Brightly Shining, by Ingvild Rishøi

Brightly Shining, by Ingvild Rishøi (Grove Press, 192 pages)

It’s been 181 years since A Christmas Carol was published, and so it’s past time for another author to give us a compact, memorable holiday book that becomes as much a part of the season as shopping and eggnog. The Dickens classic was a marvel of brevity, coming in at just about 30,000 words, which is surely one reason it remains popular. No one has time to read, say, Richard Powers in December.

Three years ago, I had hopes for Small Things Like These, a slim novel written by the Irish novelist Claire Keegan, which turned up as Oprah Winfrey’s book club pick this month even though it was published in 2021. That book (Grove Press, 118 pages) wasn’t about Christmas, per se, but is set around Christmastime and has, at the heart of its deeply affecting story, a working-class man who was born to a teenage housekeeper. Furlong never knew who his father was, and yet grows up to be happily married with five daughters and becomes a sort of social justice warrior by accident when he makes a disturbing discovery while delivering coal, a reliable staple of Christmas stories.

Small Things Like These has a Truman Capote “A Christmas Memory” vibe to it, in the telling of Furlong’s back story, with passages like this:

“On Christmas morning, when he’d gone down to the drawing room [his mother’s employer] occasionally let them share, the fire was already lighted and he’d found three parcels under the tree wrapped in the same green paper: a nailbrush and a bar of soap were wrapped together in one. The second was a hot water bottle … And from Mrs. Wilson, he’d been given A Christmas Carol, an old book with a hard red cover and no pictures, which smelled of must.”

Or maybe that is a Little Women vibe. At any rate, there are letters written to Santa, and a Christmas Mass, and an ending with the kind of wild and irrational hope befitting a good Christmas story. A Christmas Carol it’s not, but it was Dickensonian enough that I decided to add the book to my Christmas collection when I finished it last year.

Now Grove Press has published another slim Christmas-themed novel, Brightly Shining, by the Norwegian author Ingvild Rishoi (translated into English by Carolina Waight). In Norway, where the book was published in 2021 under the title Stargate, the author has been compared to Dickens and also Hans Christian Andersen (who, lest we forget, gave us “The Little Mermaid” before Disney did).

Brightly Shining is the story of a 10-year-old girl (who, in Victorian times, would have been characterized as a waif) and her struggle to maintain hope in seemingly hopeless circumstances. Ronja lives with her 16-year-old sister Melissa, in an impoverished household ostensibly headed by their father, who is addicted to alcohol, has trouble holding down a job, and is usually failing to provide support of any kind for his daughters. Most of the time, there is nothing for the girls to eat but cereal, and there is no mother in the home, although Melissa tries as best as she can to be a mother to her sister.

One day, a caretaker at Ronja’s school, who is aware of the situation, points out a flier advertising a job selling Christmas trees, and she takes it home to her father. After at first dismissing it as “a job for country bumpkins,” he relents and is hired, giving wings to Ronja’s hopes: that there might be enough money for food and gifts and a Christmas tree of their own. Her biggest dream, though, is that the family may one day have a cabin of their own in the woods.

As Ronja, the narrator, recounts: “ ‘Miracles do happen,’ the caretaker used to say. ‘Sometimes there just isn’t any other way out, and that’s when a miracle happens.’”

But that’s not how things transpire. Old patterns repeat, and Melissa takes over the job selling Christmas trees, with Ronja showing up at times just to watch, and eventually getting involved in the operation.

A bully of a boss turns into the story’s villain, and Ronja befriends a widowed man living in their building, leading to one of the book’s most poignant scenes, at a holiday pageant at Ronja’s school. The old man, Aronsen, does what he can to help Ronja, feeding her a real breakfast, ironing a dress for the school pageant and even buying greenery at the Christmas tree lot, but his efforts, and Melissa’s, cannot make up for the loss of functioning parents in the child’s life, even though, as she says, “I can’t not hope. That’s just the way my brain is.”

As in Small Things Like This, Brightly Shining attempts to give us the happiest ending possible while being honest about reality, which is to say, it’s not really a happy ending at all, especially after all the talk about miracles. Let’s just say it’s as happy an ending as O’Henry gave us in “The Gift of the Magi,” meaning it requires aggressive spin to cast either book as a feel-good Christmas story.

Not to say that both books aren’t beautifully crafted — they are. Not to say that they’re not memorable — they are. It’s just that I’ve been forever ruined by the last chapter of A Christmas Carol and seek that level of merriment in my Christmas reads, which Brightly Shining and Small Things Like These refuse to supply. God bless them, anyway. B+

Album Reviews 24/12/12

Crayon, Home Safe (self-released)

Lots to unpack from this French producer’s upcoming 2025 debut album, the first thing being the fact that I usually can’t stomach French music and was surprised to like this stuff, the second being that it’s almost painfully art-wonky; if you were at all confused or triggered by the bizarre opening ceremony for the 2024 Olympics, you should stick to something more meat-and-potatoes than this, just trying to help. Toward the latter, the video for the title track is one of the weirdest you’ll ever see, combining performance art and ballet in a presentation that, like the cover art, will surely be misinterpreted by unqualified critics as a shocking glamorization of the KKK (it isn’t at all). Artists gotta art, you see, and this guy’s been lucky enough to be introduced to and seen by the right people; among other things, he’s written platinum hits for French rap artists like Josman. The music itself has haunted house elements, i.e. slow techno exercises that sound like Heligoland-era Massive Attack after the guys drank a gallon of Robitussin. It’s plenty melodic, and to say it’s unapologetically urban would be the understatement of the decade. Perfect stuff for a perfectly broken planet. A



Victoria Monét, A Jaguar II Christmas: The Orchestral Arrangements (RCA Records)

Talk about under the wire; I was sifting through my emailbox for a metal or noise album to review here in order to finish off the week quickly when this one — an actual holiday record! — popped up. If you weren’t aware that AOR-R&B was even still being made by anyone, you can make room in your stack of Anita Baker and Toni Braxton albums for Monét, a multiple Grammy winner who worked her way up from the songwriting bullpen to bathe the world in her own brand of expensive-hotel vibe, with hits like the yacht rock-bordering “On My Mama,” which gets a bedroom-chill overhaul here, as well as subtle “12 Days Of Christmas” interpositions. That kind of thing goes on a lot on this record: Monét is a creative soul, well-versed in symphonics; in the appropriately named “Cadillac Christmas” she inserts snatches of “Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy” into a yacht-hip-hop beat while maintaining her understated street cred (don’t try that at home; it’s a difficult trick). Wonderfully tasteful, this. A+

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Yee-ha, our next album-release Friday is Dec. 20, when people like me, CD reviewers with weekly columns that need to be filled with news of new albums, sit in our glittering snow drifts on The Island Of Misfit Toys, with nothing to talk about at all. There aren’t many new CDs that come out this time of year; all the “important” new albums have already come out and we already made fun of them gave them a thorough, professional evaluation, for the edification of you, our faithful readers. And so, like a Charlie In The Box, or a squirt gun that shoots Polaner All-Fruit instead of water, or a toy cowboy who rides an ostrich, I sit alone, in my completely unorganized trash heap of an office, waiting to hear the jingling of sleigh bells, that magical sound that heralds the arrival of Santa Claus, who will, I hope against hope, bring me albums to talk about in this award-winning space. I get so looooonely this time of year, guys, passing the endless hours, with no albums to critique, trying to ignore the urge to have a Skittles-eating contest with myself or just leave this page blank until tomorrow and go back to binging reruns of Match Game ’78 on the Buzzr channel, wasn’t Charles Nelson Reilly a funny fellow? Oh forget it, no one wants a misfit social media-addicted CD reviewer when the music market is oversaturated, good grief, why didn’t I stock up on Kleenex, I just hope none of you nice people ever have to — wait! Do you hear that, folks? And look! A bright red shiny nose-sized light, making straight for me! It’s —! It’s —! It’s — SANTA! Wait, Santa threw me something, wrapped in shiny paper and a nice bow! Yow, I can’t even believe it, it’s a new album, coming out on Dec. 20, for this column! Let’s see, I’m so excited, this album’s from some band I’ve never heard of — of course it is — called Fish in a Birdcage and it is titled Mentors! Well, let me look into this. They’re from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which probably explains why they’re putting out an album five days before ChristmaHannaKwanzaa, I don’t think they don’t have holidays in Canada except for Guillotine Day or whatever it is, could someone text me the Widipedia deets on that before my hands finish typing this entire column? Wait, no, I get it now, this is an actual band, not a joke YouTube-only hip-hop band like the one I wrote about two years ago, these guys have an actual record contract, with Nettwerk Records, which is literally my favorite record company to receive albums from. What does all this mean? It means they must have been contractually obligated to put out an album before the end of the year or else, you know how it goes! But guess what, this is a good band, judging by the first single, “Badger.” It’s a stompy tune that’s part Strokes, part Billy Squier and part Scottish-ren-faire grog-folk; I’m seriously impressed. Thank you for giving me a holly jolly Christmas, Santa! On, Dasher! On, Whatsyourface!

• Anyway, folks, that’s it for the least happy time of the year for us misfit CD reviewers! I’d like to thank the dude who sold me the nice expensive coffee mugs at World Market in Bedford, N.H., Petunia will definitely love them, and furthermore — wait! Look! One of Santa’s reindeer left me a present! — No, not that, don’t be gross, it’s another album! This one’s from some British “comedy music” kid who calls himself ZEDNED, and it’s titled Do You Think I Give A S—t. No, seriously, it’s an actual album, fam, it’s on Spotify and Apple Music and whatnot, so I’m going to listen to the song “Jake Jake Jake,” which is probably about ZEDNED himself, because his “real name” is Jake Muscles. Let’s see — OK, OK, it’s a joke song, with a totally canned trap-and-wub-wub beat, and he’s talking about gross sexytime stuff. Do not buy.

Holidays on tap

Local breweries celebrate the season with holiday flavors

Andy Day loves holiday beers. For a very short time.

“It’s one of those things, for me,” Day said, “where you want to see a very limited release and then you want to see it disappear and then move on and move forward.” Day is the brewer and co-owner of Daydreaming Brewing Co. in Derry. He said there can be a tendency in the brewing industry to feature a seasonal beer too long.

“Take the pumpkin thing for example,” he said. “You’ve started to see that creep into July releases. By the time you get to mid-October it’s kind of played out and people are not really interested anymore and there’s a whole bunch of beer that just sits there.”

December is when many breweries roll out special releases of holiday beers, many of which are very dark — stouts and porters — with a high alcohol-by-volume percentage (ABV), sometimes as high as 10 or 12 percent, about the same as wine.

“Generally speaking,” Day said, “for the winter months, you’re going to have your imperial stouts and things”

This year Daydreaming Brewing Co. (1 1/2 E. Broadway, Derry, 965-3454, cask.life/daydreaming-brewing-co) is featuring a special holiday beer: The Noggy Elf.

“Two years ago, a friend of ours came into the brewery and she asked — this was probably in August — ‘Can you make a beer that tastes like eggnog?’ We mostly focus on English-style ales and traditional recipes, but she put it to me to make an eggnog beer. So I did a five and a half percent [ABV] golden ale that was flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, some vanilla and sort of gave you the characteristics of eggnog without actually being a thick, creamy eggnog.”

“So some fans of the original 5.5% Nog beer wanted to do an imperial (lager) barrel-aged version of it. So that’s what we did. We more or less doubled up on the recipe. We stuck it in ex-bourbon barrels, Heaven Hill’s bourbon barrels, for the better part of six months. Then we pulled it out and we treated it with cinnamon, nutmeg, etc., etc., and that’s where Noggy Elf came from,” Day said.

Day said The Noggy Elf has gotten a good response. “People have said it tastes like you’re drinking Christmas. … There’s definitely a little bit of oak and vanilla from the bourbon. It is deceptive in nature in that it is 10.5% [ABV], but it drinks like a much lower-alcohol beer, so it’s kind of one of those you’ve got to pace yourself and pay attention.”

More holiday brews

Concord Craft Brewing (117 Storrs St., Concord, 856-7625, concordcraftbrewing.com) has two Bourbon Barrel Aged Stouts on tap, a 2024 and a 2021. Both are imperial stouts with an ABV of 9.3%. Concord Craft says, “We have aged our imperial stout in Knob Creek bourbon barrels. … the bourbon flavor blends seamlessly with the maltiness of the stout and also gives a subtle oaky finish.”

Feathered Friend Brewing (231 S. Main St., Concord, 715-2347, featheredfriendbrewing.com) has several dark, deep, seasonal beers on tap, including BA Trouble Behind, a doppelbock, with an ABV of 9.8%. Brewed in house, it is aged in barrels from Steadfast Spirits Distilling Co. (134 Hall St., Suite. H, Concord, 333-2162, steadfastspiritsdistilling.square.site).

Flying Goose Brew Pub and Grill (40 Andover Road, New London, 526-6899, flyinggoose.com) is serving its winter beer on tap – Kong, a Russian Imperial Stout with an authoritative ABV of 10.5%. There is also Directionless Perfectionist, a sour American kriek (cherry beer), with an ABV of 6.7%

.From The Barrel Brewing Co. (1 Corporate Park Drive, Derry, 328-1896, ftb-838342.square.site) lists, on its website, three seasonal stouts on tap: Into the Void Coffee Vanilla Stout, Into the Void Peanut Butter Stout and Into the Void Coconut Stout.

Liquid Therapy Brewery and Grill (14 Court St., Nashua, 402-9391, liquidtherapynh.com) is offering a Soul Shard Imperial Stout on draft. It weighs in at a hefty 11.7% ABV and is described on the Liquid Therapy website as “aged on cinnamon, marshmallow, vanilla, and rum-soaked oak.”

Look for the Gingerbread Summit Porter at Mountain Base Brewery (553 Mast Road, No. 111, Goffstown, 935-7132, mountainbasebrewery.com). At 7.3% ABV, Mountain Base describes it on its website as a “Sweet milk stout with a seasonal gingerbread taste. Black in color with the milky feel of chocolate, caramel, and gingerbread.”

According to its website, Oddball Brewing (6 Glass St., Suncook, 210-5654, oddballbrewingnh.com) has Yer A Hairy Wizard Spiced Stout on tap at 5.6% ABV, as well as 3 on the Tree New England IPA at 6.6%.

Pipe Dream Brewing (49 Harvey Road, Unit 4, Londonderry, 404-0751, pipedreambrewingnh.com) is serving Pumpkin French Toast pumpkin ale on tap. It has an ABV of 6%, and Pipe Dream’s website describes it as “a slightly sweet, bready, pumpkin ale with a cinnamon maple twist.”

The Rockingham Brewing Co. (1 Corporate Park Drive, Unit 1, Derry, 216-2324, rockinghambrewing.com) has two festive beers on tap, according to its website: Snowball, a 4.2% ABV Belgian Witbier, and Winter Wonderham, a 7.5% ABV Winter Warmer Ale.

Spyglass Brewing Co. (306 Innovative Way, Nashua, 546-2965, spyglassbrewing.com) has two super-charged seasonal beers on tap: Escape Velocity 10% Triple IPA, described on the Spyglass website as “a New England style Triple IPA double dry hopped with Citra, Mosaic, Vic Secret and Azacca Hops,” and Continuum 10.5% Belgian Abbey Quad “a Belgian Abbey style quadrupel ale made with Belgian malts, Dark Candi syrup, and Styrian Golding hops.”

The Weekly Dish 24/12/19

News from the local food scene

• Goodbye to an institution: Bakolas Market (110 Spruce St., Manchester, 669-2941) will close this month, after almost 100 years. The market was the city’s last all-Greek market. According to a Dec. 8 article on Manchester Ink Link, the building containing the store and the apartments above it has been sold.

• Chocolatey Luxury: Luxury Travel Guide (ltgawards.com) has named Dancing Lion Chocolate (917 Elm St., Manchester, 625-4043, dancinglion.us/cacao) as its Confectionary Store of the Year for 2024-2025. In a Dec. 10 Facebook post Manchester’s Economic Development Office congratulated the chocolate shop: “Out of 90,000 global submissions, they rose to the top … Thank you to Richard Tango-Lowy (also President of the Heirloom Cacao Preservation) and the entire Dancing Lion Chocolate team for your incredible contributions to Manchester.”

• I’ll cashew at the wine tasting: Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) is offering a pairing experience that is nuts. From Thursday, Dec.19, to Monday, Dec. 22, experience four bold, satisfying nuts chosen by one of Averill House’s associates to complement your choice of four wines. There will be 21 wines to choose from. Tickets are $27.

• Cheese and charcuterie: Vine 32 Wine and Graze Bar (Bedford Square, 25 S. River Road, Bedford, 935-8464, vinethirtytwo.com) will host a Holiday Charcuterie Board Workshop on Sunday, Dec. 22, from 1 to 3 p.m. Join Vine 32’s charcuterie experts to craft a charcuterie board. Register at vinethirtytwo.com/charcuterieclasses.

• Homemade cookies: There will be a cookie swap at the Rodgers Memorial Library (194 Derry Road, Hudson, 886-6030, rodgerslibrary.org) Saturday, Dec. 21, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Contribute four dozen (48) of your favorite homemade holiday cookies and take home a cookie assortment. Provide a recipe copy with your cookies. Registration is required.

Kiddie Pool 24/12/19

Family fun for whenever

Looking at lights

• Drive around and check out the holiday lights in the Southern New Hampshire Tour of Lights, which features participating houses in Amherst, Atkinson, Auburn, Bedford, Danville, Derry, Goffstown, Hampstead, Hollis, Hudson, Litchfield, Londonderry, Merrimack, Nashua, Pelham and Salem, according to merrimackparksandrec.org/nh-tour-of-lights, one of the participating parks and rec departments where you can find the list of addresses.

• LaBelle Lights at LaBelle Winery (14 Route 111, Derry) is open Tuesdays through Sundays from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. until Sunday, Jan. 19. See the story on page 32.

• Gift of Lights at NH Motor Speedway (1122 Route 106, Loudon) consists of more than 250 light displays spanning 2½ miles through a 150-foot tunnel through Sunday, Jan. 5. This year the drive-thru light show will feature a 150-foot RGB Tunnel of Lights, arches, toys, and numerous scenes including the popular 12 Days of Christmas. Tickets are $35 per car load, $60 per bus, limousine or RV, and $2 in addition per person when there are more than 15 guests. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the New Hampshire chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities. Gift of Lights will open at 4:30 p.m. nightly, depending on weather conditions. Visit nhms.com.

Day at the museum

Looking to get some kids out of your house during the holiday week-and-half? Here are some area museums that will be closed for Dec. 25 but offer hours on other days to accommodate families looking for something to do.

• Regular hours at the SEE Science Center (200 Bedford St., Manchester, see-sciencecenter. org, 669-0400) are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with last admission 3 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m with last admission at 4 p.m. SEE will be closed Tuesday, Dec. 24, and Wednesday, Dec. 25, but will be open on Mondays, Dec. 23 and Dec. 30. Admission is $14 per person ages 3 and up.

• The Aviation Museum of New Hampshire (27 Navigator Road, Londonderry, 669-4820, aviationmuseumofnh.org) is normally open Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m. For the break it will also be open Thursday, Dec. 26, and Monday, Dec. 30, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and open early, at 10 a.m., on Sunday, Dec. 29. Admission costs $10 for adults, $5 for seniors age 65 and over, veterans, active duty and kids ages 6 through 12,and is free for kids age 5 and under, with a $30 maximum for families.

• McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center (2 Institute Drive, Concord, starhop.com, 271-7827) will have special shopping hours through Friday, Dec. 20, and the Science Store gift shop will be open from 10:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. each day (the exhibits and planetarium will be closed on those days). They will also be open to the public daily Saturday, Dec. 21, to Monday, Dec. 23, as well as Thursday, Dec. 26, to Tuesday, Dec. 31, 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are $13 for adults, $10 for children ages 3 to 12, $12 for students, and free for members and children under age 2.

• The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (6 Washington St., Dover, 742- 2002, childrens-museum.org) is open Tuesday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to noon, with an additional session from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. They will be closed Monday, Dec. 23, through Wednesday, Dec. 25.

• Currier Museum of Art (150 Ash St., Manchester, 669-6144, currier.org) is open Wednesday (closed Dec. 25) through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Children 12 and under always have free gallery admission. The Currier will be hosting a Creative Studio: Special Edition! where children and adults can drop in to participate in a free art activity that complements the Looking Together Tour’s celebrated exhibition of the day on Friday, Dec. 27, with paper lanterns inspired by Dan Dailey and on Saturday, Dec. 28, with collage inspired by Basquiat from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Green Studio, on the lower level of the museum, according to their website.

• The Millyard Museum (200 Bedford St., Manchester, manchesterhistoric.org, 622-7531) is generally open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. They will be closed Tuesday, Dec. 24; Wednesday, Dec. 25, and Wednesday, Jan. 1. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and college students, $5 for children ages 12 to 18, and free for children under 12.

Treasure Hunt 24/12/19

Dear Donna,

Can you possibly help to determine if any of these necklaces are real pearls? They belonged to my grandma and I inherited them. Not going to part with them. Just would like to know more information.

Katie

Dear Katie,

So nice to hear that you are keeping your grandmother’s necklaces. That’s how memories get passed down. From the photos you send I believe your necklaces are just costume. Remember back in the day costume jewelry was so popular and worn a lot.

Let’s give you some information to help you determine on your own first. Slowly look closely at all the stones. Or you can find an inconspicuous place on one of the stones. Use a needle to just scratch the surface, just a tiny spot so as to not cause damage. Katie, you will see a light coating over a white stone covered with a pearl-like film (artificially made). Most old pearl necklaces have a gold clasp (would be marked 10kt or 14kt usually) and always individually knotted off. All this for strength and to prevent losing pearls if broken.

Katie, even though I feel confident in my appraisal, it’s easy and doesn’t take much time for a jeweler to confirm. There are always exceptions. I hope this was helpful and I’m happy to help with your necklaces. I bet your grandmother would be happy to know you’re keeping them!

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