Light from a Distant Star: A Novel - Softcover

Morris, Mary McGarry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0307451887 ISBN 13: 9780307451880

Publisher: Crown, 2012

Synopsis

Light from a Distant Star is a gripping coming-of-age story with a brutal murder at its heart and a heroine as unforgettable as Harper Lee’s "Scout."

It is early summer and Nellie Peck is on the cusp of adolescence--gangly, awkward, full of questions, but keenly observant and wiser than many of the adults in her life. The person she most admires is her father, Benjamin, a man of great integrity. His family’s century old hardware store is failing and Nellie’s mother has had to go back to work. Nellie’s older half-sister has launched a disturbing search for her birth father. Often saddled through the long, hot days with her timid younger brother, Henry, Nellie is determined to toughen him up. And herself as well.

Three strangers enter Nellie’s protected life. Brooding Max Devaney is an ex-con who works in her surly grandfather’s junkyard. Reckless Bucky Saltonstall has just arrived from New York City to live with his elderly grandparents. And pretty Dolly Bedelia is a young stripper who rents the family’s small, rear apartment and becomes the titillating focus of Nellie’s eavesdropping.

When violence erupts in the lovely Peck house, the prime suspect seems obvious. Nellie knows who the real murderer is, but is soon silenced by fear and the threat of scandal. The truth, as she sees it, is shocking and unthinkable, and with everyone’s eyes riveted on her in the courtroom, Nellie finds herself seized with doubt.

No one will listen. No one believes her, and a man’s life hangs in the balance. A stunning evocation of innocence lost, Light from a Distant Star stands as an incredibly moving and powerful novel from one of America's finest writers.

About this title

About the Author

MARY MCGARRY MORRIS is a New York Times bestselling author of several books, including Vanished, a National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner Award finalist; A Dangerous Woman, which was chosen by Time magazine as one of the "Five Best Novels of the Year" and was made into a major motion picture; and Songs In Ordinary Time, which was made into a CBS television movie and was an Oprah Book Club selection. She lives in Massachusetts.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

READING GROUP GUIDE
 
LIGHT FROM A DISTANT STAR
 
      
A note from the author:
 
In my original notes for Light From a Distant Star, the very first words written at the top of the page are &;Heroism and Courage.  Story told looking back on childhood.&;  Elsewhere in those seemingly random notes is the almost incomprehensible fact that when we look up at the stars we are seeing the past &; and that the very light we are experiencing may well be from stars that no longer exist.  Swirling through this mix of ideas were memories of my own childhood, particularly the tree house two of my brothers built in our side yard.  I still remember it as being big and sturdy with room enough for all of us, even though a trip back home some years ago made me realize how small it actually must have been then.  But in a child&;s life, refuge and safety enhance reality and magnify scale.  The tree house was our own structure, our own place to escape, in a tree that wasn&;t ours on property we only rented, like the other tenants in the big old house we lived in on the corner.  Such is the thrall of a story that time, memory, and desire so easily confabulate literal truth into ideal truth, leaving one to wonder which is more necessary, more real.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0307451887
• ISBN 13: 9780307451880
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336