The Silver Star - Softcover

Walls, Jeannette

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1451661541 ISBN 13: 9781451661545

Publisher: Scribner Book Company, 2014

Synopsis

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls' gripping new novel that "transports us with her powerful storytelling...She contemplates the extraordinary bravery needed to confront real-life demons in a world where the hardest thing to do may be to not run away" (O, The Oprah Magazine).

It is 1970 in a small town in California. "Bean" Holladay is twelve and her sister, Liz, is fifteen when their artistic mother, Charlotte, takes off to find herself, leaving her girls enough money to last a month or two. When Bean returns from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz decide to take the bus to Virginia, where their widowed Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that's been in Charlotte's family for generations.

An impetuous optimist, Bean soon discovers who her father was, and hears stories about why their mother left Virginia in the first place. Money is tight, and the sisters start babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Maddox, foreman of the mill in town, who bullies his workers, his tenants, his children, and his wife. Liz is whip-smart--an inventor of word games, reader of Edgar Allan Poe, nonconformist. But when school starts in the fall, it's Bean who easily adjusts, and Liz who becomes increasingly withdrawn. And then something happens to Liz in the car with Maddox.

Jeannette Walls has written a deeply moving novel about triumph over adversity and about people who find a way to love each other and the world, despite its flaws and injustices.

About this title

Review:

"At heart Walls is a wonderful yarn-spinner...This is a page-turner, built for hammock or beach reading."--Karen Valby "Entertainment Weekly "

"Jeannette Walls transports us with her powerful storytelling...Using Bean's expertly crafted, naively stubborn voice, Walls contemplates the extraordinary bravery needed to confront real-life demons in a world where the hardest thing to do may be to not run away."--Abbe Wright "O, the Oprah magazine "

"Walls writes with the paired-down incisiveness of a memoirist looking for the significance of every incident, but it's the way she draws Bean, so strong even in the face of all the additional challenges that come with her age, gender, and innocence, that will make this book a hit with readers."--Nicholas Mancusi "The Daily Beast "

"Great writing...An absorbing, unsentimental tale of childhood."--Chelsea Cain "The New York Times Book Review "

"Walls' writing is lively and her dialogue crips, and the girls' struggles with their mother ring true."--Margaret Quamme "The Columbus Dispatch "

"Walls writes with equal tenderness for her most beloved characters and the least among them. It takes a compassionate soul to find the beauty in despair and that's what Walls does best."--Amy MacKinnon "The Patriot Ledger "

"Walls is adept at steeping her characters in some intense, old-fashioned drama...The Silver Star is a lovely, moving novel with an appealing narrator in Bean."--Carmela Ciuraru "USA Today "

"Jeannette Walls is a master at her craft. In the same way she spoke candidly of her own parents' shortcomings in The Glass Castle, in The Silver Star she lends this candid voice to Bean, and captures the inner workings of an adolescent's mind perfectly....The Silver Star stands strong as its own story, wholly unique and wholly captivating."--Kristin Fritz "EverdayEbook.com "

"Jeannette Walls jumps off the memoir train and hitches a ride on the novel form with The Silver Star."--Elissa Schappell "Vanity Fair "

"[A] moving book...With relatable characters and a plot that can both rend and heal hearts, The Silver Star is a captivating novel."--Elizabeth Reid "Deseret News "

About the Author:

Jeannette Walls graduated from Barnard College and was a journalist in New York. Her memoir, The Glass Castle, has been a New York Times bestseller for more than six years. She is also the author of the instant New York Times bestsellers The Silver Star and Half Broke Horses, which was named one of the ten best books of 2009 by the editors of The New York Times Book Review. Walls lives in rural Virginia with her husband, the writer John Taylor.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1451661541
• ISBN 13: 9781451661545
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304