Real Santa

by William Hazelgrove

Overview

George Kronenfeldt is an unemployed engineer with one shot to keep his daughters belief in Santa intact. When Megan tells him the only way she will believe in Santa is if she can videotape him and then tells her fourth grade class she will prove the existence of Santa Claus by posting her video to YouTube, George realizes he must become the Real Santa. He devises a plan to land nine reindeer on his roof and go down his chimney, hiring a broken down movie director who eventually has him funding a full scale production that bankrupts him and threatens his marriage. When George goes to find the “Real Santa” to help him, the line between what is real and magic is crossed. Real Santa is a funny heartwarming story of parenthood gone wrong and illuminates what lengths parents will go to keep their children happy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938467943
Publisher:	Koehler Books
Publication date:	06/01/2014
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

William Hazelgrove is the best-selling author of five novels: Ripples, Tobacco Sticks, Mica Highways, Rocket Man, and The Pitcher. His books have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Book of the Month Selections, Junior Library Guild Selections, Booklist Editors Choice Awards, and optioned for the movies. He was the Ernest Hemingway Writer in Residence where he wrote in the attic of Ernest Hemingway’s birthplace. He has written articles and reviews for USA Today and other publications and has been featured in The New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and on All Things Considered. He runs a political cultural blog, The View from Hemingway’s Attic. He lives in Chicago. A new novel, Jack Pine, will be released in the spring of 2015. Visit him at: williamhazelgrove.com.

Editorial Reviews

If somebody doesn’t make a movie out of this book, there’s something wrong with the world. Beautifully done.”
—Booklist Starred Review

William Hazelgrove

If somebody doesn’t make a movie out of this book, there’s something wrong with the world. Beautifully done.”
—Booklist Starred Review

William Hazelgrove Booklist

If somebody doesn’t make a movie out of this book, there’s something wrong with the world. Beautifully done.”
—Starred Booklist review Booklist

From the Publisher

08/25/2014
This sometimes humorous and often maudlin yuletide novel from Hazelgrove (The Pitcher) concerns an exuberant father going all out to prove to his young daughter that Santa Claus is a real entity. Fifty-year-old George Kronenfeldt, a dogged bridge engineer living in Chicago, has been laid off 12 days before Christmas. More trouble follows when George learns his nine-year-old daughter, Megan, has serious doubts about Santa Claus. Rather than do the grown-up thing and admit Saint Nick is a myth, George decides to organize an elaborate hoax on Christmas Eve. George is also driven by the guilt he suffers from neglecting his children, although his spoiled son, Jeremy, and other daughter, Jamie, are almost adults. His patient wife, Mary, goes along with George’s big idea as he recruits his father, Kronenfeldt Sr., and Dean Sanders, a journeyman Australian movie director who likes to shout the exclamation “stupendous,” into the masquerade. Finally, George rents nine flatulent reindeers from Big Bill McGruff, and Mary’s patience finally runs out when her husband runs up a debt to the tune of a hundred grand to finance the spectacle. Meantime, George’s nemesis, Mrs. Barbara Worthington, who is Megan’s 70-year-old schoolteacher, delights in crushing her students’s joyful anticipation of Father Christmas. Hazelgrove’s lively, improbable narrative will appeal to the readers in the mood for holiday fiction. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

If somebody doesn’t make a movie out of this book, there’s something wrong with the world. Beautifully done.” —Booklist Starred Review

William Hazelgove Booklist

Hazelgrove’s lively, improbable narrative will appeal to readers in the mood for holiday fiction.” —Publishers Weekly

William Hazelgove

2014-09-28
In a fit of inspired insanity, a laid-off suburban father decides to prove to his 9-year-old daughter that there really is a Santa Claus. Never doubt the determination of a mad scientist and his plans. In this sixth novel from prolific writer and blogger Hazelgrove (The Pitcher, 2013, etc.), the author marries the everyday dramas found in the novels of Tom Perrotta and Nick Hornby to the high camp of Carl Hiaasen or Dave Barry. His protagonist is an aging engineer named George Krononfeldt who is promptly laid off from his firm for his increasingly cranky attitude. Simultaneously, his daughter Megan is slowly being poisoned of her belief in Christmas-y myths by her hateful teacher, Mrs. Worthington. "I will kick Santa squarely in the nuts once and for all," she proclaims during one of her darker moments. Undetermined, George starts sketching out plans to give his daughter—who has inherited her father's penchant for requiring empirical data to prove a coherent thesis—one more Christmas miracle. "I'm going to be the Real Santa," George tells his father, whom he enlists in aid of the outlandish project. "I'm going to land a sled on the roof, go up the chimney, go down it, deliver the gifts, and then I'm going to get back in the sled and take off into the sky." After spending more than $80,000 building a contraption that would rival a NASA launch and engaging the help of his estranged older son and daughter and a slightly mad Santa impersonator named "Kris Kringgle," George does indeed take to the skies. It's not as frenetic as Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel or as maudlin as all those holiday staples (read: A Christmas Story); adults looking for a funny holiday-themed tale that doesn't lose its sense of wonder in the face of realism will find a treat here. A lovingly crafted comedy about the madness that fatherhood inspires.

Kirkus Reviews