1950s
1959
A01=Lee Smith
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Lee Smith
automatic-update
beach read
bildungsroman
Category1=Fiction
Category=FA
Category=FS
Category=FXB
child narrator
Coming of age
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
divorce
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
family
family secrets
female protagonist
Florida
humor
Key West
Language_English
marriage
morality
novella
PA=Available
pop culture
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
relationships
softlaunch
South
Southern
strong female lead
Product details
- ISBN 9781949467314
- Dimensions: 127 x 177mm
- Publication Date: 04 Jun 2020
- Publisher: John F Blair Publisher
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Lee Smith brings her masterful storytelling magic to this jewel of a novella that follows Jenny, an adventurous thirteen-year-old, down to Key West for a patched-up family vacation following the discovery of her father’s illicit affair.
Available for the first time as a stand-alone novella, this book centers on the Blue Marlin Motel in 1959, where Jenny, her beautiful socialite mother, and chastened father share their sunny days with movie stars who are in town to make the movie Operation Petticoat.
Jenny is precocious and a bit of a sleuth, so her innocent “observations” to uncover the secrets of movie stars also end up revealing the secrets of her own family. Jenny confronts the frailty of family life while also vying for the attention of actor Tony Curtis and even a role in his movie. Smith delivers humor and honesty to her flawed characters with genuine Southern dignity.
Born in the small coal-mining town of Grundy, Virginia, Lee Smith began writing stories at the age of nine and selling them for a nickel apiece. Since then, she has written seventeen works of fiction, including Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, and, most recently, Guests on Earth. She has received many awards, including the North Carolina Award for Literature and an Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; her novel The Last Girls was a New York Times bestseller as well as winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, with her husband, the writer Hal Crowther.
