Oh My Stars

April 4, 2005
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. Agent, Suzanne Gluck. (Apr.)

Correction:
The cover price of Richard Matheson's Woman
(Forecasts, Mar. 21) is $12.95.

January 1, 2005
At the dawn of rock'n'roll, a down-and-out woman falls for a budding musician. With a ten-city tour.

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2005
Violet Mathers doesn't know the meaning of the word " discouraged," though there have been plenty of times when she has stared hardship in the face and nearly collapsed under its harsh return gaze. Physically and emotionally abandoned by her parents, Violet comes of age during the Depression, learning early on to fend for herself as an accomplished seamstress. When a violent factory accident takes part of one arm, her dreams of becoming a fashion designer die, as Violet wishes she could, too. Physically recovered but emotionally bereft, Violet hops a bus headed for San Francisco, planning to commit suicide once she reaches the Golden Gate Bridge. But when the bus breaks down outside a small North Dakota town, Violet encounters a handsome young musician who changes the course of her life, and vice versa. Violet is an endearing character, one of Landvik's most captivating to date, and she masterfully infuses joy and admiration in this inspirational feel-good trip through one daring young woman's exceptional life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)