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Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Branchland Public Library | BIR | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Set during the Great Depression, Sarah Bird's Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a novel about one woman--and a nation--struggling to be reborn from the ashes.
July 3. 1932. Shivering and in shock, Evie Grace Devlin watches the Starlite Palace burn into the sea and wonders how she became a person who would cause a man to kill himself. She'd come to Galveston to escape a dark past in vaudeville and become a good person, a nurse. When that dream is cruelly thwarted, Evie is swept into the alien world of dance marathons. All that she has been denied--a family, a purpose, even love--waits for her there in the place she dreads most: the spotlight.
Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a sweeping novel that brings to spectacular life the enthralling worlds of both dance marathons and the family-run empire of vice that was Galveston in the Thirties. Unforgettable characters tell a story that is still deeply resonant today as America learns what Evie learns, that there truly isn't anything this country can't do when we do it together. That indomitable spirit powers a story that is a testament to the deep well of resilience in us all that allows us to not only survive the hardest of hard times, but to find joy, friends, and even family, in them.
Author Notes
Sarah Bird is the author of four previous novels: "Virgin of the Rodeo", "The Boyfriend School", "Alamo House", & "The Mommy Club", which received the Texas Institute of Letters 1991 Fiction Award. She lives in Austin, Texas.
Reviews (1)
Library Journal Review
Bird's (Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen) latest, superbly narrated by Cassandra Campbell, is set in 1930s Galveston, TX, amid the Great Depression. Attempting to get away from her mother and bury her sordid past as a vaudeville performer, Evie Devlin applies to nursing school. At graduation, she is unfairly denied her RN pin, so she returns to the entertainment world and uses her nursing skills to tend to injured marathon dancers. There, she meets handsome Zave, whom she pairs with during a dance marathon to raise money for the faltering troupe. Evie and Zave fall in fall in love, and it is then that Evie learns his dark secret. The two head to Galveston, looking for happiness, but find disaster. With a cast of colorful characters, Campbell fleshes all vocally with aplomb, allowing listeners to hear how Evie's naïveté disappears as she becomes worldly-wise and how Zave gains his long-sought self-confidence. The pacing is on target, especially during the fire at the Starlight Palace. VERDICT This gripping audio about dance marathons will have listeners wanting more.--Stephanie Bange
