4 July 2025

Dear Friends Who Read and Readers Who Are Friends,

We can debate what the founders of the United States would have wanted to see on July 4th, 2025, but the only thing we know for certain is this:

They would have loved the annual Bristol, Vermont Outhouse Races that have been occurring on this date for nearly half a century. They were run again this morning, the first heat taking off a little after nine a.m.

In my opinion, Outhouse Racing should be America’s real national pastime. The sport links generations and reminds us of our idyllic past and our pastoral roots. It's a sport a little less violent than football, but one that nevertheless demands speed, eye-hand coordination, and serious mental toughness.

I’ve never participated in the Outhouse Races, but I’ve watched them. It’s Nascar meets the Olympic one-hundred meter dash. It’s a chariot race with pretend port-a-potties. For those of you unfamiliar with an outhouse race, it is the real sport of kings. After all, you have someone sitting upon the proverbial throne and you have other people wagering along the side of the racetrack.

Here is what’s involved:

You build a replica of an outhouse. Keep it light, but there should be a hole on which a person can (and will) sit.

Put the outhouse on castors or wheels.

Find a few people willing to race like madmen and women down Bristol’s Main Street, some pulling and some pushing each outhouse.

There are usually four or five heats, the winner of each being the first outhouse to break the toilet paper tape. These winners compete in one final race for the championship.

Meanwhile, those of us in the crowd can cheer and bet and eat, because nothing stimulates the appetite more than an outhouse.

There are other outhouse races in other parts of the U.S., but none dating back to the Carter Presidential administration and none on the Fourth of July.

The course no longer runs around the Bristol green because the corners resulted in the race fast becoming – to quote Ted Lylis, a race organizer for years – “a blood sport.” He said that parked cars were “getting their vehicle mirrors ripped off." A participant once fell down and got run over by his own outhouse. Consequently, now the course runs in a straight line down Main Street in front of the green, ending at the one traffic light in the village.

Like so many other big ideas, the outhouse races were born late into a New Year’s Eve party. The details now are a little sketchy – this was, after all, a New Year’s Eve party — but a pair of Bristol Rotarians, Larry Gile and Bill Paine, were no doubt having a profound intellectual discussion about the Declaration of Independence. Then they had another drink and the outhouse races were born.

In some parts of this nation, people do nothing more than pay homage to the Revolutionary War patriots on the Fourth of July. We certainly do that here in this corner of Vermont; we have our share of re-enactors on parade.

But we also have the courage to begin the big day by racing the restrooms of freedom. Here’s to the fireworks in the sky — and in the thunderbox!


All the best,

Chris
www.chrisbohjalian.com


What I'm reading -- and why.

Another relevant thought about Independence Day? Studies show that reading, especially fiction, makes us kinder and more empathetic. We could use both more kindness and more empathy in the U.S, right now. So, here are the books I've read and loved the past month or so:


Happy Land by Dolen Perkins Valdez: Dolen Perkins-Valdez is a literary treasure, finding actual moments in our history that are somehow both unknown and dramatic -- and critical to understanding the American character and soul. In this beautiful, powerful, surprising novel, she brings to life the remarkable story of a community of self-governing freepeople in the decades after the Civil War, and its undiscussed legacy. What was it like in Happy Land in the 1870s and 1880s -- and what does that legacy mean for four generations of women in one family in present day America? I loved this novel: every page makes clear the ways historical fiction move us as only the very best novels can.

What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown: WHAT KIND OF PARADISE is alchemically brilliant: a riveting page-turner set at the start of the internet revolution in the 1990s about an anti-tech genius with plans to murder the tech wizards changing the world, and his teen daughter, who becomes inadvertently complicit. But it is also a deeply beautiful coming of age tale as that young woman is thrust suddenly from an isolated cabin in Montana into the frenetic world of San Francisco at the genesis of the dot-com boom. And among the many treasures of this magnificent novel? Janelle Brown's language and the rhythms of her sentences. This novel is an absolute gem.

The Names by Florence Knapp: THE NAMES is not merely a remarkable and deeply moving debut novel: it's the sort of heartbreakingly beautiful book that even writers with two dozen books behind them rarely produce. The premise is daring: how would changing a child's name change a whole family's destiny? So, Florence Knapp has written, in essence, three extraordinary novellas about one family, and how Cora's decision to name her second child Bear, Julian, or Gordon, unleashes wildly different lives for him, his sister, his father, and (of course) herself. Knapp has not merely designed an extraordinary architecture for her novel, she is also a stylist of uncommon talent, with sentences that left me staggered by their perfect rhythms and dialogue that was always spot-on. This book is riveting and whip-smart. Read it. You'll thank me.

Never Flinch by Stephen King: I love spending time with Stephen King's Holly Gibney -- who is, once again, among the stars in King's latest page-turner. And, as always, she is surrounded by a wide cast of characters, some charismatic, some crazy. In this case, (pun intended), we have two plots moving along parallel tracks, but you know that at some point those tracks are going to merge (and it could be very messy). We have a charismatic pro-choice writer and speaker on a book tour who is being stalked by an anti-abortion murderer (and that character's rabid church), and a serial killer executing one innocent person for every member of a jury that wrongly convicted a man of a crime. Both stories are riveting, especially gripping because both tales explore just how fractured the U.S. has become, and how the cruelest and stupidest among us often are running the show.


You Had Me at Woof by Julie Klam: Libraries have lengthy shelves of books about dogs, but YOU HAD ME AT WOOF, the brilliant Julie Klam's memoir of her years as a Boston Terrier rescue volunteer, deserves a special spot: it's a treasure. There are scenes that are very funny, observations about dogs -- and our relationship with them, and the roles they play in our lives -- that are astute, and moments that are deeply moving. This is a smart, beautiful book and if you aren't a dog lover already, you very well might be when you finish.



Some News about The Jackal's Mistress

Color me honored: The Jackal's Mistress is among BookBub's "most wishlisted" novels so far in 2025. I'll be visiting both Burlington and Middlebury. Vermont this week, so if you want a personalized copy, call or visit the website for:

The Vermont Book Shop at (802) 388-2061

Phoenix Books at (802) 448-3350

Both stores ship.