Kissed by a Star (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | Amy E Schottenfels | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

It's 1951 and Dulcy has ambitions and desires beyond her Cincinnati neighborhood's rules. She's reached old maid status years before free love or women's empowerment. Dulcy's mother believed in the keep-a-girl-belongs-in-the-kitchen theory but first she needed to send Dulcy on a fool's errand across the country that might change the family's financial fortunes.

Shhh, it's a secret but there's a tiny baby girl who, unbeknownst to Dulcy, might need some saving.

Dulcy grabs the chance to escape. Hell, the furthest from Ohio she'd been was Indiana.

Enter Harriet Weiss, an uncommon girl, a free bird who whisks Dulcy away in one of the first VW Bugs to arrive on our shores. Remember the VW Bug? It was a wacky car with quite the history. Hitler, Himmel, Harvey the Love Bug.

Why? Because in Las Vegas, the baby's mama is wanted for a little shoplifting. Okay, not a little, a lot of shoplifting has taken off in the middle of the night leaving the child in the hands of the not-so-happy dad, a low-level Jewish mobster, and a nun.

When Dulcy's mother gets a letter from the mobster (who is her son, Dulcy's brother) she needs to control the potential tsunami of Cincinnati gossip. She contemplates Plan A, "Let's send the baby off to a less screwed-up family" or Plan B, marry Dulcy off to Marty the Milkman, a cow-loving, UFO-believing guy in overalls. After a few careful white lies, nobody will remember who the baby belongs to, right?

Right?

All while Dulcy's adventure was rolling along, meeting Harriet's uncle and his Japanese boyfriend in a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home, smoking marijuana, and putting her toes in a hidden hot spring with a nearly naked Life magazine photographer.

Dulcy learns about hope and about love. Not with a milkman but with a love of equals, a love not on the list of things a good girl does. She learns she's not ugly, that being smart is a good thing, and she can have dreams, like being an architect, like leaving home.

Then her brother dumps his little girl in Dulcy's lap, literally. Her entitled brother, the contractor for the mob's first, legit, well, sort of legit (see money laundering and Jimmy Hoffa) hospital. He needs the baby gone.

Enter stage left, Dean Martin. The star of stage and screen charms everyone in the hot mess that is Dulcy's life. Secrets pop out. Truths are told, and everything down is up. Dulcy becomes the woman the 1950s doesn't want. She finds a voice to say "NO," but to what?

To her brother? To Harriet? To the baby?

Read it and DO NOT weep (too much) because there are snide sidebars, drawings galore, funny charts, and a recipe for gefilte fish from actual fish, not a jar.