Whistling Past the Graveyard
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4.5 • 236 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From an award-winning author comes a wise and tender coming-of-age story about a nine-year-old girl who runs away from her Mississippi home in 1963, befriends a lonely woman suffering loss and abuse, and embarks on a life-changing road trip.
Whistling past the graveyard. That’s what Daddy called it when you did something to keep your mind off your most worstest fear...
In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother’s Mississippi home. Starla’s destination is Nashville, where her mother went to become a famous singer, abandoning Starla when she was three. Walking a lonely country road, Starla accepts a ride from Eula, a black woman traveling alone with a white baby. Now, on the road trip that will change her life forever, Starla sees for the first time life as it really is—as she reaches for a dream of how it could one day be.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Known for her romantic suspense novels, Crandall takes a fumbling step into book club style women's fiction with a derivative, if well-intentioned, Civil Rights era bildungsroman. Stubborn, sassy, nine-year-old Starla Jane Claudelle lives with her grandmother Mamie in smalltown Mississippi. Her father works on an oil rig and her mother has been absent since Starla was three, seeking her fortune as a singer in Nashville. After a series of misbehaviors, Starla runs away, fearing her grandmother's discipline and hoping for a reunion with her mother. Along the way, she meets Eula, an African-American woman who has taken custody of a white baby, much to her abusive, alcoholic husband's dismay. Starla and Eula soon find themselves on the run together, dodging one-dimensional racists and receiving assistance from wise and accepting African-Americans. Starla's fiery independence makes her a likeable narrator, which compensates somewhat for the underdeveloped adult characters and unbelievable plot points. While Starla's story lacks the elegance of The Secret Life of Bees or the emotional intensity of The Dry Grass of August, fans of simple feel-good coming-of-age tales set in the 1960s such as Saving CeeCee Honeycutt will enjoy the ride.
Customer Reviews
Loved it!
I loved the book! Starla Claudelle is the feistiest, sassiest, toughest character of all the books I’ve read. The story was sad, happy, and touching all at the same time. Congrats to Susan Crandall!
Loved this book
Great read!
This book is a gem...
If I could give this book six stars I would. The 50s and 60s were an interesting time to be a child. Perfection was what everyone strived for and any family skeletons were hidden and not talked about. If you didn’t have a white picket fence you were harshly judged. I WAS Starla and to see my feelings put out there raw on the page was eye opening. It’s only looking back as an adult are you able to see why as a child why you reacted the way you did. Ms. Crandall did it right. The atmosphere, the attitudes, the prejudice, the fear....and trying to understand that as a nine year old child. Head on. Nailed it. I could not put this book down