Story Description:
Scribner|June 11,
2013|Hardcover|ISBN: 978-1-4516-6150-7
The Silver Star, Jeannette Walls has
written a heartbreaking and redemptive novel about an intrepid girl who
challenges the injustice of the adult world – a triumph of imagination and
storytelling.
It is 1970 in a
small town in California. “Bean”
Holladay is twelve and her sister, Liz, is fifteen when their artistic mother,
Charlotte, a woman who “found something wrong with every place she ever lived,”
takes off to find herself, leaving the girls enough money to last a month or
two. When Bean returns from school one
day and see a police car outside the house, she and Liz decide to take the bus
to Virginia, where their 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 many stories about
why their mother left Virginia in the first place. Because money is tight, Liz and Bean start
babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Maddox, a foreman of the mill in
town – a big man who bullies his workers, his tenants, his children, and his
wife. Bean adores her whip-smart older
sister – inventor of word games, reader of Edgar Allan Poe, nonconformist. But when school starts in the fall, it’s Bean
who easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz who becomes increasingly
withdrawn. And then something happens to
Liz.
Jeannette Walls,
supremely alert to abuse of adult power, 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.
My Review:
Twelve-year-old,
Bean and fifteen-year-old, Liz live in Lost Lake, a little town in the Colorado
Desert of Southern California where they’ve lived for the past four
months. Their mother, Charlotte had been
gone now for four days off in Los Angeles auditioning for a job as a back-up
singer. The girls were used to being on
their own as their mother often was away, her career took up a sizable amount of
her time. Liz being the older of the two
girls was in charge but Bean didn’t mind one bit as she was the type of girl who
didn’t want to be babied.
When their mother
was away, all they ever ate was chicken pot pies. Bean didn’t mind because she loved the
difference between the crusty crust on the outside and the warm goopy filling
on the inside. And, Liz said if you had
a glass of milk with one then you were getting all four food groups – meat,
vegetables, grain, and dairy.
Their mother
finally arrived home telling the girl she met a man named, Mark Parker who told
her she never got any jobs as a back-up singer because her voice was so
distinctive that she was upstaging the stars.
At age thirty-six she had never yet had a gig or made a recording, but
Mark said he was going to “jump-start” her career. Since she’d never had a job, they lived on
her inheritance but they were on a tight budget as the money was running
low. However, it didn’t take long for,
Bean to figure out that her mother way lying.
She had made up the whole Mark Parker scenario and when Bean confronted
her, Charlotte began yelling and spewing all sorts of hurtful comments,
including telling, Bean that she was sorry she’d ever had her, that she was a
mistake. She then picked up her purse
and sped away in her car.
The girls had been
waiting for, Charlotte to return but she didn’t, instead they received a letter
in the mail containing two-hundred dollars and a note telling them she needed “space”
for herself. After two weeks money was
running short so Liz did some babysitting and Bean delivered a newspaper. They continued to buy their chicken pot pies.
Liz and Bean began
to worry about CPS or some other agency getting involved and putting them in
foster care. Charlotte had originally
come from a small town in Virginia called, Byler where her father had owned a
cotton mill. Their Mom’s brother, Uncle
Tinsley still lived in Byler in a big old house called, Mayfield.
One day, Bean
arrived home from school to find cop cars outside the house and a cop looking
through the window. She turned around
and ran all the way to Liz’s high school and waited for her to come out. Liz decided they had better head to Virginia
right away. She always carried their money
in the lining of her shoe so the two girls ran off to the bus depot and bought
two cross-country tickets. They were on
their way and on the adventure of their lives.
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