The Starlite Drive-In: A Novel

“A captivating novel.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Reynolds creates a genuine and engaging young narrator…and maintains heat and suspense on every page.”
—Detroit Free Press

A mystery, a coming of age novel, a tragic love story, a rich evocation of a memorable time and place in America, The Starlite Drive-In by Marjorie Reynolds is all of these things and more. The author returns readers to the summer of 1956 in this riveting story that reviewers have enthusiastically compared to the Harper Lee classic, To Kill a Mockingbird—as the arrival of a handsome drifter at a rundown drive-in movie theater inflames dangerous passions and jealousies, and changes a young girl’s life forever.

| When land developers uncover human bones at the site of an old drive-in, Callie Anne Benton realizes that she alone knows the identity of the victim who was murdered thirty-six years ago.

In The Starlite Drive-in Callie Anne recalls the tumultuous summer of 1956. She is nearly thirteen and stuck at home with her parents. Her father is an angry, bitter man and her mother is an agoraphobic who hasn't left the house in five years. When a drifter named Charlie Memphis comes to work at the drive-in, everyone's life changes. Callie Anne witnesses the development of an intense relationship between her mother, Teal, and Charlie, who eventually cajoles Teal out of the house but not far enough away to protect her from her ill-tempered husband. A disastrous turn of events eventually leads the grown-up Callie Anne to unlock the secret of the decades-old mystery.