Last Dance On The Starlight Pier

by Sarah Bird

Overview

Set during the Great Depression, Sarah Bird's Last Dance at the Starlight Pier is an unforgettable novel about one woman—and a nation—struggling to be reborn from the ashes...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781432897734
Publisher:	Gale Cengage Learning
Publication date:	05/25/2022
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	685
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

SARAH BIRD’s previous novel, Above the East China Sea, was long-listed for the Dublin International Literary Award. Sarah has been selected for the Meryl Streep Screenwriting Lab, the B&N Discover Great Writers program, NPR's Moth Radio series, the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and New York Libraries Books to Remember list. She first heard Cathy Williams' story in the late seventies while researching African-American rodeos.

Editorial Reviews

"I was swept away by this nuanced portrait....Last Dance at the Starlight Pier is a reminder of our resilience." —Janet Skeslien Charles, New York Times bestseller of The Paris Library

"LAST DANCE ON THE STARLIGHT PIER is like a rediscovered movie from the 1930s, starring a colorful cast of indelible characters from the indomitable heroine Evie Grace Drake to the low-rent showbiz types grabbing for the brass ring and the menacing wise guys who controlled the real-life Boardwalk Empire of Galveston, Texas in 1932. It’s a poignant, beautifully written story of troubled times and troubled hearts.” —Alan Brennert, bestselling author of Daughter of Moloka’i and Moloka’i

"An engaging and moving story of second chances and told with care and compassion. So relevant to our times and yet wholly and skillfully transportive to the world of yesteryear. Well done!" —Susan Meissner, author of The Nature of Fragile Things

"Last Dance at the Starlite Pier brings to raucous life the dance marathons of the Great Depression, a lowdown world of strivers, grifters, innocents, and gangsters all trying to survive the hardest of hardscrabble times. These pages brim with primal energy, the story propelled by life-or-death stakes and the most vivid cast of characters you could ever hope to meet. Sarah Bird has given us a barnburner—or should I say pier burner?—of a novel that satisfies on every level." —Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk and National Book Critics' Circle Award Winner

"I loved this gorgeous and deeply compassionate novel! Take a front row seat to the astonishing world of Depression-era dance marathons—-where the poor and the struggling could distract themselves from their troubles, and where former vaudevillians could keep being paid. Sarah Bird brings the 1930s to vivid, technicolor life, and Bird's characters—especially aspiring nurse Evie Grace—will dance away with your heart." -Stacy Swann, author Olympus,Texas (Good Morning America Pick)

"Last Dance at the Starlight Pier tells a deeply touching story in which down and out Evie sees truth triumphs, right is restored, and evil vanquished—a story that also is, in part, about the tragic consequences of failed leadership. A story resonant with our own time. Sarah Bird well represents what marathons were as performance, the type of people who promoted and danced in them and the atmosphere of an era that continues to play out in the 21st century." —Carol Martin, author of Dance Marathons: Performing American culture of the 1920s and 1930s and Theatre of the Real.

From the Publisher