Mama didn’t know how many months it had been since I’d seen her, writes Julia Claiborne Johnson. Even so, half of every phone call consisted of her asking me when I’d visit, and me answering, “Soon.”
Canadian writers jump into the Climate Debate: Open Letter regarding Climate Accountability Bill signed by over 170 acclaimed writers, including Ondaatje, Atwood, Atom Egoyan, Eden Robinson.
There s plenty to keep you busy at the Kewanee Public Library District
Star Courier
Fireside Author Chat – Thursday, May 6 at 7 p.m.
Join us on Zoom for a fireside chat with Alex Kotlowitz, author of An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago, The Interrupters, and There Are No Children Here. The chat will be moderated by Pulitzer Prize winning, Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich. Alex and Mary will have a 45-minute discussion followed by about fifteen minutes to answer questions. Limited spots are available, so registration is required. Simply call our Reference Desk at 852-4505 or stop by to sign up!
Three Historical Novels Explore the Strength of Human Connection
By Alida Becker
It’s easy to see why Julia Claiborne Johnson filled
BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME (Custom House, 288 pp., $28.99) with movie-star look-alikes. Doesn’t a romantic comedy set on a 1930s Nevada dude ranch teeming with about-to-be-divorced women owe a certain debt to the era’s big-screen classics? Then again, it’s hard to believe a cinematic version could be any more fun than the small-page antics of the aptly named Flying Leap’s two hired hands and the pair of wealthy “guests” who seem determined to make their required stint as legal state residents as memorable as possible.
by Sarah Lindenfeld Hall
Family history was a spark for
Better Luck Next Time, the latest novel by Julia Claiborne Johnson (Col ’81). Set in 1938 Reno, Nevada, then dubbed the world’s divorce capital, the action primarily takes place on the Flying Leap dude ranch, which provided a place for women to stay as they established state residency so they could get divorced. During the Depression, Johnson’s father worked as a cowboy at a Nevada divorce ranch. The similarities between the book and real life mostly end there, Johnson says, but the setting seemed like fertile territory to explore a place where men were the eye candy and women had some control. “A flip of the usual situation,” says Johnson, whose first book,