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The Ringer: A Novel

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Jenny Shank

March 2011

Elena Spagnolie

Right off the bat (no pun intended), Jenny Shank’s novel, The Ringer, appealed to me. The story takes place in the Mile High City, Denver, Colorado—a location I still consider to be home even though I haven’t lived there in eight years—and I was looking forward to being transported back to the wide-open skies, to the dry, thin air of the Rockies, and to the familiar sights and streets of my youth. And I wasn’t disappointed. Shank’s sense of place is strong, and throughout the novel I experienced many wonderful moments of nostalgia and recognition—Hey! I’ve eaten at that restaurant! I know that newscaster! I remember the daily, summer thundershowers!

Right off the bat (no pun intended), Jenny Shank’s novel, The Ringer, appealed to me. The story takes place in the Mile High City, Denver, Colorado—a location I still consider to be home even though I haven’t lived there in eight years—and I was looking forward to being transported back to the wide-open skies, to the dry, thin air of the Rockies, and to the familiar sights and streets of my youth. And I wasn’t disappointed. Shank’s sense of place is strong, and throughout the novel I experienced many wonderful moments of nostalgia and recognition—Hey! I’ve eaten at that restaurant! I know that newscaster! I remember the daily, summer thundershowers!

I also remember the real-life news story that inspired her novel. In 1999, a Denver SWAT team entered the home of Ismael Mena during a “no-knock” drug raid and shot and killed him, only to find out later that they had the wrong address on their warrant; they had killed an innocent man. In her novel, Shank alternates in chapters between the perspective of Ed O’Fallon, the police officer responsible for shooting Salvador Santillano, a Mexican immigrant living in Colorado, and the perspective of Patricia Maestas, Santillano’s widow. She takes the time to create whole and complex characters and breathes life into believable portrayals of human suffering and love. For example, Ray, Patricia’s twelve-year-old son, teeters between being an angry, distant adolescent who constantly rebels against Patricia and the innocent, confused, and sensitive boy she remembers from years past.

“This is a little two-step,” she said, “your grandfather taught me it when I was your age. Watch my feet.” She demonstrated the simple dance, right foot behind the left, back to the center, left foot behind the right, back to the center, repeat, putting a little shimmy into every move. Ray’s big puppy hands sweated as he concentrated. She wondered how many more Saturday nights she’d spend with him, until he started begging off to go see a girl. He was as tall as she was now.

“You’re a natural dancer,” she said, watching Ray pick up the step with almost no effort.

“So was Dad,” Ray said, looking straight at her.

Likewise, Ed O’Fallon isn’t simply categorized as a trigger-happy cop; he is a father of three kids, and a fallible human being:

Ed saw the muzzle flash and he fired again, but the sound was distant, muffled. He wasn’t hearing right, he wasn’t seeing right, just riding the wave of his training, his body having memorized what it was supposed to do… He stared at the man on the ground, unable to comprehend that he, Ed, had done this.

I appreciate that Shank isn’t afraid to put her characters in difficult situations; Patricia has to decide whether or not to take the lawsuit to trial (and make an example out of her husband’s death) or if she should settle out of court and accept a sum of money that could pay for her kids’ college, Ed has to figure out if he should identify himself to Patricia when he discovers that Ray and his sons are in the same baseball league, and both parents have to learn how to deal with the guilt caused by the loss of Salvador Santillano.

Murder, however, is not the only thing that links the two families; baseball soothes them, creates a much-needed distraction, and even brings the families together in understated and beautiful ways. You can tell that Shank has an appreciation for the game that goes beyond the average sports fan, and it comes out in her writing.

The structure of the story is strong as well, though at times the pacing feels slow because the most climactic moment takes place within the first twenty-five pages. But overall, I think that structural choice adds to the realistic nature of the book; recovering from a traumatic event is often gradual, not something that can be resolved quickly or easily, and is steeped in memories and uncertainty. The ending of The Ringer respects that process and does not try to reconcile everything at once; however, it takes a dramatic turn that (given the pacing of everything before it) feels mismatched with the rest of the novel.

While not overly literary, Shank’s novel is a solid, well written, and enjoyable summer read, especially for fans of baseball…and homesick Denverites.

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