The New Woman, by Jon Hassler

The New Woman: Buy on Amazon!
I was happy to see this book at Kepler's when I randomly decided to look to see what older Hassler books they had there, a few months ago.
A new book! Another visit back to the small Minnesota town of Staggerford, home to Agatha McGee, a retired Catholic teacher now in her eighties, who up until this book has lived happily in her own home.

Jon Hassler is one of my favorite writers and also my former "pen pal" when I was in high school, as he had responded to a letter asking him about his writing career initially, and then would send little postcards with updates about what he was working on, and what was going on with him.

That building on the book cover looks like it could be in Valley City, North Dakota, my hometown. I first met Agatha McGee in the pages of "Staggerford", Hassler's first novel, which spans a week in the life of Miles Pruit, Agatha's boarder.
The book is short but warm and comforting, and I don't have it in front of me right now to be more detailed, but it's like visiting an old friend from home to read it.

Hassler's impetus to write at 37: (from his web page linked above)

"I can trace my desire to be a writer back to the age of 5 when I was being read to by my parents and cousins and uncles and aunts. However, not until I was 37 did I, upon waking one morning in September 1970, hear a voice in my head saying, Half your life is over, Hassler, you'd better get started."

With a pen and notebook, he headed for the library at the Brainerd community college where he was teaching, and began "A Story Worth Hearing." He hasn't looked at it in years but doubts that the never-published story was worth hearing. It was, however, a start.

He took a sabbatical in 1975-76, moved into his nonwinterized cabin 75 miles northwest of Brainerd that October and started what became "Staggerford." It was based on diaries he had kept of his real-life teaching experiences. He had been haunted by a murder in the small northern Minnesota town of Clearbrook in the 1950s, and its echo is in the book.