Nana Howton
Books
Burning Seasons
Smiley and her little sister Trinket leave an orphanage to go live with their mother, a prostitute, but find the home empty. Smiley cares for her sister, rations food, and avoids belligerent neighbors. They meet a young man, Juice, who befriends and feeds them. Hungry and alone, they hitchhike to find their estranged father, whom their mother fled to escape his violence.
On the road the girls are separated. Smiley searches for her sister with the help of truck drivers. This section mixes present day and flashbacks from their days living in the whorehouse when Smiley first lost Trinket. When Trinket is found, Smiley believes she has been raped, and encouraged by a mob of vigilantes, she kills her sister’s rapist They arrive in their father’s town and see him in a visit that is quite disappointing to Smiley, who thinks she was slighted by him on account of his overbearing wife. Their mother comes to find them and her ease around her ex-husband increases Smiley’s sense that her mother lied about his violence, which Smiley has no memory of. On their way back home, the careless drunken mother accidentally burns Smiley with her cigarette. Smiley, who suffers from motion sickness, walks out to get fresh air during a stop and angrily decides not to stay behind as the train leaves with her mother and sister aboard.
Smiley wonders around the strange town and witnesses the military’s violent response to student protests. She walks the red-light district and is saved from an aggressive gang of girls by a Doris, a prostitute. She follows a man home hoping for food and a shelter for the night, but while he showers, she decides to steal his money and leave. Back on the streets she finds Doris again and goes home with her, only to find out she’s a crossdresser. Doris inspires trust in Smiley, who talks about her sense of responsibility for Trinket and the death of the rapist, though she falls short of a confession. Doris encourages her to return to her father’s town and finally face him. Back at her family’s old home, now her father’s sister’s house, she recovers her memory of his violence. Subsequently, she faces her father and their relationship takes a dark turn.
Smiley returns home. Her mother looks for work in town and often takes the girls with her believing Trinket, being light-skinned, will help her luck. She is often drunk and Smiley has to protect Trinket from her wrath. Her mother announces they will move into a new house because she has a boyfriend, is pregnant, and they need more room. The new larger house never materializes as the mother loses both the boyfriend and the baby. Unable to find a job in town, she returns to the whorehouse, leaving the girls alone again. Eventually she’s hired by a septuagenarian bachelor who also helps Smiley find a job in a bakery.
Smiley’s new job requires her to miss most of her school days. The boss has a habit of sexually harassing employees. She passes time sneaking a few lines of writing and watching people go by, including Juice. A married man flirts with her daily. Life seems gloomier until Juice introduces her to a group of students and laborers who are fighting the dictatorship and planning an armed resistance. Their leader finds her unprepared for the “revolution” when she hoards free fruit, and tells her not to return. She is smitten by Juice and continues to see him. Teresa, her co-worker whom the boss has impregnated, leaves to go live in the whorehouse, and the boss turns his interest toward Smiley who, after being forced to perform a sex act on him, quits.
A student-run event is broken up by the military, who not trusting the local police to control “their own children,” have moved into town to restore order. Juice and Smiley flee the violent clash. She gets a ride with Carlos, the star baker from her former job, to visit Teresa at the whorehouse, the first time she has been there since she was a child. Teresa reveals that Juice and Carlos are lovers. Smiley discovers her father killed someone in the past who had abused her. She realizes she has more in common with him (violence) than with her mother (prostitution). Smiley learns from a friend that the military has a picture of her at the farm with the “freedom fighters,” and is rounding up people. She goes home and tells Trinket they must leave, but her sister refuses. When she insists, her sister says she has already been interviewed by the military and reveals that she gave information on Smiley and Juice. When Smiley tells her she’s hurt, after having done so much for her, including killing her rapist, the sister reveals that she was never raped.
Juice’s body is left in the empty lot by Smiley’s house, after being tortured and killed. She visits the orphanage and a nun advises her to forgive her mother’s trespasses. She makes peace with her mother. On the way to the bus terminal, a military interrogator approaches her and tells her she’s insignificant now that Juice is dead, and that she can even stay in town if she wants. She realizes a better life waits elsewhere and to find her sister again someday, she must leave her now, and she boards the departing bus.
about the author
An American writer of Brazilian origin, Naná Howton is a graduate of Stanford University and holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. She has attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Skidmore College, and San Francisco State University. Her short stories and essays have been published in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and the United States.
She has won a Reader’s Circle Award and an Editor’s Choice Award. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best American Short Stories. Saisons des Feux (Burning Seasons) is her debut novel published in France in 2023, with releases forthcoming in Australia and the United Kingdom in May 2025.
Visit her website at nanahowton.com↗.