Oh My Stars

Oh My Stars by Lorna Landvik (2005) 389 pages

In Depression-era rural Kentucky, Violet Mathers's mother deserts her and her father when Violet is just six. Violet's father doesn't really know any emotions but anger, and thus Violet lives a dreary life, unable to find solace in others, who consider her to be ugly. At age sixteen, she finds a job at a thread factory, but a horrible accident while she is trying to fix a jammed machine causes her to lose a large part of an arm. Her anger at the world is intense, and I found it hard to continue reading in the early going. Knowing that author Lorna Landvik has never disappointed me yet, I soldiered on, as Violet takes her savings and heads to San Francisco, intending to jump off the Golden Gate bridge. On the way, the bus she's on hits a tree in a rainstorm and the passengers are brought to the small town of Pearl, North Dakota. In Pearl, Violet meets a variety of people; her life changes dramatically because of some musicians she meets. Race relations have an important role in the story.