Instead of seeing herself as a victim, she relishes the powerÃ’however brief and fragileÃ’her seductiveness gives her. She trades sex for shelter and affection as casually as a bus rider spends a token to get home. As a pretty teen-age girl on her own, she figures out quickly that sexual desirability is her one reliable resource. This is not a story of rebellion, but of survival. Miri is the draw.Īt once innocent and cunning, living by a moral code forged by instinct, heart, and pragmatism, she evokes other young protagonists, from Huck Finn to Holden Caulfied to Bone in Russell Banks’ Rule of the Bone. This is a book only a music lover could write.įor readers, love of music is optional. Music infuses this novelÃ’from the Easter pageant where young Miri shines, to the world of 1980s indie rock bands. The action moves to Philadelphia, as Miri lives on the streets until her stunning singing voice leads her, inadvertently, to the starting line of a real life. Told in an engaging first person voice, the story begins in Prairie Rose, Texas, where Miri’s mother has dumped her at the age of eleven to be raised by her grandmother. This audacious grasping for self-preservation, even as her beloved grandmother’s body lies still warm in the next room, foreshadows how Miri will get by on the treacherous road to young adulthood that forms the plot of this ultimately hopeful novel. I’ll become a famous country singer, and you can be my manager.’” When the man gently points out that the community would disapprove, Miri tries again: “ÔThen we could move,’ I said my words fast and desperate.
When he declines, she makes another proposal: “ÔThen you could adopt me!’ At this point I didn’t care what he was to me, so long as I could live with him. Teen-year-old Miri Ortiz begs an adult male friend to take her in. Moments after she discovers her grandmother dead in the house they share, four.
0 kommentar(er)
