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Tinsel, November 2009
Hardcover
A Search for America's Christmas Present
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
November 2009
On Sale: November 12, 2009
352 pages ISBN: 0547134657 EAN: 9780547134659 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In TINSEL, Hank Stuever turns his unerring eye for the
idiosyncrasies of modern life to Frisco, Texas, a suburb at
once all-American and completely itself, to tell the story
of the nation’s most over-the-top celebration: Christmas.
Stuever starts the narrative as so many start the Christmas
season: standing in line with the people waiting to
purchase flat-screen TVs on Black Friday. From there he
follows three of Frisco's true holiday believers as they
navigate through the Nativity and all its attendant crises.
Tammie Parnell, an eternally optimistic suburban mom, is
the proprietor of "Two Elves with a Twist," a company that
decorates other people's big houses for Christmas. Jeff and
Bridgette Trykoski own that house every town has: the one
with the visible-from-space, most awe-inspiring Christmas
lights. And single mother Caroll Cavazos just hopes that
the life-affirming moments of Christmas might overcome the
struggles of the rest of the year. Stuever's portraits of
this happy, megachurchy, shopariffic community are at once
humane, heartfelt, revealing – and very funny.
TINSEL is a compelling tale of our half-trillion-dollar
holiday, measuring what we we've become against the ancient
rituals of what we've always been.
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