{"product_id":"oh-my-stars-isbn-9780345468369","title":"Oh My Stars","description":"I am convinced that at birth the cake is already baked. Nurture is the nuts or frosting, but if you’re a spice cake, you’re a spice cake, and nothing is going to change you into an angel food.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTall, slender Violet Mathers is growing up in the Great Depression, which could just as well define her state of mind. Abandoned by her mother as a child, mistreated by her father, and teased by her schoolmates (“Hey, Olive Oyl, where’s Popeye?”), the lonely girl finds solace in artistic pursuits. Only when she’s hired by the town’s sole feminist to work the night shift in the local thread factory does Violet come into her name, and bloom. Accepted by her co-workers, the teenager enters the happiest phase of her life, until a terrible accident causes her to retreat once again into her lonely shell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRealizing that she has only one clear choice, Violet boards a bus heading west to California. But when the bus crashes in North Dakota, it seems that Fate is having another cruel laugh at Violet’s expense. This time though, Violet laughs back. She and her fellow passengers are rescued by two men: Austin Sykes, whom Violet is certain is the blackest man to ever set foot on the North Dakota prairie, and Kjel Hedstrom, who inspires feelings Violet never before has felt. Kjel and Austin are musicians whose sound is like no other, and with pluck, verve, and wit, Violet becomes part of their quest to make a new kind of music together. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOh My Stars is Lorna Landvik’s most ambitious novel yet, with a cast of characters whose travails and triumphs you’ll long remember. It is a tale of love and hope, bigotry and betrayal, loss and discovery–as Violet, who’s always considered herself a minor character in her own life story, emerges as a heroine you’ll laugh with, cry with, and, most important, cheer for all the way.Praise for Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Highly entertaining . . . almost as hard to put down [as] Mary McCarthy’s The Group.”\u003cbr\u003e–The Seattle Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A lively story as delectable as a five-pound box of chocolates . . . a thoroughly engaging chronicle of friendship and the substantive place it holds in women’s lives.”\u003cbr\u003e–Anne LeClaire, author of Leaving Eden\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It is impossible not to get caught up in the lives of the book group members. . . . Landvik’s gift lies in bringing these familiar women to life with insight and humor.”\u003cbr\u003e–The Denver Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A guilty pleasure . . . This light, snappy read may be [Landvik’s] best yet.”\u003cbr\u003e–Midwest Living magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The Minneapolis author plunges fearlessly into sticky situations and uncomfortable truths in this atmospheric tale of a wounded soul on a journey of self-discovery in 1930s North Dakota.\"\u003cbr\u003e-Minneapolis Star TribuneLorna Landvik is an actor and comedian who has written and produced plays in which she also performs. The author of five previous novels, she is married and the mother of two daughters.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn her sixteenth birthday, violet mathers nearly bled to death in a  thread factory. The “incident,” as it was referred to in the company’s  1935 logbook, happened on the graveyard shift, just before break time,  when the pounding and the whirring and the squeaking of the machines  had crescendoed into a percussion concert conducted by the devil  himself. Lamont Travers, the foreman, told her later in the hospital  that the worst accidents always happen before break; people can’t wait  to smoke their cigarettes or drink their coffee and talk about whose  man or whose woman had done who the wrongest. Violet hadn’t cared about  any of that; she wanted only to cut into the marble cake RaeAnn Puffer  had brought, wanted only to hear her co-workers raise their tired,  smoky voices in a chorus of “Happy Birthday.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExcited and jumpy as a puppy with a full bladder, the birthday girl  broke the cardinal rule of the Marcelline Thread factory, the cardinal  rule printed in capital letters on at least three signs posted on the  dusty brick walls: do not attempt to clear or repair the machinery  without first turning machinery off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe was running the Klayson, a big reliable machine that sweat oil as  it wound and cut dozens of spools of thread. There were women who were  possessive of their machines (Lula Wendell even named hers and  explained that whenever the machine spit out thread or overwound, it  was because “Pauletta” was on her monthly). Violet had formed no deep  attachments to the masses of metal, preferring the job of “runner” and  working whatever machine needed running. When she ran the Klayson, she  felt as if she was wrangling a harmless but stubborn old cow, and it  was almost with affection that she scolded the machine when it huffed  and burped to a stop.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Now, come on, gal, I ain’t got time for this,” said Violet, and with  one hand on the Klayson’s metal flank, she stuck the other up into its  privates, feeling for the tangled clot of thread.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a yank then and the benign old cow turned into a crazed bull,  sucking her arm up between its jaws.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA flash fire of shock and pain exploded at Violet’s elbow joint and in  her brain, and just as red hot was her outrage: But it’s my birthday!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRaeAnn, who was next to Violet on the floor, screamed, and Polly Ball,  the only woman on the floor to have gone to college (she would have  graduated from UNC-Raleigh with a degree in art history had she not  been summoned home after her father died), thought: that’s the scream  in the Edvard Munch painting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eViolet too heard the scream even as she fainted, even as the weight of  her falling body helped further tear skin from skin and bone from bone.  When she woke up in the hospital, her stub-arm wrapped and bleeding  like a rump roast in butcher’s paper, the screaming was still inside  her head—was in her head for more years than she cared to count.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the morphine curtain lifted on her consciouness, her first thought  was: some sweet sixteenth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eViolet should have known better; in her short history she had learned  that expectations only deepened the disappointment that inevitably  stained every special occasion—not that many were celebrated. In  excavating her mind for memories of parties and presents, she’d only  been able to dig up those concerning her sixth birthday, when her  mother baked her a yellow cake iced with raspberry jelly and gave her a  real present to unwrap. It was a rag doll Violet immediately christened  Jellycakes, commemorating what she told her mother was “the best  birthday cake and the best birthday doll ever ever ever ever made.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe remembrance of that lone celebration was ruined by what her mother  did three days later, which was to run off with the pharmacist from  Henson Drugs. Considering her robust good health, Erlene spent a lot of  time at the pharmacy window; every other customer walked away tucking  green or brown bottles of tonics and pills and elixirs into their  purses or pockets, but all her mama left the drugstore with was a  flushed face and a soft dreamy look in her eyes. Violet liked Mr.  Gladstone, the pharmacist—he gave her root-beer barrels, and once a  Henson’s Drugs (“For All Your Drug \u0026amp; Sundries Needs”) calendar with a  picture of a kitten on it—but after he robbed her of her mother, Violet  came to think of the druggist as the criminal he was; a man guilty of  grand theft. She was a child at the time of the crime, hadn’t even  started the first grade yet. Ten years later, when Violet lost her arm,  it occurred to her that this was not her first amputation, but her  second.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLater, when she came to know how love can slam reason and  responsibility to the mat as easily as a heavyweight takes down a  bantam, Violet forgave her mother for running off (Yarby Gladstone did  have nice clean hands, after all, and an entire set of teeth, or at  least all of the ones that showed in a smile), but she never forgave  Erlene for forgetting about her, for never sending a letter or  postcard, for never sending for her. Mothers who disappear off the face  of the earth leave their children feeling as if they’ve disappeared  too; disappeared from everything they thought was certain and safe and  true. Abandonment can be crueler to a child than death; Violet would  rather her mama had died because at least a grave would have given her  a place to visit, something to touch, something to talk to.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere were few people in Mount Crawford, Kentucky, surprised by the  young Mrs. Mathers taking a permanent leave of absence; it didn’t take  any great power of observation to see that Violet’s parents were as  mismatched as a crow and a canary. Judd Mathers was Erlene’s senior by  fifteen years and had always looked older than his age; he was not yet  forty when his wife left, and yet his long thin face was as creased as  a bloodhound’s, his black hair leeched to a lusterless gray. He was one  of those men hobbled by his inability to exercise his emotions (except  for anger), although Violet thought that in his stunted capacity, he  really loved his wife. She remembered him smiling at her mama’s jokes,  watching Erlene with a shy delight when she put the corn bread on the  table, crowing, “Ta-da!” or when she hung the clothes out on the line,  grabbing his union suit and pretending to waltz with it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat registered most on the young Mrs. Mathers’s face when she looked  at her husband was disbelief and impatience, as if she were always  asking herself, “How did I get here?” and “How soon can I leave?” Had  she not gone and got herself pregnant, Erlene would have laughed out  loud at Judd’s marriage proposal, would have swatted it away as if it  was a black and pesky fly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a certain flightiness to her mama that, even as a child,  Violet recognized. The young (she was only eighteen when Violet was  born), trim woman could be in the middle of kneading dough when she’d  wipe her hands on the dish towel and dash out of the back door, calling  out that she was going to town to see what was playing at the picture  show, and would Violet mind punching down the bread when it rose? The  little girl longed to chase after her but had learned early on that she  was usually included in those things from which Erlene needed to  escape. When her mother was in an affectionate mood, she might invite  Violet onto her lap, but it wasn’t long before the girl would be flung  off, as Erlene would be distracted by chores or a sudden need to  manicure her nails, to wave-set her hair, or dance to the crystal radio  in the boxy little room she called the parlor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eErlene was full of fun ideas—“Let’s pick raspberries and have a picnic  on Mount Crawford!” “Let’s throw a tea party on the porch!”—and once or  twice these ideas blossomed into reality, but most always Violet would  be left waiting on the crumbling front steps, her eagerness bright as a  balloon and just as sure to deflate. The bulk of memories concerning  her mother were those in which Erlene stood her up (indoctrinating  Violet early on into the sorry club of wallflowerhood), and yet the  little girl believed her mama when she called her her “precious  flower,” clung to those rare terms of endearment, knowing they were  proof of her love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eViolet made all sorts of excuses for her, but in her deep heart she  knew that mothers who loved their precious flowers didn’t leave them to  grow up in a musty old house on the edge of town with a father whose  personality vacillated between melancholia and meanness; surely Erlene  knew how that would make a precious flower wither up and die?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eViolet. It didn’t take long for everyone to see that the child had been  misnamed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Gawd Almighty,” Uncle Maynard said the first time he saw her, “she’s  homelier than Tate Seevers!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(Tate Seevers was the one-eyed World War I vet who lived in a shack  outside the junkyard with his half-wolf dog.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUncle Clyde nodded. “Yuh, I reckon you’ll see prettier faces in a horse  barn.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese stories were gleefully told to Violet by her cousin Byron, who  seemed to have an endless collection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“My mama says only people with hexes on ’em got faces like yours.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I heard your daddy says the only way you’re ever gonna get a boyfriend  is if he sends you to a school for the blind.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sit up, Violet, speak! Good dog.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Matherses’ back porch was the local speakeasy for Judd and his  brothers-in-law, who’d congregate there to drink the corn liquor Uncle  Maynard showed some talent at making; but after Erlene left, her  brothers never came around. It wasn’t shame over their sister’s  transgressions (Violet doubted they had shame, over their  transgressions or anyone else’s) that kept them away; but their  abandonment was double the hurt for her father, who not only lost his  wife, but his drinking buddies. Violet didn’t miss them at all—they  were loud and crude, like most drunks—and she could easily live the  rest of her life without her cousin Byron and the two gifts he so  conscientiously gave her during each and every visit: the “Indian  burns” that cuffed the girl’s arms in welts and the constant taunts  about her looks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Why does everyone think I’m so ugly, Mama?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA giggle erupted from Erlene’s throat; she had an odd sense of what was  funny and what wasn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Violet, now put that away,” she said, recovering her composure. “It’s  time for bed.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eErlene’s interest in things domestic was minimal, but occasionally  she’d bring out her sewing basket (made of willow, it was the sort of  crafted object that would be sold years later as folk art for the kind  of money its creator, a mountain woman named Gimpy Mary, never saw in  her lifetime), and wanting to share something—anything—with her mother,  Violet was determined to sew too. Like her father, she was good with  her hands; they were quick and deft and seemed able to figure out  things with little guidance from her brain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJabbing the needle in the handkerchief she was hemming for her father,  Violet set it on the upended flour can that was her nightstand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“And everyone does not think you’re ugly,” said Erlene, bringing the  faded patchwork quilt up to her daughter’s neck and crimping its edges.  “It’s just that, well, I suppose it’s because you’ve got a chin that  looks like it wants to pick a fight.” She smiled, fondling the jaw that  would have fit a man’s face better than a little girl’s. “You’ll just  have to work on your other attributes.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What are ‘attributes,’ Mama?” asked Violet, liking Erlene’s hand on  her face, even as she disparaged it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Well, look at me: I’m pretty, but I don’t stop there. I work on  things, things like being smart and clever—who can tell a joke as good  as your mama?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No one,” whispered Violet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s right. Plus, I’m a good dancer and have excellent grammar.  Those are all attributes, just to name a few.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Erlene,” shouted Judd from the kitchen, “ain’t we got more biscuits  than these?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe young woman sighed and got up as if she were an old lady whose  bones hurt. She stood at the side of the bed for a moment, the light  from the kerosene lamp throbbing like an ache against the wall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Don’t say ‘ain’t,’ Violet,” she said finally. “ ‘Ain’t’ is a word that  makes you sound like you don’t care.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Okay, Mama,” whispered Violet, willing to do anything asked of her. “I  won’t ever say ‘ain’t.’ ”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe didn’t either, until her mother left, until Violet realized that  every time she disobeyed her absent mother, she felt a tiny jolt of  power that let her forget, for a breath, how much she missed her. So  she said “ain’t” and did all the other things Erlene had told her not  to: she chewed her fingernails and burped and didn’t brush her hair and  slept in her clothes. She became a dirty, tangle-haired, wild-looking  thing; the kind of girl the school nurse always suspected as ground  zero for lice and impetigo infestations; the kind of girl who found  notes like “You stink!” and “Take a bath!” scattered like land mines  inside her desk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the years passed, Violet became less a stranger to soap and water,  but her improved hygiene couldn’t deflect attention from her freakish  growth surge: by age thirteen she was five feet eleven, and it didn’t  take Violet long to realize that height does a homely girl no favors.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hey, Stretch!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Look, a giraffe escaped from the zoo!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hey, Olive Oyl!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePuberty was not done playing dirty tricks either, deepening Violet’s  voice like a boy’s and inspiring her tormenters to add the name  “Froggy” to the many in their arsenal, or to ask why Olive Oyl had a  voice like Popeye.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery inch she grew on the outside, every bass note her voice  registered, made her smaller on the inside. There were a few  kindhearted children who tried to befriend the odd Mathers girl, but  her mother’s abandonment, her father’s neglect and cruelty, and her own  shame had worked like rust on Violet, corroding her ability to accept  amity and eating away the belief that she deserved to have friends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSchool was her one respite; Lord, to draw maps of places like Burma and  Ceylon and write reports on their major exports! (Rice! Rubber! Hemp!)  To listen to Miss Mertz recite (in a practiced British accent) “The  Raven” with the window shades pulled! To figure out how many apples  Farmer Brown harvested if he had an orchard of 350 trees and each tree  yielded approximately 3.8 bushels!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe loved each and every subject, as was evidenced by her report card,  on which without fail marched a straight row of A’s.Nationally bestselling author of Angry Housewives Eaating Bon Bons [quote] -- Cleveland Plain Dealer","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304765968613,"sku":"NP9780345468369","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345468369.jpg?v=1767734035","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/oh-my-stars-isbn-9780345468369","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}