I know three people from our graduating class who are authors, she wrote via email. You, Barbara Jones, and Harry Brown. Do you know of any others?  The class of ’72 – what’s left of 399 of us – are beginning to coalesce, starting to get reacquainted, communicating more as we gear up for our 50^th (gasp), 50^th class reunion. I’ve ordered your latest book, she continued, and I had the privilege of reading one of Harry’s before it went to print.

Classmates. We have in common a high school graduation year; 1972. We have memories of three years spent in the same building, 180 days per year; choirs, teams, bands, academic awards, achievements.  Some of us share in common the writing habit. One of Barbara Tyner’s books is on my nightstand waiting to be read. Another is on my computer-top, delivered electronically. After responding to Helen’s email, I clicked around the internet for several minutes, finally discovering Harry Brown’s The Magic Club. I pressed the instant download button and money was withdrawn, the plot delivered.

Aptly classified, a coming of age novel. I read with dogged attention, though I found the chapters and sections disjoined and hard to follow. These are the landscapes and people of my childhood, never mind that some of the names have been changed. I know these places – the canal bank, the Three Sisters, Monument Road. I know these characters. I, too, was part of the Class of 72, although I don’t believe I ever shared a class or a conversation with Mr. Brown. There were 399 of us. We were baby boomers. I laughed out loud at the religious girl with the outdated cat-eye glasses who makes a couple cameo appearances in the book. Could there have been two of us? I was not alone after all! Wonder of wonders, there must have been another classmate as suppressed and repressed as I! She wore her cat-eyes from first through 12^th grade. I only got mine in 6^thgrade. Oh, and in the book (The Magic Club, 2012 Harry Clifford Brown), she graduated valedictorian-something I could only dream of. As an author, I was absolutely fascinated by Harry Brown’s fictional rendering and remembering of the chaotic and tender age of 17-going on 21. Nice to get a glimpse of 1972 from the other side – the male perspective – the jocks – the achievers – the leaders. I honestly didn’t know it was as hard (and heartbreaking) for them as it was for me!