Lucky
A novel
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, a soaring, soulful novel about a folk musician who rises to fame across our changing times • “A robust, atmospheric coming-of-age story.” —People
Before Jodie Rattler became a star, she was a girl growing up in St. Louis. One day in 1955, when she was just six years old, her uncle Drew took her to the racetrack, where she got lucky—and that roll of two-dollar bills she won has never since left her side. Jodie thrived in the warmth of her extended family, and then—through a combination of hard work and serendipity—she started a singing career, which catapulted her from St. Louis to New York City, from the English countryside to the tropical beaches of St. Thomas, from Cleveland to Los Angeles, and back again. Jodie comes of age in recording studios, backstage, and on tour, and she tries to hold her own in the wake of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell. Yet it feels like something is missing. Could it be true love? Or is that not actually what Jodie is looking for?
Full of atmosphere, shot through with longing and exuberance, romance and rock 'n' roll, Lucky is a story of chance and grit and the glitter of real talent, a colorful portrait of one woman's journey in search of herself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Smiley (A Dangerous Business) follows the life of a budding folk rock singer in her tender if uneven latest. While Jodie Rattler is studying at Penn State in the 1960s, one of her songs becomes a surprise hit, leading to gigs in Los Angeles and New York City. She relishes her success and takes to the bed-hopping bohemian lifestyle while resisting pressure from her record label to drop out of college. Memories of her idyllic childhood in 1950s St. Louis are ever-present, as are those of her steadfast determination to succeed as a teenager, setting her apart from a bookish high school classmate, whom she refers to only as the "gawky girl." The gawky girl, a clear stand-in for Smiley, makes periodic appearances—while in England to play a festival, Jodie espies her in a park. It's a clever touch, and the sly metafictional mirroring represents the creative wit the author is known for. What's riling, however, is Smiley's choice to extend the narrative into the future—in an epilogue, a panicked Jodie struggles to survive in an apocalyptic future America. Still, Smiley pulls off moving scenes of Jodie's reconnecting with her St. Louis family, as Jodie reckons with the bonds that formed her. Though Smiley is known for snappier work than this one, it's plenty engrossing.
