The Motel of the Stars: A Novel (Linda Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature) - Softcover

Salyer McElmurray, Karen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1932511660 ISBN 13: 9781932511666

Publisher: Sarabande Books, 2008

Synopsis

The Motel of the Stars is a novel set in Kentucky and North Carolina on the eve of the 1997 anniversary of the Harmonic Convergence, a mystical alignment of planets and a portending of universal peace first celebrated in 1987. Part satire of New Age philosophy and part commentary on a modern, fear-based era, the novel is the story of Jason Sanderson and Lory Llewellyn, who travel to the 1997 Anniversary Gathering at the foot of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. Both characters have for ten years mourned the loss of Sam Sanderson, Jason’s son and Lory’s lover, and both must emerge from grief into a new age of possibility and hope.

Karen Salyer McElmurray is the author of Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey, described by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as “a moving meditation on loss and memory and the rendering of truth and story.” The book was the recipient of the 2003 AWP Award for Creative Nonfiction and a National Book Critics Circle Notable Book. McElmurray’s debut novel, Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, was winner of the 2001 Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing. Her work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the North Carolina Arts Council. She lives in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she is an assistant professor in creative writing at Georgia College and State University; she is also the creative nonfiction editor for Arts and Letters.

About this title

About the Author

Karen Salyer McElmurray is the author of Surrendered Child, winner of the 2003 AWP CNF Award and a National Book Critics Circle Notable Book. McElmurray's debut novel, Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven, was winner of the 2001 Thomas and Lillie D. Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing. She currently teaches at Georgia College and State University.

Reviews

McElmurray's evocative second novel journeys into the New Age subculture, beginning with Kentucky repo man Jason Sanderson, still grieving for Sam, the son he lost 10 years ago. Desperate, Sanderson leaves his concerned wife to find his son's former lover, Lory Llewellyn, who he believes can help him understand his loss. His search is short—serendipitously, Lory shows up at a repo job—and it's her globe-trotting account of discovery with Sam that provides most of the narrative. McElmurray traces Lory's life from troubled girlhood to courtship to treks across Asia and the American Southwest seeking enlightenment; readers will soon suspect that Sam is looking not for answers, but for a way to avoid them. Sanderson himself tells a story filled with questions, passion and despair, and as the intertwining flashbacks roll out, the two characters move ever closer to the 26,000-year cycle-ending Harmonic Convergence of December 24, 2012—after which, Mayan prophesy suggests, the world will be changed unalterably. Though eventually McElmurray's world begins to glow with magic possibilities, the novel closes on a rather foregone conclusion, a letdown for her intriguing ideas and her genuine characters. (Nov.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Sarabande Books
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1932511660
• ISBN 13: 9781932511666
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256