Staggerford

Staggerford is Jon Hassler's first novel, published in 1977.

The novel is about a quaint, middle-sized community, told through the life of English teacher Miles Pruitt. The novel chronicles the life of Miles over one week, starting from Friday October 30 and ending on Thursday the next week.

While the plot of the novel may not be as enticing as the other novels set in Staggerford, what separates the novel is the way it handles life and the fluidity that is being surveyed here. The novel, although posing to be dramatic and poignantly romantic, shrouds itself from the future mysteries of the novel. One of the most engrossing techniques used by Hassler is repetition. Unlike most comic fiction, he doesn't use a lot of rhetoric, but instead uses the complexity of the situations to provoke humor from the work.