Book
Made in the U.S.A. / Billie Letts.
Record details
- ISBN: 0446505498 (lg. print ed.)
- ISBN: 9780446505499 (lg. print ed.)
- ISBN: 9780446529013 :
- ISBN: 044652901X
- Physical Description: viii, 355 p. ; 24 cm.
- Edition: 1st ed.
- Publisher: New York : Grand Central Pub., 2008.
Content descriptions
| Target Audience Note: | All Ages. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Large type books. Abandoned children > Fiction. Middle West > Fiction. |
| Genre: | Inspirational. |
Available copies
- 10 of 10 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Valemount Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 10 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valemount Public Library | f let lp (Text) | 35194001353705 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
More information
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2008 July #1
Author Letts initially found wide readership when Oprah Winfrey chose Letts' first novel, Where the Heart Is (1995), as her book-club selection. Heart famously features a young, pregnant girl delivering a baby in a Wal-Mart store. Letts' latest also includes a Wal-Mart, but this time a woman dies there, and the story quickly coalesces around the two newly orphaned children who were in her care. Lutie, a sassy 15-year-old girl, and, Fate, her little brother of 12, find themselves in dire circumstances. Their real mother died years ago, and their deadbeat dad abandoned them to his uncaring girlfriend, Floy. With Floy now dead, the children embark on a desperate road journey to their father's last known whereabouts, Las Vegas. Here the story line veers widely from the realistically grim (pornography work for Lutie) to the heroically hopeful (angelic strangers for Fate). By the time the kids run off to join the circus, readers may find some of the events straining the limits of plausibility. Still, Letts' gifts for characterization will have readers rooting for her scrappy protagonists anyway. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2008 May #1
Letts (Shoot the Moon, 2004, etc.) returns with another uplifting tearjerker, this time about an orphaned brother and sister who face travail before finding love and acceptance within an Oklahoma circus family.Fifteen-year-old Lutie McFee's mother is long dead. Her alcoholic father has decamped to Las Vegas, leaving Lutie and her 11-year-old brother Fate in the care of his latest girlfriend Floy. When Floy drops dead at Wal-Mart, tough but lovable Lutie and precocious but friendless Fate head to Vegas to find their father. By the time they arrive and discover he's died in prison, they're flat broke. Lutie earns money any way she can, including posing for porn, while Fate sells lost golf balls when he's not hanging around the library or the elementary school he hopes to attend. After a rape and a few other humiliations, Lutie, who has also developed a cocaine habit, is robbed and badly beaten. Fortunately, Lutie and Fate have a guardian angel. Juan Vargas, who has been helping them anonymously since their arrival, now saves Lutie. A former aerialist with Cirque de Soleil until a fall ended his career and left him disabled, Juan drives the McFees to Oklahoma where his family runs a circus. Juan has his own emotional baggage; having left Vargas Brothers Circus years earlier, he never returned to face his heartbroken father. Instead, after his accident, Juan drifted into addiction until joining AA (which he describes glowingly although he never attends meetings). In Oklahoma, Fate almost immediately feels at home, making his first real friend and learning to fish. Recuperating from her attack, Lutie at first resists the care offered by Juan's grandmother Mama Sim, but once she reveals to Mama Sim her deepest, guiltiest (most trite) secret, Lutie is emotionally ready to accept the love the Vargas family offers. And through Lutie's talent as an aerialist, Juan finds his own way back into the family fold.So much travail, so much uplift! So much phony plotting and superficial characterization.Agent: Lisa Callamaro/Lisa Callamaro Literary Agency Copyright Kirkus 2008 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2008 April #4
In a second Letts title where a pivotal event occurs at a Wal-Mart (the first was the author's bestseller Where the Heart Is ), two long-neglected kids have to fend for themselvesâand quickly. After their father's ex-girlfriend, Floy, who is their guardian, drops dead at the chain's Spearfish, S.D., megastore, 15-year-old Lutie McFee persuades her 11-year-old brother, Fate, to take off in Floy's Pontiac to their long-gone dad's last known address, a fleabag hotel in Las Vegas. There, they discover discouraging secrets about their father's whereabouts. Lutie gets fake working papers and a string of dead-end jobs. But with the threat of foster care looming, Lutie and trivia-mad Fate are soon at the mercy of child predators. Letts (whose son Tracy won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) manages this potentially maudlin or lurid material with a frank lyricism, delivering a heartbreaking tale about love, loss and survival that will stick with the reader long after the last page is turned. (June)
[Page 111]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal Reviews : SLJ Reviews 2008 October
Adult/High Schoolâ After the sudden death of Floy, her father's 300-pound girlfriend, 15-year-old Lutie McFee flees Spearfish, SD, with her 11-year-old brother, Fate. With only an apartment address to guide them, the siblings head toward Las Vegas in Floy's Pontiac, in search of the father they haven't seen or heard from in a year. Lutie's defiant personality lands the pair in a number of dangerous and precarious situations. However, her equally dominant determination drives her to do almost anything to protect her intellectual and withdrawn brother. When she is almost beaten to death during a robbery, a mysterious protector, Juan Vargas, comes to their aid. After getting medical treatment for her, Juan transports Lutie and Fate to his hometown in Hugo, OK. While Fate discovers a world of wonder and happiness, Lutie struggles to accept the support that is being offered to her. The ending, while unlikely, is satisfying and emotionally rewarding. Teens will immediately be drawn into the story by Lutie's feisty personality as well as the adventure, and ultimate hardship, of living by your wits. Recommend this one to those who enjoy gutsy protagonists, gritty plotlines, and fairy-tale endings.âLynn Rashid, Marriots Ridge High School, Marriotsville, MD
[Page 177]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
