Oh My Stars
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Tall, slender Violet Mathers is growing up in the Great Depression, which could just as well define her state of mind. Abandoned by her mother as a child, mistreated by her father, and teased by her schoolmates, the lonely girl finds solace in artistic pursuits. It's only when she's hired by the town's sole feminist to work the night shift in the local factory that Violet comes into her name and blooms. Accepted by her co-workers, the teenager enters the happiest phase of her life, until a terrible accident causes her to retreat once again into her lonely shell.
Realising that she has only one choice, Violet boards a bus heading west to California. But when the bus crashes in North Dakota, it seems that fate is having another cruel laugh at Violet's expense. This time, though, Violet laughs back. She and her fellow passengers are rescued by two men: Austin Sykes, who Violet is certain is the blackest man ever to set foot on the North Dakota prairie, and Kjel Hedstrom, who inspires feelings Violet has never before felt. Kjel and Austin are musicians whose sound is like no other, and with pluck, verve and wit, Violet becomes part of their quest to make a new kind of music together.
OH, MY STARS is Lorna Landvik's most ambitious novel yet, with a cast of characters whose travails and triumphs you'll long remember. It is a tale of love and hope, bigotry and betrayal, loss and discovery - as Violet, who's always considered herself a minor character in her own life story, emerges as a heroine you'll laugh with, cry with and, most important, cheer for all the way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The author of Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons cooks up a novel of hard-won luck and the wonder of reaping blessing from calamity. It's 1937, and shy, homely, 18-year-old Violet Mathers battered by a mother's desertion, a father's contempt and an accident that cost her her arm has decided to travel from her Kentucky hometown to the Golden Gate Bridge, from which she plans to jump. But when her bus is totaled in North Dakota, she's put up by a warm local family, whose heartthrob son, Kjel, dreams of musical stardom with his black friend Austin, a guitar virtuoso. Pitying Violet, Kjel ropes her into a journey to retrieve Austin's brother, Dallas, a sullen but musically gifted ex-con. By happy accident, the three men fill in for a no-show band at a carnival, enthralling the first of many crowds. As the Pearltones, they soon inspire a mania of Elvis-like proportions, and Violet blooms in their company and proves a savvy manager. Landvik cuts her light, sweet prose with dashes of wryness and pinches of reality: appalled stares, clenched fists and even a burning cross greet the band as they make their way South, while bad apples threaten it from within. Landvik strings the escapades into a playful and poignant narrative, even as a backdrop of Ku Klux Klan violence and Depression-era hardship keeps the fairy tale in check. is .