Trailer Park Tuesday: How to Tell Toledo From the Night Sky by Lydia Netzer

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.

When it comes to arranged marriages, most of us probably think of outmoded medieval practices where parents ruled by politics give the hand of their (weeping) daughter to an ill-matched suitor (usually a simpering, good-for-nothing prince).  It never ends well in those fairy tales, does it?  But what if this kind of marital engineering actually resulted in bringing together two soulmates in perfect harmony?  Or, if not "perfect harmony," then at least a couple of lovers who could carry a tune that wouldn't embarrass them on Karaoke Night.  This is the premise at the heart of How to Tell Toledo From the Night Sky, the new novel by Lydia Netzer (author of the smash debut Shine Shine Shine).  In this new book, Netzer gives us a pair of awkward scientists, George and Irene, whose mothers were best friends growing up together.  Those two ladies hatched a plan to get pregnant together, raise the children together and then separate them so as to become each other's soulmates as adults.  How to Tell Toledo From the Night Sky asks, "Can true love exist if engineered from birth?"  In the plain-and-simple trailer for the novel, Lydia explains the genesis of the book:

When I first got the idea for the book, I was sitting with my friend who had a daughter five days older than my son--they were one year olds--and we're watching them play on the floor, and of course they're adorable and we're planning how they're going to get married someday and wouldn't that be cool.  Then we kind of looked at each other and we're like, Actually, that would be great!  Because, no in-law troubles--we're both obviously awesome--and we could spend the next twenty-five years preserving their innocence, keeping them from having bad experiences, and helping them to be compatible.  From that conversation, I just couldn't let go of the idea of two friends programming their babies to be perfect for each other.

It is indeed the perfect idea for one of this year's most unique books.  I had the privilege of reading an advance copy of the novel and offered this blurb about what I found in its pages: "Lydia Netzer has a refreshing way of looking at the world that captivates me--it's as if she's leading me to a grassy hill far from the lights of a noisy city and there we lie on our backs, hands behind our heads, and stare at the star-pricked night sky in wide-eyed wonder.  In her novels, she combines math, magic, and science in a unique alchemy that gives us an entirely new kind of love story.  In How to Tell Toledo From the Night Sky, she writes about 'twin souls who collide and love each other forever.'  I urge you, dear reader, to collide with this book.  It may just change the way you think about love."  If I'm guilty of arranging this marriage between reader and novel, then so be it.  I think two of you will live happily ever after.