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Summary
Summary
Thirty-three-year-old Julia Daniel doesn't really feel at home anywhere. Her life in L.A. is lonely, and her career as a food stylist for a struggling gourmet magazine falls well short of her desire to be a photographer. Although she liked growing up in Kentucky, ever since her mother's death and her father's remarriage, her birthplace hasn't felt like the right fit either. After the tragic deaths of her father and stepmother in a plane crash, Julia's true odyssey begins. Orphaned and adrift, she tries to find her way in the world while fending off a crazy boss, a pilfering stepsister, and a looming depression.
Though shored up by two good friends and an excellent psychologist who helps her work through her grief, it is an unexpected-and comically disastrous-trip to Sedona for the magazine that finally enables Julia to move forward. Returning to L.A., she searches for the strength to strike out on her own, take a chance on love, and seek a tentative peace with her wayward stepsister.
Both humorous and heartbreaking, "Blue Plate Special" serves up an uplifting exploration of the courage it takes to embrace life after loss.
Author Notes
Frances Norris is a teacher and writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and other magazines. She was raised in Kentucky and currently lives in Los Angeles, CA, where she teaches English and Creative Writing at the Harvard-Westlake School.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Food stylist Julia Daniel would love to extricate herself from her dead-end life. She's got an evil boss at her Los Angeles magazine and a wicked stepsister back in Kentucky and, at 33, she's been newly orphaned. Years before she'd left the Bluegrass State to try her luck as a photographer in L.A. (your palette, says one art director, is "at best pedestrian, at worst beggarly"), Julia Daniel watched her mother die of cancer, and she never forgave her father for his speedy remarriage. But now, with her father's sudden death in a plane crash, Julia understands that she's been drowning in sadness for years. As Norris plumbs the depths of Julia's sorrow and charts the lengths she must go to heal, she reveals that Julia's photography career was stymied by depression as much as by big-city competitiveness and that she's sunk so low that killing cockroaches makes her feel "wily and powerful." Norris gives Julia neither jaded interior dialogue nor hipster wit, and while this is appropriate for a book about grief and recovery, the novel's sorrow can feel both familiar and mildly suffocating. A tag line designating this "a novel of love, loss and food" may catch the eye of chick-lit fans, but instead of the genre's traditional yuks, they'll find a thoughtful look at making one's way in a world that's uncertain. Agent, Jay Mandel. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Disjointed first novel, this about a young woman fighting over her father's estate with her stepsister in Kentucky between struggles with romance and career in Los Angeles. After Julia's father and stepmother die in a plane crash, she and her stepsister Constance must divide the estate, 70% going to Julia, 30% to Constance. At issue is the house where Julia grew up before her mother's death from cancer and before her father had the gall to marry Constance's mother Edna. Constance is so stereotypically and two-dimensionally mindless, grasping, and color-coordinated that readers may find themselves perversely rooting for her over the ever-suffering Julia, heroine-as-victim if ever there was one. After a family reunion at Constance's frilly, pretentious house, Julia realizes that Constance might try to take things from her father's house before the estate sale. Their lawyer agrees that Constance can't be trusted and changes the locks until the actual sale can be arranged. Back in LA, Julia returns to her job at a pretentious food magazine where she's a food stylist, because the photography job she wanted went to a silent genius named Stone (future romance antenna alert). Julia struggles to come to grips with both her parents' deaths and to survive her evil boss Sally (see description of Constance above minus color coordination). On assignment in Sedona, Julia and Stone find true love and hand in their resignations just before the magazine folds, thanks to Sally's incompetence. Stone travels with Julia back to Kentucky for the estate sale. Given that Julia already has rights to personal items, like her mother's paintings, and is getting the bulk of the financial proceeds, the dramatic stakes aren't very high. Julia catches Constance "stealing" two wineglasses, but then, in a surprise gesture, Constance gives up her claim to the dining-room table. If Norris is trying to satirize LA and/or Kentucky, Julia's whiny condescension kills her case. She has to be one of the least appealing chick-lit chicks that ever clucked. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Like many thirtysomethings, Julia Daniel feels trapped in a dead-end job, unsure of what she wants from life and where she belongs. Adding to Julia's problems is the death of her mother and the more recent deaths of her slightly estranged father and stepmother. Much to her Kentucky relatives' collective bafflement, Julia works as a food stylist for a gourmet magazine in Los Angeles. She dreams of being a photographer, but her depression and her obnoxious boss prevent her from seeing a way to make her dreams come true. This charming first novel follows Julia's travels from Kentucky to Los Angeles and back as she attempts to make a life for herself. An overly expository writing style bogs down the first half of the book, but once Julia returns to Los Angeles the pages begin to fly. The book's comic moments, including a hilarious send-up of a movie star's poetry, outshine some of the more typical chick-lit moments. --Marta Segal Copyright 2004 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Julia Daniels picked up and moved from her native Kentucky to "Crazy L.A." after her mother died of cancer and her father quickly remarried. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but Julia's photography career has taken a downward turn. She works at a gourmet food magazine as a food stylist, which calls for her to apply shaving cream to strawberry shortcake (it holds up better under the lights) and dab mayonnaise on scones (for a glistening effect). Then Julia's father and stepmother are killed in a plane crash, and Julia finds herself grieving for both her parents and a lost sense of home. A therapist, a couple of good friends, and a business trip from hell finally bring new opportunities so Julia can begin to recover. Norris has written a realistic thirtysomething novel, funny and sad; recommended for public libraries.-Andrea Y. Griffith, Loma Linda Univ. Libs., CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
