Silver Star

The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

This quick- moving story follows “Bean” Holladay and her older sister, Liz, for a wild year in their lives. The story begins in California, 1970, when Bean and Liz are abandoned by their mother, who has once again gone to “find herself” and leaves her daughters with enough money for two months of chicken pot pies and rent. The authorities are eventually aware of the girls being on their own, so Liz and Bean have to escape. They decide to hop a bus and head the only place they know they can, to their mother’s ancestral home in Virginia.

Once in Virginia they show up on the front door of the decaying Holladay’s family mansion and move in with Uncle Tinsley. The family, the house, and the town seem to be set and locked in the past, and shrouded in mystery. Bean and Liz pump up the tires of old bike found in the barn and go out exploring. They have a lot to live up to with a name like Holladay. They have to navigate the family past, and learn who and what to believe.

The story is told from twelve year old Bean’s perspective. Both she and her sister, Liz, who is obsessed with wordplay puzzles and Edgar Allen Poe, are wiser than their years. The story seems to lose itself when Bean, who would be in the seventh grade, is on the high school cheerleading team and in the same social circle as the older kids. Bean seems to be too smart and too wise for anyone her age.

Liz is eccentric and introverted but strangely brilliant. She winds up in a very frightening situation when she takes up a job working for the local gangster. For a girl who is smart enough to outwit the social services and travel across the country, she seems to fall prey to this classically sleezy man a little too easily.

The book is a fast read, and pretty pleasurable. If you’re looking for something that won’t tax your brain but keep you entertained, consider The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls.

H.W.