Manyebook

The Patron Saint of Red Chevys

On the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1964, a murderer stalked Bernice Starling, a local blues singer, and killed her by driving a knife into her chest. After the murder, her two teenaged daughters, Jubilee and Charlene, search for the killer, driving their mother's antique red pick-up truck down sandy back roads, bayous, and to the smoky juke joints where their mother once sang. The strange characters who populate the Gulf Coast give them a host of suspects. Might the killer be the known Klansman who drops bullets instead of candy into children's Halloween bags? Could it be their mother's lover, the Jewish weather forecaster on Biloxi television, whose name is on the Klan's death list? Worst of all, might it have been their own father, jealous over his wife's affair? In the end, The Patron Saint of Red Chevies is not a murder mystery, but instead a psychological portrayal of Jubilee Starling's obsession, and her effort to be "at home" in a world of violence and racism. When she moves to Berkeley to attend school, a new world appears, yet she fears that people are much the same everywhere. There, she finally learns the truth about her mother's death. The Patron Saint of Red Chevies is rich in atmosphere and detail, with vivid language and a compelling plot. Kay Sloan's first fiction, Worry Beads, was called a "beautifully written novel," with an "accessible and immediate style, full of memorable characters and a marvelous sense of place." In this novel she continues her finely-wrought, delicate sense of the fine line between the comic and the tragic.

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 260
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781579621049
  • Genres
  • fiction
  • Release date
  • 2004