Hopscotch

Zine
Title:	Hopscotch
Publisher:	Turbo Press
Editor:
Author(s):	Teri White
Cover Artist(s):	Ruth Kurz
Illustrator(s):	Ruth Kurz
Date(s):	October 1979
Medium:	print
Size:
Genre:
Fandom:	Starsky and Hutch
Language:	English
External Links:	online version
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cover of Hopscotch

Hopscotch is a gen Starsky and Hutch 197-page novel by Teri White. It is printed offset.

flyer

It won an Encore Award.

Over 20 illustrations by Ruth Kurz are included in the novel. One of them, "Ritual," won "Best Adult Work" at Zebra-Con #2.

Ellen Kobrin was the proofreader.

Series

It is the second in a series of three novels:

• Copkiller
• Hopscotch
• My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

The fic Vermont Avenue, Homecoming, written with permission by a different author, is a sequel to this series.

Summary

A lengthy novella, post-Sweet Revenge. S&H go upstate on vacation and, while on a date with two local girls, end up in a car accident. When Hutch comes to, Starsky and his date are missing, and his own date is dead from a bullet from Hutch's magnum! While Hutch worries what happened to Starsky, he's arrested and put on trial for the girl's murder. Dobey is unable to help much, beyond getting Hutch a lawyer, and doesn't know where Starsky is either. It seems that he climbed from the wreckage, went for help for the unconscious Hutch, and was knocked out and shanghaied on a ship to the orient. It takes him a long time to get away -- time Hutch spends stewing in jail and thinking Starsky must be dead. There are some very dramatic moments as Hutch encounters the difficulties of a a police officer -- and a handsome man-- in a public prison system. Once Starsky finally gets back, he goes to work trying to find the real murderers, with all hope for Hutch placed firmly on his shoulders. But what happens to Hutch if Starsky can't solve this case? Warning: this story can get a little rough in language and actions.

After having finally been certified fit for street duty again after being shot and nearly dying, Starsky freezes during the first firefight he and Hutch go into. Afterwards, he and Hutch decide they need to take some time off, to talk about Starsky's shooting, what it meant to each of them and what it might mean to their partnership. Driving down to San Francisco, they stop for the night in the little town of San Manuel. There they meet two lovely women, who accompany them to dinner and a bar for a nightcap. Leaving the bar, they pile into the VW Bug Hutch had rented for the trip and start down a curvy, hilly road. When Hutch hits the brakes, he discovers they're not responding, so he aims the car into an enbankment. With a crash, the car stops and he loses consciousness. When he comes to, he discovers that the police have found him with a gun in his hand, and his date next to him, slumped dead from being shot. Starsky and his date have disappeared. With the gathering speed of a freight train, one thing leads to another and Hutch finds himself arrested and in jail, awaiting his trial. And no one knows where Starsky is...

For too many years Starsky and Hutchison [sic] battled the worst that the bad guys could throw at them... and they still managed to come up laughing; but what happens when the laughter stops? Murder, kidnapping, and the perfect frame have Starsky and Hutch playing the most dangerous game of their lives. It's not fun anymore.

In Hopscotch, we begin months after the Gunther shooting. Starsky's finally released to go back on the streets, but he's not quite ready yet. They need to get away and Hutch decides that driving up the coast will be the perfect trip. So, they set off...in a red VW Bug that Starksy is mortified to be in;)... But remember this is Starsky and Hutch. They can't have a normal vacation to save their lives and this is no exception. A car accident, a kidnapping, a murder charge, these boys have it all. It's going to take alot of time and energy to make their worlds right again.

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Reactions and Reviews

"Hopscotch" was the subject of a scatching review by Penny Warren in S and H #8.

Many fans were outraged by this review, and responded in subsequent issues of that letterzine.

This fueled Warren to add her own responses.

Note: Warren's review of White's previous novel in the series, Copkiller, was very positive.

1980: Pre-Warren Responses

No one who calls themselves a loyal Starsky and Hutch fan or admirer can do so if this novel isn’t in their collection. Quite possibly, this is the finest example of fan fiction ever seen in the S&H genre, and it has strong competition. The word for it is simply PROFESSIONAL, in all capitals and exclamation points. I am admirer, as well as a friend of the author… yet, at his moment, I am in awe of the enormous work she has sweated over this long summer and early winter. ‘Hopscotch’ could well have been the final episode to the series after 'Targets Without a Badge' and 'Sweet Revenge.' I think Naar, Soul and Glaser would be pleased with the in-depth characterization shown in the aftermath of Starsky's horrifying hospital stay, with all the implications of the readjustment to police life after the brush with death. These are not merely series' characters; these are real men with real fears, frustration, and anger. They parallel that of an authentic police officer's re-entry to normal life after the problems relating to serious on-the-job injury, a well as the problems of his partner and/or close friends. We are essentially left hanging as to the continuation of this relationship as it pertains to their job. Will they continue as cops? Teri White doesn’t say, any more than Paul Michael Glaser did at the end of ‘Sweet Revenge.’ Starsky's naive streak is gone, lost forever. Hutch must reassess his love for the job, and his love for his friend and partner. Can they cope? Possibly not if they cannot come to an understanding with the Department. But one thing shines clearly: the love for each other is still there; with that hope, faith, and trust, they may survive to laugh again. Time will tell... The novel has everything a reader could want: mystery, go-get'ems, pain/comfort, and one thing more: it makes you think of their future. The Starsky and Hutchinson I knew before this book are vastly different than the men I know now. I still support them, love them, want to hear more about them, yet I feel a loss, so deep I can't begin to understand. The fun-loving men/boys I once cared about are dead, so it seems. I hope they can be resurrected again. I shall miss them sorely, for they had the power to make me laugh at adversity, learn to open my heart to others without fear of rejection, gave me faith in humanity as a caring people. I would hate to seen them changed so, when they have given so much of themselves.

Practice makes perfect. If Teri keeps going long enough, she’ll write herself right out of the ‘fan’ class.’ As it is, I think HOPS is among the best long S&H yet published. Lest someone think my critical streak is gone, there are some problems: the plot depends rather heavily on coincidence and luck; details that should have been explained, such as how a stolen passport could successfully pass three separate border crossings, were left untended; and the criminal’s ability to recruit help on the strength of an unlikely motive was difficult to believe. These are genuine story problems. If took half a dozen readings to spot them. I was too busy, the first time through, trying to figure out what would happen next, whodunit, and just how much Hutch could take before he folded completely. The basic plot is venerable: Innocent Man Jailed, Buddy Tries to Clear Him. What makes the story vital and absorbing are the circumstances in which it’s set. Starsky has just been restored to active duty after a lengthy recovery from the final episode. He’s healed physically, but both he and Hutch have unresolved doubts about the value of their work as opposed to the risks…. Hutch’s difficulties in adjusting to prison life are painfully well-drawn. The White Knight can’t really cope with a cage, and he’s well on his way to a nervous breakdown by the time Starsky manages to get back to the States – and the reunion is by no means a happy ending. Starsky’s still wanted for the murder, and that fact hampers his investigation. He has no clues, few leads, and has to work under the double deadline of the murder trial and Hutch’s emotional disintegration. Enough synopsis. Read it. Teri has developed a nice touch of restraint in the soapy scenes; narration and dialog are stronger for what’s left unsaid. And the other characters – Dobey, Huggy, Hutch’s lawyer and psychiatrist – are handled quite well. I didn’t think the murderer was quite as convincing as Copkiller’s Louis, and the final-scene hysteria was just a little coo convenient for my taste, but it was consistent with the character’s temperament. The artwork is well distributed and generally good. Ruth Kurz has been practicing, too, and her pencil drawings were screened-offset… So, this one is definitely worth the time and money. The ending is appropriately vague. – if Teri writes any more ‘S&H-as-cops’ in this universe, she’ll have to do a post-Hopscotch bridge, because this time there were no easy answers.

Teri White, HOPSCOTCH was beautiful, fantastic, wonderful, and "terrific". I hope that all else who read it found it as good as I did.

1980: Warren's Controversial Review

This novel begins where the fourth season ends, with a scarred and bone-weary Starsky and Hutch attempting to pick up the loose ends of their emotional and professional lives. On their first major assignment following Starsky’s return to duty, he ‘freezes,’ – cannot draw or fire his gun. Hutch asks for time off for them – time to talk, to lay the ghosts – and they set off for San Francisco. Just short of their destination, they… pick up a couple of girls, check out the town dance and a few bars. On their way back to their motel, the car’s brakes give out. A crash ensues. When Hutch regains consciousness, Starsky and his date have disappeared, and Hutch’s companion, the only daughter of the town’s strongman boss, is dead in the seat beside him, shot once through the head with his Magnum. Hutch is arrested, charged, tried and convicted for the murder. Starsky, meanwhile, has been shanghaied aboard the ‘Blue Lady,’ a rustbucket smuggler bound for Macao. Once she makes port, the reluctant sailor escapes, comes coincidentally into sufficient money for air fare back to the States, and returns to find Hutch imprisoned and despairing almost to the point of suicide. He sets briskly to work, succeeding in a matter of days where the lackadaisical local authorities have failed. In a Perry Mason finish, Starsky drags the surviving guilty parties – his date from San Manuel and her late boyfriend’s buddy – into the courtroom just as Hutch is to be sentenced. They publicly acknowledge their misdeeds; and right, with a little help from its friends, triumphs again. The novel ends with a scene that strongly implies, but does not state directly, that S&H will return to the LAPD. On the technical level, the prose is fast-paced and lucid, the characterization knowledgeable. Starsky’s guilt at ‘not being there’ when Hutch needs him, and his need to redeem himself, are deftly handled; so is Hutch’s gradual abandonment of his life. When she chooses to exercise it, White’s talent is formidable, and people are what she does best. Plot isn’t; every major development in ‘Hopscotch’ depends upon coincidence or special plotting. The ‘Lady’s’ press gang just happens to be strolling by the scene of the accident; the fugitive Starsky tackles in a Hong Kong alley just happens to be carrying a satchel full of cash; Hutch goes to jail because bail bondsmen seem not to exist in this universe, because his lawyer fails to demand a change of venue and apparently wouldn’t recognize grounds for a mistrial if he fell over them. What, ultimately cripples the book, though, is its lack of conviction. The underlying theme, stated explicitly by Starsky in the final scene, is that man is at the mercy of undirected causality: ‘If I know one thing now, I know that we’re not in charge. Things just happen.’ This is Fortuna Impertrix Mundi, the medieval Wheel retooled and given a set of sharp new existentialist treads. But unlike genuine existentialist, White moralizes. Repeated and at length. Displayed for the reader’s edification are such items as ‘the rich bitches flaunting what they have in the phone glamour of the discos,’ the ‘sunlit phony excitement’ of LA, the Orange Blossom Bar’s ‘plastic Suzie Wong atmosphere, overlaid with an aura of genuine decadence.’ The secondary characters are entirely suited to this ambiance. We have a Bad Rich Girl, a Good Man Led Astray by a Strange Woman (strange in the colloquial as well as in the Biblical sense), a Hooker With a Heart of Gold. The only minor figure who comes alive at all – and he does so magnificently – is Abraham, Huggy Bear’s cousin-in-residence in San Manuel. Of the taut, beneath-the-surface violence of urban life, of the malignant boredom that infests la dolce vita, of the grittier grit and the slimier slime, there is no sense whatsoever. Even Hutch’s near-rape in prison comes across not as an apotheosis of rage and terror, but merely as a thoroughly disinfected sample of Representative Nastiness, to be passed around and exclaimed over at a Junior League tea. Indeed, the whole novel partakes of this quality. It’s the scabrous underbelly of a sick society, not as seen by a pair of street-toughened cops, but as imagined by a suburban Sunday-school teacher. We are promised a clear look at the naked city, and all we see are fig leaves. Recommended only for the completist, or the very sheltered.

1980: Post-Warren Responses

[Ruth Kurz]: It was a pleasure to read the reviews of HOPSCOTCH as most of them shared the opinion I have of Teri's professionalism that made the book a joy to illustrate, but I was startled by Penny's breach of the cardinal rule never to reveal the entire plot in a review, I have to remind myself that not only our writers, but our reviewers are amateurs, and we must forgive their ignorance of the basic rules of professionalism in their eagerness to express themselves.

[Juanita Coulson]: Aren't the wildly varying views of HOPSCOTCH, proving the maxim about what makes a horserace...

[Eileen Roy]: To Penny Warren: worth of a piece of writing is judged, ultimately, on style, plot and characterization — not the name of the freighter. I think you went a little overboard on HOPSCOTCH.

[Juanita Coulson]: Lorraine mentions "objective reviews." I'm not sure we can get those, not as long as we're all S&H'ers. We could farm out zines for review to an impartial outsider who never saw the series and would be influenced by any emotional carryover therefore. Maybe you'd even get some valid constructional analysis, that way. But I suspect the resulting reviews would be useless to the prospective S&H fiction reader. We, as readers, will forgive the oceans of lumpy construction and downright awkward prose for the sake of a few juicy scenes with characterization that pushes our empathy buttons, precisely because we do suffer from emotional carry-over from the series. The effect wouldn't touch an outsider, but it's what our responses are all about.

Incidentally, professional reviews aren't very objective either. It's the luck of the draw who you get in Publishers' Weekly. Talented and experienced writers may' suffer hobnailed boots because the reviewer is a frustrated novelist himself and now has his chance to kick the shins of those he envies. Clumsy but earnest beginners may get a nice (and possibly undeserved) pat on the head because their anonymous reviewer is in a good mood or, in one of my experiences, was a fellow sf fan and knew my name from fanzines. That's hardly objective or impartial, and it's in an area where the reviews mean lots of money, or loss of if the review's a killer.

For us. If we have reviews, how about a middle ground? Love notes with no harsh words (whether out of favoritism to a friend of just rosy-lensed attitudes toward all S&H fiction) aren't quite fair to some buyers. I don't buy on the basis of reviews, but some of us apparently do, and they need a fair shake. On the other hand, we hardly need the ilk of - "this isn't the way I'd write this story and I disagree with everything and hate the color of the writer's socks and the whole 'zine is garbage." - Patience. And consideration. Carefully mixed and delivered with courtesy.

[Shirley Passman]: I got to Penny Warren's comments In #8, and well, here I am again. It's just that I don't think there is either room or need in S&H fandom for the type or remarks Penny made in that letter. It seemed to me that most is not everyone else who wrote in to #8 agreed that reviews should be continued -- and I am glad. The reviews were supposed to consist of literary criticism of a written (or drawn) piece of work. There is absolutely no need for a personal review of (or attack on) a writer or artist. Remarks like "accuracy, care and respect are the marks of a professional work" is very true, but categorically denying those at tributes to a particular work is not. Show mo a measurement for care and respect and maybe I'll change my mind. Out it seems to be that if a person didn't "care"' then they wouldn't bother to write something for someone else's entertainment in the first place.

Speaking for myself, when I do research for something I'm writing, I do it in as much detail as reasonably possible, but reasonably is the key word. S&H is amateur fiction (as in no payment in money) and if, for example in one of the stories I wrote, getting final medical details means that besides talking to my daughters' pediatrician, haunting the nearest hospital’s medical library, and any doctor who would talk to me over the phone — if it means plunking down $50 for a consultation with an orthopedic surgeon, well, folks, I'm gonna extrapolate from the facts I have, because $50 is a little over my research budget. I will do as much as I reasonably can not to short shift my readers, but that's where it stops -- right back at the word reasonable again.

Reasonable. Definitely the key word. I wish I could apply it to Penny's letter or her comments about HOPSCOTCH, but I can’t. Things like the bar in HOPSCOTCH being called the Blue Lady didn't bother me anymore than when those same words were used in the title of the episode BALLAD FOR A BLUE LADY on TV. It's a title -- a name. Period. So what if it's the brand name of something else? If I were doing a book called Winston Churchill, I wouldn’t change his name because It's also a brand of cigarettes. I did appreciate the explanation though, of what Blue Lady really was, because I didn't recognize it. I'd be a bit interested in a count of those who did, though, and I'd be a bit surprised if the majority of the fans had that information at, their fingertips. Sure, I would like things in a story whether reading it or writing it, to be as accurate as possible, but "as possible" is about where it stops.

TV writers, editors of professional magazines, professional books, have research departments that can help them check out all the incidental information that it would not even occur to a writer needed to be checked out. A fan writer doesn't have these resources. They're basically on their own. Sure I would like to have all that information, but sometimes a writer doesn't even know that a question should be asked. As to Penny's suggestion that writers stick to only what they know best, well you just limited my S&H writing to the guys netting married and living in the suburbs and car pooling off to a consulting firm every morning. Anybody out there just dying to read that particular story?

I didn't mean to let this get out hand, but to steal a phrase from HUTCHINSON FOR MURDER ONE, Penny's letter seems to hive definitely "pushed the right buttons". For Pete's sake, this is S&H Fandom We write -- we read these things to fill a need, a vacuum, especially since S&H has gone off the network, since there are no new episodes being produced, and some of us don't even get the syndication. If "accuracy" is going to be the standard held up to decide whether a story merits publication or not and if a lack of "accuracy" shows contempt for the fans and the show, then we have to give up some of the aired episodes, too. Let's start with THE FIX. I understand that wasn't medically accurate, but it was a beautiful, well-acted episode, and I'll give up the "accuracy" for that kind of beauty anytime.

HOPSCOTCH, like THE FIX, is a beautifully crafted story. If Penny says there were errors in accuracy in it, maybe there were. But I didn't find them. What I found was a completely absorbing story of a man's mental and emotional deterioration in a situation that was totally out of his control. And the story of another man's dedication, love and determination to a friend. The writing was excellent. It kept me up to four in the morning, and even after I'd finished it, It wasn't finished with me. I could not let go of it enough to go to sleep. The story kept flashing images at me, Starsky sitting at Dobey's table, crying because Hutch was alive. Starsky reaching out at the prison, needing to touch Hutch, pressing his hand up against the pane of glass. And Hutch finally reaching for him, only able to do the same thing. I could go on listing examples for hours, but Teri's already written HOPSCOTCH once, she doesn't need me to provide a table of contents now.

Final word on the subject. I don't think people have to agree with each other, about a book, a short story, or a sexual preference. That's why they make vanilla and chocolate. That's what keeps things interesting. But we're in this for fun. Sure it can be a learning experience. Most things are. But there are and should be limits -- reasonable limits. Penny Warren stepped over these limits in her last letter.

I don't think anyone should be muzzled or censored, except by their own standards of respect for others and professionalism. If Penny Warren doesn't agree with my assessment of HOPSCOTCH -- fine. If she wants to write a review panning the book — well that's her right. I can only hope she doesn't feel the need to use unnecessary cruelty to get her point across. Reviews are a good tool, can be a useful guideline, but review the book, not the writer. S&H fandom is too small to support personal attacks on anyone for any reason. I hope it no longer has to.

[Joan Hollingsworth]: I think Penny is rather harsh in her comments on HOPSCOTCH. The points she makes are probably valid, but for those non-writing readers (the majority), I'd venture to say, irrelevant. It seems to me there must have been a fair amount of research done, with the varied backgrounds, and if the results were not 100% accurate, I honestly don't think too many people have first-hand experience of California jails and what goes on in them, or of the back streets of Hong Kong, or the methods used to bail out the hold of a freighter. As to the name BLUE LADY for the boat, the only thing it reminded me of was the S&H episode LADY BLUE in reverse! One-track mind, no doubt.

[Dee Brendel]: As for Teri White's HOPSCOTCH, I read it and enjoyed it very much. She is a very talented writer, that's for certain. I've loved all her work for a long time Sure some people will disagree with her writing, but let's not get carried away with it. Have collected almost all of her works and would recommend HOPSCOTCH to all S&H collectors.

Kay Anderson: It's too bad that while everyone else in the letterzine has agreed to politely disagree, Penny continues to flog a dead horse into finely-pulverized dog food.

[Jan Lindner]: Penny. . .Okay. I'll admit it, you are quite obviously the most illiterately sophisticated reader in S&H fandom. You are also one of its best writers and a frequently brilliant poet. However, your literary preeminence doesn't mitigate the fact that you've been subtly denigrating any opinion that doesn't coincide with yours, 'counting coup' with your formidable verbal agility. It would be funny if it weren't so sad — we could learn a lot from you if you would deal with us as fellow adults. By going into each letter as though it's a battle, you're alienating the people you seem to want to enlighten. Granted, I've played 'combat', too — said "You could be right," with the clear implication, "but I know you aren't" Look, I know Scorpios can be authoritarian and cutting. There's also the option of being compassionate and encouraging, and using humor that does not inflict pain. We know from your poetry that you're capable of Beauty as well as Beast. Please try to share your insights with us Instead of clubbing us over the head with them. Nobody's right all the time.

1980: Warren's Response to the Responses

And while I'm on the subject of criticism, there are a couple points on which I have to disagree with Connie. Granted that certain allowances must be made for inexperience. In the interest of encouraging new talent, I think that most of us make them. When someone lays claim to professionalism, though, or allows others to make the claim in her name, she's lost the privilege of having her work judged bv other than professional standards. TANSTAAFL - and there ain't no free ego trips neither, not on this reviewer's choo-choo train.

As to reviewing the author there are some cases in which that's simply unavoidable. When you come across a writer like Harlan Ellison, who weaves his stories out of his own raw and bleeding guts, there is no way in hell you are qoinh to be able to separate art and artist. A comment on an Ellison story is inevitably a comment on Ellison. Somehow I think he can take it. If others can't, then their best bet is simply to refrain from injecting themselves into their work. If they can't resist, though, and if that indulgence damages the story, then it's part of the reviewer's responsibility to call attention to the failure. In HOPSCOTCH, the autorial voice speaks in the precisely enunciated tones of lace-curtained gentility, when the story itself calls for some thing as harsh and raw-edged as Joe Walsh's caterwauling. It's a serious flaw, keeping quiet about it won't help the author fix it.

I suppose this is also as good a place as any to point out, pursuant to Lorraine Bartlett's comment, that there is no such thing as an objective review. Not in fandom, not in prodom, not anyplace. True, there are certain questions of technical competence which yield fairly empirical answers; Is the plot developed logically? Can the author write clear, grammatical English? Does she characterize by action or by funny hats? Etc. .etc.,etc.. Beyond that, though, there are two entirely subjective judgements to be made: Does this story work? And do I like it? The first depends in large part on how many negatives you're willing to tolerate on the technical questions. The second subsumes a whole complex of aesthetic and ethical criteria, which will differ drastically from reviewer and which may even vary from story to story in the work of a single critic. So no, my review of Hopscotch wasn't objective. But it was disinterested. And it was fair.

If you chose to believe that Hopscotch is a beautifully crafted story, or even that it's the culminating work of Western Literature, please be my guest. No one's going to knock on your door ot three In the morning and haul you off to the Gulag. No one's even going to stamp her feet and scream that there's no need or room for your opinions in fandom. Dear me. The next time you feel your buttons engaging, though,there are a couple of things you might consider. "Mary Jones drowns kittens in Clorox and steals from the collection plate on Sunday" is a personal attack; likewise "Mary Jones practices the following private vices which I find filthy, nasty, immoral and nauseating". But "Mary Jones' The Secret of Nerd's Landing is a bod book", of "Mary Jones has written Nerd's Landing out of an overwhelming ignorance of the mating habits of carbonaceous chondrites", or even plain "Mary Jones is a bad writer", are all critical, literary judgements, of a different order entirely. Of course, Mary J. and her good buddies may not make the distinction, or even wish to make it. But it does exist, on a fundamental level. A reasonable level, one might even be tempted to say.

1985

I purchased a copy of the one Teri White novella I'd not yet read - COPKILLER. A wise investment. My gosh, that woman is a genius. What can I say? When you read a Teri White novel, you don't just read it, you become so completely involved in it, you forget where you are. This happened to me. I read it one evening in my room at college, and all the usual sounds of loud music, screeching women (believe it) and the rugby club mauling each other downstairs (it's a colourful place) were completely cut out. When finally I put it down, I felt as if I had crossed into another world. I was literally dizzy. Teri quite simply has found those characters - as exactly and precisely as they are - and made them live.

HOPSCOTCH, my all-time favourite piece of S&H writing, is the prime example of this vicarious experience of the characters. It is so real, it hurts and touches and moves you as if you're right there in the prison, the courtroom, on the wharf. Amazing stuff.

1995

It was through fandom that I met Teri White, and had the pleasure of illustrating 4 of her 5 S&H zines. I remember the night a group of us fans collated Hopscotch at her house. David's Salem's Lot was on TV. Teri's preferance for Starsky showed when she called her dining room hutch a "Starsky."