Star-Dust

Fannie Hurst's vivid portrait of Lilly Becker begins in the crowded boardinghouse world of St. Louis, where a quick-tongued, imaginative girl learns early to turn confinement into fantasy. Even as a child, Lilly is theatrical, ambitious, and emotionally combative, especially in her prickly bond with orphaned Harry Calvert, while music lessons, the piano, and her fascination with names like "Zoe" hint at a self she longs to invent beyond class limits and domestic discipline. As St. Louis itself expands and shifts around her, Lilly moves through school, streetcars, and the humiliations of girlhood with growing defiance, her desire for beauty, education, and a singing career sharpening against her mother's sharp practicality and her father's gentler patience. As Lilly matures, the novel traces her awakening to womanhood, sexuality, and social judgment, culminating in a traumatic childbirth that upends her understanding of life and leaves her with an infant daughter. Carrying the newborn through spring streets, she clings to hope that she can work and raise the child on her own, only to be rejected, shamed, and driven from one door to the next. In the stark offices and shelters of the city, Lilly's fierce inner life collides with bureaucracy, poverty, and moral condemnation, deepening this powerful story of ambition, vulnerability, and a young woman's struggle to claim dignity and independence. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.