Won’t Be Long Now
Personality and relational difficulties compound Billie Enholm’s bewilderment and wonder as a child beginning to recognize herself and how she fits—or doesn’t—with her family and social circle. This historical novel follows Billie from childhood through early adulthood as she struggles to find her way through life. Her inner focus often disconnects her from knowing where she is and what’s happening around her. Frustration and alienation grow in both Billie and her family. Her personal turmoil accelerates when a tragedy decimates her hometown, for which she partly blames herself. As Billie sorts out blame, she finds herself increasingly the focus of expectations she cannot meet.
Billie’s coming-of-age tale is set in 1950s Kansas, a setting as foreign to contemporary North America as 1930s Kansas was to Oz. Billie Enholm may be this generation’s Holden Caulfield. Though many themes and terms parallel Holden’s chronicle, unlike him Billie struggles to integrate into her contemporary society. She narrates her story as an adult years after the main events.
Hardinger develops a good sense of that time and place through both details and action. She gets many details of life in south central Kansas right, but quibbles occur: beer was hardly “the drug of choice” in ´50s and ´60s Kansas. Limited to 3.2 percent alcohol by weight near beer, it was easily obtained but inadequate as an anesthetic. The profanity conveyed is not typical for language in Kansas seventy-five years ago. Some modern readers will find it offensive.
