‘North Hill’ is insightful novel about Akron neighborhood

Puck Beck lives with his parents, grandmother and eight siblings in a crowded house on Tallmadge Avenue in Akron.

In “North Hill,” an insightful novel by University of Akron alumnus William Zink, Puck sleeps on a thin mattress in the attic with four of his five brothers, while a sixth sleeps in a nonfunctioning Volkswagen bus in the driveway, just to get some air and privacy.

Set in perhaps 1967 (Puck’s sisters listen to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”), the episodic novel is in Puck’s voice as his family struggles to make do with the income from his father’s automotive garage. Breakfast is oatmeal with powdered milk, sometimes accompanied by celery. The boys work nonstop on home maintenance and helping elderly neighbors.

Puck has a complicated relationship with two girls. On one side live the Del Rosas, whose voluptuous daughter Teresa stokes the libido of every boy on North Hill. On the other side lives Buzzy, whose real name is Sandy. She lacks Teresa’s allure and has a deeply troubled home life, but Puck is drawn to her penetrating intellect.

Puck’s father uses a wheelchair because of the effects of polio, and every night one of his older sons carries him upstairs to bed. He suffers agony from past third-degree burns and fractures. Puck suffers, too; he prays for his father’s legs to heal and tries to bargain with Jesus. His prayers are unanswered; his father’s business partner cleans out the accounts and skips town. Now there is oatmeal for dinner, too.

The book is rich with details of time and place, as the boys hike across the Viaduct and picnic at the Gorge. A group of hippies show up at a family farm and talk about the “vibrating and cosmic truths” in San Francisco. Brother Tommy goes off to Vietnam.

“North Hill” is William Zink’s 12th book; “Ohio River Dialogues” was a finalist for the 2008 Ohioana Book Award in Fiction.

“North Hill” (296 pages, softcover) costs $15 from Sugar Loaf Press. William Zink will sign “North Hill” from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday at Trust Books, 1884 Front St., Cuyahoga Falls.

Ride Down Cadillac Hill on the Way to North Hill

The smell of oatmeal wafts from a kitchen, as the rumble of a Honda 50 can be heard outside the window. The motorbike stirs to life outside, blending into traffic, where a Volkswagen microbus takes the lead up Tallmadge Ave. This morning experience is as common today in the North Hill neighborhood of Akron as it would have been in 1969, creating an embraceable story for readers of author William Zink’s newest novel set in the area at that time.

Zink’s novel, simply titled North Hill, brings to life the Becks, a large working-class family doing their best to get by as pitfalls continue to hit each member. Of the nine brothers and sisters, 16-year-old Puck finds himself struggling to understand: life, girls, religion, his artist brother Frankie’s yearning to leave for San Francisco, Tommy’s plan to fight in Vietnam, his mentally-disabled younger brother Squirt, his father’s mechanic business in a slump, grandmother’s love of war-torn Italy, and all the while living with his father’s eternal hatred of Puck, being the last child born before discovering he had polio. With this set in the backdrop of Akron, Ohio, Zink creates his own more modern Midwest version of the Waltons.

“I’m the second to youngest of 11, so there were all kinds of stories, family lore really, that I heard growing up. I remember the feel of what it was like then in the late 60s,” explains Zink. “That time is a perfect metaphor for the struggles of the main character, Puck, who’s being pulled apart emotionally in multiple directions. North Hill—all of Akron, really—seemed like our version of 1960s Liverpool: this industrial outpost that somehow has produced a disproportionate number of creative people. It was, and to me still is, the center of the world.”

Zink has been a writer since grade school, having published 10 novels and poetry collections, including Ohio River Dialogues, which was a 2008 finalist for the Ohioana Fiction Award. Coming from a family that lived on North Hill during the 1960s, he spent a lot of his time as a child in the area.

Although many of the concepts discussed in North Hill are common themes in literature and the historical aspects are seen frequently throughout documentaries and textbooks, the Akron setting introduces the less explored setting of an industrial town, something not often seen when looking at a family like the Becks.

“When Katrina hit New Orleans, everyone was surprised at how little aid the people received. Not me. All of Northeastern Ohio was abandoned by our industry and the country yawned… Akron is a metaphor for so many facets of American life. It’s the soul of Akron I wanted to write about. I think Akron residents deserve a book set in their own city, reflecting their own identity. If North Hill was a neighborhood in NYC, it would have dozens of books written about it. But because it’s in Ohio, the publishing industry doesn’t care about it.”

Although North Hill tells a complete story, each chapter acts as its own novelette. Throughout the first half of the book, once readers have an understanding of the characters and setting, each chapter can easily be read as an isolated tale, not unlike many of Jean Shepherd’s stories in In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. This style of storytelling enhances the modern Waltons aesthetic as well, treating each chapter as a syndicated episode in the life of the Beck family, permitting the story to continue into an unknown future series after the last page of the novel.

A downfall of Zink’s book, unfortunately, is his representation of female characters. Having only read this work, readers might believe Zink is unable to produce well-written emotional depth or character development for these women, as the novel rarely shows Puck’s two older sisters, Britt and Sissy. Their appearances occur either in a scene when their mother is not around–usually inserting lines the mother would use in their place, or when a male guest is at their home, focusing dialogue around their relationships. The most in-depth conversation the sisters have with Puck in the entire novel only goes as far as a bleak argument about drawing facial hair on their poster of the Beatles. In terms of the boys’ own romantic interests, their neighbor Teresa Del Rosa rarely has character development aside from talk of depression, an idea that is never investigated too deeply. Instead, most of the time this character makes an appearance, the focus is on how she looks or she is being sexualized. Several other female characters, such as the mother, are rarely seen in the large ensemble, and only discussed when having a kind of mental breakdown, which is then promptly forgotten.

Aside from this issue, North Hill as a whole is a brilliant read that reminds readers not only of how much Akron has to offer, but how much the city has grown in 50 years.

Zink will unveil North Hill at his book release party this Saturday, June 4, 4-7pm at Trust Books inside the Jenks Building. Readers will have the chance to purchase Zink’s book, ask questions of the author, and reminisce on the 1960s and Akron’s history.

“Trust Books is unlike any bookstore I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a lot of them,” remarks Zink. “Michael Owen’s place couldn’t fit in more with the spirit of the 60s.”

For more information about North Hill and William Zink, visit https://www.williamzink.com.