Jerome Mark Antil

Mary Crane: and a Pompey Hollow Book Club Seance with Sherlock! Jerome Mark Antil

Publisher Marketing: 5 STAR REVIEW - Foreword Reviews Mary Crane and a Pompey Hollow Book Club Seance with Sherlock! This wholesomely earnest novel is peppered with a dash of old-school mischief and fun. Jerome Mark Antil's Mary Crane and a Pompey Hollow Book Club Seance with Sherlock, the latest installment in the adventures of the Pompey Hollow kids, continues the group's spirited adventures. The club members-all boys except for the steadying influence of President Mary Crane-make their early-teen way through 1950s upstate New York with the help of guardian angel and former neighbor Charlie Pitts, best known as "Ole Charlie." The tone of the novel is wholesomely earnest, peppered with a dash of old-school mischief and fun. Antil's love for his subject matter and familiarity with the postwar backdrop of this specific region give Pompey Hollow a color and warmth that only true nostalgia can provide. Surely these were simpler times than our own, though not necessarily better or easier. The shadow of the Great Depression lingered, with not-so-distant memories of-as one character notes-having to live on very little and somehow manage to make a chocolate layer cake "with everything but chocolate." And while the United States had recently triumphed in World War II, no great victory is ever won without casualties or sacrifice. In the autumn of 1953, the Book Club and friends find themselves caught up in a caper involving a former war pilot and a crafty British pickpocket, while Ole Charlie meets fellow angel and revered author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There are barn chores and barn dances, the state fair, a traveling theater group, and a grade school teacher with some pretty impressive skills as a con artist. To add to the narrative, Antil includes historical photos along with "Paracoustics" sound effects. These sound snippets in the form of QR codes allow smartphone users to scan and hear relevant moments of action. Despite the nod to modern technology, Mary Crane and a Pompey Hollow Book Club Seance with Sherlock will likely appeal to those who actually lived the times, or to young adults with a fascination for days gone by. A lack of cynicism and openness to the concept that teens were perhaps more mature yet less sophisticated sixty years ago might also help their twenty-first-century counterparts truly appreciate the story. In certain aspects, the novel seems reminiscent of author Elizabeth Enright's Melendy Family series of the 1940s, offering a similar sense of camaraderie and fairly innocent adventure. Antil's shifting perspective may sometimes become a bit confusing, but the general effect is a story with heart and plenty of good old-fashioned imagination." Contributor Bio:  Giraud, Marina Jerome Mark Antil is the seventh child of a seventh son - of a seventh son. Born at sunrise it's been said by Mary Holman Antil and Michael C. Antil Sr., that he was the first of eight siblings to stay alert all day and sleep all night from the moment he was born. "I can remember the Pearl Harbor attack announced on the Zenith floor-model radio before I could walk. I'd listen to Edward R. Murrow reporting the War from London...the scratchy battle weary ship-to-shore Morse code telegraphed messages while my diaper was being changed." Heartfelt, light-hearted fare of family and friendship nostalgia in the 1940s and 1950s are his favorite subjects. He revels at capturing in good detail what it was like being a kid living in a world at War. As the War ended, he grew up in Delphi Falls, which provided the setting for The Pompey Hollow Book Club and The Book of Charlie. "My dad was a baker from the 1929 Great Depression through the post-War 1950s. As a young boy, I'd ride with him all throughout central and northern New York visiting grocers and U. S. Army bases; baseball parks and bread lines as he sold his bread, hot dog buns, pies and cakes. My Dad was 'Big Mike' and I loved listening to his endless stories and tall tales - stopping at fishing holes along the way. All day rides in Big Mike's Buick was my Steamboat - his stories and an entire world at War was my Mississippi." As an adult Jerry worked as a proof reader and printer's liaison, he later wrote and produced industrial sales and training films. As an accomplished writer for public relations and advertising agencies, he would become Chief Marketing Officer for several prominent companies. Jerry's favorite authors are: John Steinbeck - "Steinbeck could peer out from the window of a person's soul." Ernest Hemingway -"Grandpa Hemingway could establish both character and plot in a single sentence." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - "His Sherlock would keep you eager for more of his clues and their brilliant anecdotes than the crime's solution." Mark Twain - "Samuel Langhorne Clements was the irreverent, thought provoking, deceptively caustic, the Howard Stern of his day."