The Lucky Star

The Lucky Star

Hardback (18 Feb 2020)

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Publisher's Synopsis

The National Book Award winning author returns to his original fictional territory--the lives of the dispossessed in San Francisco--with a parable about the limitations of desire and life at the margins of society

In such earlier works of fiction as The Rainbow Stories and The Royal Family, William T. Vollmann wrote of pimps, prostitutes, addicts and homeless dreamers in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. In this new novel, Vollmann returns there with a story that centers around a woman with magical powers whom everyone loves, and who has to love them all back.

After being initiated into a coven of island witches, Neva begins to fulfill her fate in a Tenderloin dive bar. Her worshippers include Richard, the introverted, alcoholic, occasionally omniscient narrator; a profane, aggressive transgender sex worker named Shantelle; the brisk but motherly barmaid Francine; and the former Frank, who has renamed herself after her idol Judy Garland. When Judy starts to love Neva too much, Judy's retired policeman boyfriend embarks on a mission of exposure and destruction.

Crafted out of language by turns spiritual and sexually graphic, The Lucky Star aches with compassion as it explores celebrity culture, gender identity, incest, Christian sacrifice and, most of all, the quotidian and sometimes faltering heroism of marginalized people who in the face of humiliation and outright violence seek to love in their own way, and stand up for who they are.

About the Publisher

Viking

Viking

Viking publishes the widest possible range of literary fiction and non-fiction. Our fiction list includes John le Carr?, Nick Hornby, Will Self, Colm T?ib?n, Nicole Krauss, William Trevor, Catherine O' Flynn, Jonathan Coe, and Joshua Ferris. In non-fiction, the range covers current affairs, history, biography, memoir, narrative non-fiction, music and sport. Our authors include Antony Beevor, Andrew Rawnsley, Mark Bostridge, Sarah Bradford, Saul David, Catherine Bailey, Lynn Barber, Claire Tomalin and John Stubbs.

Book information

ISBN: 9780399563522
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Imprint: Viking
Pub date:
DEWEY: 813.54
DEWEY edition: 23
Language: English
Number of pages: 655
Weight: 946g
Height: 165mm
Width: 243mm
Spine width: 51mm