forth between present and past often left me somewhere in the middle trying to catch up, but the story of letting go and accepting the grief of the ones we lose was entirely rich and relatable.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The back of this book says "A funny and poignant story about coming of age after you've already grown up"; I did not find this book funny, I found it incredibly relatable and sad.

I connected with this book almost as much as I did with Lamb's She's Come Undone.

It is fast paced, well written, and although it skips back and forth between past and present (which I usually don't like), Hogg as done this well, so that we grow with the characters and understand what we need to understand at the right times in the story.

Maybe it wouldn't be as relatable to others, but I share some anxieties with Sloane (though not as extreme), I have a friend I can relate to Stephie, and I can relate to other pieces and characters as well, though they are not things I wish to relay here.

Our protagonist embodies the anxiety of being a woman in this world perfectly. The relationships are realistic, as are the tragedies. I would recommend this book to any women over 25 years old, no matter what point in your life you think you are at.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picket Fences was a very enjoyable read. The characters were easy to relate to (some more than others), but all were entirely believable. The author was able to develop the characters so that I actually felt that I knew them personally, which made me care about what happened to them. I appreciated that they all had flaws, making them more real to me. I was worried that there would be a "happily ever after" ending, and was relieved that this was not the case.
I am looking forward to reading more novels by this very skilled writer.

[Talitha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carefully and beautifully crafted

A compelling, finely wrought examination of the complexities of marriage, friendship, the loneliness that can exist within both relationships, and dreams deferred.

[April -The Fictional Housewife · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just read Picket Fences by Emma L. R. Hogg. Ms. Hogg is a Canadian author and they are lucky to have her! I LOVED this book. I was in the middle of reading a major thriller and foolishly read the first few pages of Picket Fences, two days later I'm finished. I don't know how to describe it to you, it's one of those stories that is about nothing and everything. It is the story of a young woman, Sloane, and her friend from high school, Stephie. They made plans for their lives but, as it does for most of us, life changes.

The story is straightforward, following Sloane as she lives her life, going to work, dealing with parents, husband, Stephie and desperately trying to make her dreams come true. It's a slice of life. The reader also sees parts of the past, learning more about the early lives of Sloane and Stephie, helping us understand why they are the way they are today. It all sounds so simple doesn't it? On the surface it is, but there are undercurrents galore to be explored and lessons for the reader to learn. This is all accomplished brilliantly thanks to the author's well defined characters. When people are rude and hateful, she makes us dislike them but still have compassion for them and wonder what happened in their past. When Sloane struggles, I wanted to shake her and tell her to snap out of it, but I also recognized many of her traits in myself. Sloane's parents were adorable, yet her mom often annoying. As for Jason, Sloane's husband, the reader is left wondering if he can't be bothered to accomplish his dream of being a game designer or whether he postpones his wishes because his greater wish is for an income that will bring them a happy life now. We don't know if he's unkind, or the nicest, most patient husband ever. Stephie's "friend" Randy, appears to be a loser but then we're reminded not to judge people, as we see how he is smart and sensitive. I know all these character names and traits mean absolutely nothing to you now, I only include them to show you that this book that has no boat crashes, museum robberies, or mysterious murders, yet it is absolutely amazing.

I cannot do this book justice with a description. It is about nothing and everything. It's complicated yet simple, happy yet sad. I found myself laughing out loud and then teary eyed. The storytelling is masterful and I will not forget Picket Fences for a very long time.

[Hailey Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Canadian author, Emma L.R. Hogg, is a skilled storyteller and writer. Her latest novel, Picket Fences, touches on complicated relationships of the romantic, friend, and familial variety, offering a look at the everyday trials and changes that often occur as we get older. High-school friendships, work relationships, complicated lovers, the difficulties of marriage, and the different ways of dealing with grief. Hogg covers all of these topics and more and connects with areas that are a part of the human experience for so many.

The characters in this text felt real. Throughout the book their development was layered and nuanced; they represented people whose lives aren’t perfect but who still live in a world that often presents perfect expectations.

The main character, Sloane, is working as a secretary and assistant when we meet her but has always wanted to have a career in graphic design. Her husband, Jason, has always wanted to be a video game developer. Both Sloane and Jason are not where they planned to be career-wise, which is made even more challenging because they aren’t where they expected to be family-wise. Readers get glimpses of Sloane’s life in High School and during her undergrad, which is where readers are introduced to her best friend Stephie and the traumatic event that leaves a lasting impact on her life.

We are left to ask how well we know the people we are closest to in our lives? Do we see them as they are, or as the projections and reflections of pieces of ourselves, of who we want them to be? As Sloane eventually realizes, “I’ve been focusing on all the wrong things. On all the wrong people.”

All of the different threads and themes were brought together by the end of the novel, and point towards a hopeful future.

[Jes Trudel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emma L.R. Hogg has done it again! Hogg knows how to take an average person (who could be any one of us) and bring intrigue and insight to their otherwise ordinary existence. Sloane as a character is deeply flawed, but relatable. Her slow realization of herself, her belated coming-of-age as the book copy describes it, is portrayed with a literary style and grace that is unmistakably Hogg-esque. I'm sure I will be a lifelong reader of Hogg's work and hope she earns the recognition she deserves in the landscape of Canadian literature.