{"id":1292,"date":"2018-12-31T16:35:57","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1292"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:35:57","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:35:57","slug":"poeppel-limelight_042218","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1292","title":{"rendered":"Poeppel, Limelight_042218"},"content":{"rendered":"
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LITERARY FICTION<\/p>\n

Amy Poeppel<\/span><\/p>\n

Limelight: A Novel<\/span><\/p>\n

Atria\/Emily Bestler Books<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-5011-7637-1 (also available as an e-book, an audio book, and on Audible), 416 pgs., $26.00<\/p>\n

May 1, 2018<\/p>\n

Allison Brinkley\u2019s family is discombobulated. <\/span>They\u2019ve just moved from suburban Dallas to the heart of Manhattan. Husband and father Michael is nervous about his new job. The substitute teaching position Allison had lined up falls through. Seventeen-year-old Charlotte had to change schools for senior year, leaving behind her first boyfriend. Fourteen-year-old Megan\u2019s grades are dropping and she\u2019s acting out, dealing with hormones. Speaking of hormones, eight-year-old Jack discovers one of those your-body-is-changing-in-new-and-confusing-ways books, which ended up in one of his moving boxes by mistake, and he\u2019s got questions.<\/p>\n

When Allison sideswipes a mirror off the door of a BMW, she meets Carter Reid, a Justin Bieber sort, once a charming, dimpled child crooner turned churlish, out-of-control, pop-singing bad boy. Allison accidentally becomes Carter\u2019s personal assistant after discovering him in the ugly aftermath of a drug-infused bender with his entourage, and it\u2019s her job to ensure Carter is ready for his Broadway debut, an adaptation of the Charles Chaplin 1952 classic film Limelight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Limelight: A Novel<\/span> is the second book from Amy Poeppel,<\/span> following the critically acclaimed Small Admissions: A Novel<\/span> (Atria\/Emily Bestler Books, 2016). Limelight is a fun, charming, and surprisingly touching tale about the meaning of home and human connections in a world moving at an ever-accelerating pace into what often seems an ever-increasing superficiality.<\/p>\n

When I was sixteen I moved from Odessa, Texas, to SoCal\u2014that\u2019s Southern California for you uncool people. And I was uncool there; it was like getting sucked through a wormhole and landing in a galaxy far, far away. Limelight opens as Allison stands in the doorway of her new tenth-floor apartment wondering if she needs a doormat in a carpeted hallway and how to trick-or-treat in a high-rise. The refrigerator is wood-paneled, a \u201cbarren expanse\u201d upon which magnets won\u2019t stick. Allison\u2019s mother can\u2019t imagine why Allison would trade their house in Texas for a New York apartment; it\u2019s \u201clike going from an Escalade to a Vespa.\u201d It\u2019s the small things that bring home a profound sense of dislocation.<\/p>\n

Limelight is like one of those Russian matryoshka dolls, a story within a story within a story. It\u2019s cleverly plotted and fast paced, populated with a variety of interesting characters. A handful are merely two-dimensional types, but many others who are complex and intriguing and fully capable of surprising us. Allison is thoroughly loveable, a bit na\u00efve and trying her best to apply her Texas values of \u201ca square meal, good, motherly advice, and some tough love\u201d to a Kardashian kulture.<\/p>\n

The dialogue in Limelight<\/span> is laugh-aloud funny, ranging from arch to the equivalent of slapstick. \u201cWe need you to ensure that for the next eight or nine months,\u201d the Broadway producers explain to Allison, \u201cour very expensive star is a goody-two-shoe, wholesome, mindful, meditating, kelp-eating, oxygen-breathing, nonsmoking, celibate monk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Told through Allison\u2019s winsome first-person account, Limelight<\/span> tells a story of relationships and comfort zones. Allison feels for Carter, seeing past the attitude to an isolated teenager whose worst tendencies are enabled by leeches. She offers kindness and reliability, enabling Carter\u2019s courage to scale new heights because now there\u2019s scaffolding and a softer place to land if he falls.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LITERARY FICTION Amy Poeppel Limelight: A Novel Atria\/Emily Bestler Books Hardcover, 978-1-5011-7637-1 (also available as an e-book, an audio book, and on Audible), 416 pgs., $26.00 May 1, 2018 Allison Brinkley\u2019s family is discombobulated. They\u2019ve just moved from suburban Dallas to the heart of Manhattan. Husband and father Michael is nervous about his new job. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}