Moon Pies and Movie Stars
Apr 8, 2007
Moon Pies and Movie Stars
Author: Amy Wallen
Viking Adult/Penguin Group
ISBN 0670038172
Cover art © 2006 Ross MacDonald
Hardcover December 28, 2006
www.amywallen.com
http://us.penguingroup.com/
Ruby and her family live in Devine, Texas. Mid - 70s. A smallish town that the highway has by-passed, and that's just fine with them. Everyone knows everyone else, and their business. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
Ruby is a widow who runs the Devine Bowl - a popular place where all the locals hang out, drink beer and watch the soaps. Ruby plans a party/reception for a wedding that's going to be on the town's favorite soap opera. Pot luck. All the ladies in town are coming.
A bit of history on Ruby here - she raised an abandoned girl thru to childhood and marriage to a town boy. 4 years ago the girl child, Violet, abandons her husband, two children and heads off to parts unknown. No one has heard from her since. This has broken Ruby's heart. She has also taken on the care of Violet's two children since Daddy is a 4 day shift firefighter who was struggling with their care alone.
While watching the soap opera wedding with the entire town, a commercial comes on and who's the star of it.... Violet!
Quicker than Ruby can blink, Violet's mother-in-law (who is now thrilled that the woman that abandoned her son is a STAR) and Ruby sister, Loralva, pull up in a Winnebago. The kids are thrown in and they all head off to Hollywood to find Violet and find out why she abandoned them all. Oh, and to get on the Price is Right while they're at it.
What follows is an amusing road trip from Texas to Sunset Boulevard in the search for Violet. Mother-in-law has her agenda to get the "Movie Star" back home to her son so that she has a famous person in her family. Loralva wants only to have a good time and win on the Price is Right. Ruby is torn as to whether she truly wants to find a daughter who has abandoned her children, or just find out why. Either way she just wants to make sure she's okay. Meanwhile, the baby girl doesn't really remember her Mamma who left and the boy child simmers with resentment.
This is a humorous, yet slightly bitter story of family and the struggle to keep one together. As we all know, family is not perfect.
Great book - check it out.
