press release - Ruth Doan MacDougall

News Release
For Immediate Release
“IT IS ALWAYS ALL ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL”
SANDWICH — At the recent White House Correspondents Dinner, host Jimmy
Kimmel remarked that his high-school history teacher, Mr. Mills, had told him he would
never amount to anything. Kimmel pointed out that “I’m about to high-five the President of
the United States!” Mr. Mills, obviously, had made an incorrect prediction.
Watching a clip of this on This Week, host George Stephanopoulos laughed and
observed, “It is always all about high school.”
Ruth Doan MacDougall’s best-selling novel “The Cheerleader” is all about high
school, and that’s what has made it a coming-of-age classic and a favorite book. As the
“Kansas City Star” book reviewer wrote when the book was published in 1973, it describes
“one of the major communal democratic experiences shared by Americans—going to high
school.”
Now “The Cheerleader” has entered the twenty-first century. Its fifth printing has
just been published, and it is the first “Cheerleader” printing to be digitized.
The designer of this new printing has retained the look of the original book, which
was a challenge because fashions in type fonts have changed. She has succeeded so well
that even the most devoted fans, who reread and reread the book so often they have it
memorized, will probably not notice any difference.
And readers do reread it. As one reviewer wrote, “Rereading it is like snuggling
into a warm blanket or drinking a warm cup of cider, and I think that’s what a ‘favorite
book’ should be.”
Bill Bryson has mentioned in his Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid that
according to a Gallup poll, “1957 was the happiest year ever recorded in the U.S.”
Evidently reading about the Class of 1957 in “The Cheerleader” is a happy experience, too.
However, as Kimmel’s joke illustrates, memories of high school are definitely not
all pleasant. In his “Is There Life after High School?”, Ralph Keyes quoted passages from
“The Cheerleader,” which he called “painfully authentic.” Alix Kates Shulman, author of
“Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen,” said, “Read it if you can bear to remember it.”
To answer the readers’ questions about “What happened next?”, MacDougall has
written four sequels. The most recent, “A Born Maniac,” was published
last November.
MacDougall was born and grew up in Laconia and has lived
in Center Sandwich for the past thirty-six years with her husband,
Don.
“The Cheerleader” (ISBN 978-0-9663352-7-9; trade
paperback; $17.95) is published by Frigate Books and distributed by
Midpoint Trade Books. It is available at bookstores, online bookstores,
and postage-free on MacDougall’s Web site, ruthdoanmacdougall.com.
Frigate Books • 285 Range Road • Center Sandwich NH 03226