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Atlantic Monthly Press
Atlantic Monthly Press
Atlantic Monthly Press
“Healy skillfully creates with wordsa sense of abstract paintings.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review
Composed with the pureness and resonant simplicity of a classical Greek fable, this engaging tale of love and mutability marks a stunning debut by a unique new voice in American fiction.
Set amid the arid beauty of central Texas, Lone Stars tells the tale of two eccentric exiles, Stas and Lupe, who are struggling to maintain their identity and their relationship amid the myriad distractions of contemporary American culture. Stas, a Polish ‘migr”, is torn by his conflicting ambitions as an artist and a stock market speculator. Stas’s wife, Lupe, is a young Mexican artist, twenty years his junior.
When Lupe’s career suddenly blossoms, just as Stas’s interest in art is supplanted by his passion for the stock market, the calm surface of their lives is roiled by the undercurrents of loneliness and jealousy each of them feels.
A classic triangle quickly develops. Although his marriage to Lupe holds more richness for Stas than he ever thought possible, his for’mer lover”the sensuous, exotic Gosia” torments his memory and disturbs his dreams. And when Lupe develops a passionate friendship with Gosia, Stas is filed with dismay.
By turns provocative, quirky, and humorous, Lone Stars is a deliciously off-beat novel that offers an original view of American life in all its shimmering grotesquerie and glory.
“This is a provocative, elegant little book about love’s turbulence and joy. Sophia Healy writes with a serious, vivid tenderness, reminiscent of D. H. Lawrence, about serious, vivid people. But there is also a charming playfulness about them that makes them distinctly appealing. Lone Stars is a stunning and original novel, first or otherwise.” –Marianne Gingher, The Washington Post Book World
“At the heart of this appealing and idiosyncratic first novel, set near San Antonio, Texas, are Stas, a Polish “migr”, who reads Conrad, paints, and speculates in the stock market, and his beautiful Mexican wife, Lupe, who is preparing for a show of her own at a Houston gallery. When Lupe becomes involved with Gosia, the gallery’s owner and Stas’s former lover, the dreamy calm of their marriage is upset. But what happens as the story unfolds matters less than whatis acutely seen, thought, and felt.” –The New Yorker
“Healy skillfully creates with wordsa sense of abstract paintings.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Stat and Lupe’s story is written with affection, understanding, forgiveness and wisdom. Lone Stars is a wonderful, often astonish­ing first novel.” –Mary Robinson
“Her first novel turns out to be nearly word-perfect. . . . She’s made a splendid novel about love and art, nature and convention in a world that is a fascinating cross-roads of cultures and affections.” –Alan Cheuse
“Sophia Mealy’s Lone Stars is a gentle, dreamy love story. . . . [Its] pleasant poetry and short prosaic chapters are delicate as a meringue.” –TheMemphis Commercial Appeal
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