I'll Take You There - Hardcover

Lamb, Wally

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1786330644 ISBN 13: 9781786330642

Publisher: Hutchinson, 2016

Synopsis

Behind every good man is a great woman - or three A New York Times bestseller: the kaleidoscopic new novel from Wally Lamb, author of She's Come Undone. Every Monday evening, Felix Funicello sets up a new film at an old vaudeville theatre for his weekly movie club. But one night, as this sixty-year-old scholar prepares the projectionist booth, he is confronted by an unanticipated guest: the ghost of Lois Weber. Once a trailblazing motion picture director from Hollywood's silent film era, Lois invites Felix to sit back and watch a new feature on the big screen - scenes from Felix's life. Though unnerved by these ethereal apparitions, Felix comes to look forward to his encounters with Lois. And as these magical movies play before him, he begins to reflect on the trio of unforgettable women who have profoundly impacted his life: his troublesome yet loving sister; his Generation Y daughter; and Verna, a fiery would-be beauty queen from the 1950s. An evocative and kaleidoscopic convergence of Hollywood, feminism and family secrets, I'll Take You There is a radiant homage to a single life and to the resiliency, strength and power of women.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb weaves an evocative, deeply affecting tapestry of one Baby Boomer’s life and the trio of unforgettable women who have changed it.

I’ll Take You There centers on Felix, a film scholar who runs a Monday-night movie club in what was once a vaudeville theater. One evening, while setting up a film in the projectionist’s booth, he’s confronted by the ghost of Lois Weber, a trailblazing motion picture director from Hollywood’s silent film era. Lois invites Felix to revisit—and in some cases relive—scenes from his past as they are projected onto the cinema’s big screen.

In these magical movies, the medium of film becomes the lens for Felix to reflect on the women who profoundly affected his life. There’s his daughter, Aliza, a Gen Y writer for New York magazine who is trying to align her postmodern feminist beliefs with her lofty career ambitions; his sister, Frances, with whom he once shared a complicated bond of kindness and cruelty; and Verna, a fiery would-be contender for the 1951 Miss Rheingold competition, a beauty contest sponsored by a Brooklyn-based beer manufacturer that became a marketing phenomenon for two decades.

Against the backdrop of a kaleidoscopic convergence of politics and pop culture, family secrets, and Hollywood iconography, Felix gains an enlightened understanding of the pressures and trials of the women closest to him, and of the feminine ideals and feminist realities that all women, of every era, must face.

About the Author

Wally Lamb is the author of five New York Times bestselling novels: She's Come Undone, I Know This Much Is True, The Hour I First Believed, Wishin' and Hopin' and We Are Water. He has twice been selected for Oprah's Book Club. Lamb also edited I'll Fly Away and Couldn't Keep It to Myself, two volumes of essays from students in his writing workshop at York Correctional Institution, a women's prison in Connecticut, where he has been a volunteer facilitator for the past sixteen years. He lives in New York and Connecticut.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hutchinson
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1786330644
• ISBN 13: 9781786330642
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272