Rebecca Rotert. (2014). Last Night at the Blue Angel: A Novel. HarperCollins.

Rebecca Rotert. 2014. Last Night At the Blue Angel: A Novel. HarperCollins.

Rebecca Rotert, Last Night At the Blue Angel: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2014.

Rebecca Rotert. Last Night At the Blue Angel: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2014.

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     Rebecca Rotert received an M.A. in literature from Hollins College, where she was the recipient of the Academy of American Poets prize. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and other publications. She's also an experienced singer and songwriter, who has performed with several bands, and a teacher with the Nebraska Writers Collective. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska. This is her first novel.

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Last Night at the Blue Angel

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Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s Chicago jazz scene, a highly ambitious and stylish literary debut that combines the atmosphere and period detail of Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility with the emotional depth and drama of The Memory Keeper's Daughter, about a talented but troubled singer, her precocious ten-year-old daughter, and their heartbreaking relationship.

It is the early 1960s, and Chicago is a city of uneasy tensions—segregation, sexual experimentation, free love, the Cold War—but it is also home to one of the country’s most vibrant jazz scenes. Naomi Hill, a singer at the Blue Angel club, has been poised on the brink of stardom for nearly ten years. Finally, her big break arrives—the cover of Look magazine. But success has come at enormous personal cost. Beautiful and magnetic, Naomi is a fiercely ambitious yet extremely self-destructive woman whose charms are irresistible and dangerous for those around her. No one knows this better than Sophia, her clever ten-year-old daughter.

For Sophia, Naomi is the center of her universe. As the only child of a single, unconventional mother, growing up in an adult world, Sophia has seen things beyond her years and her understanding. Unsettled by her uncertain home life, she harbors the terrible fear that the world could end at any moment, and compulsively keeps a running list of practical objects she will need to reinvent once nuclear catastrophe strikes. Her one constant is Jim, the photographer who is her best friend, surrogate father, and protector. But Jim is deeply in love with Naomi—a situation that adds to Sophia’s anxiety.

Told from the alternating perspectives of Sophia and Naomi, their powerful and wrenching story unfolds in layers, revealing Sophia’s struggle for her mother’s love with Naomi’s desperate journey to stardom and the colorful cadre of close friends who shaped her along the way.

Sophisticated yet poignant, Last Night at the Blue Angel is an unforgettable tale about what happens when our passion for the life we want is at sharp odds with the life we have. It is a story ripe with surprising twists and revelations, and an ending that is bound to break your heart.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Chicago Tribune, Editor's Pick
   • content:

     "[A] delicious debut . . . While Naomi may perform on stage, it is her daughter Sophia who steals the show and gives this novel its considerable heart." — Chicago Tribune, Editor's Pick

     "[An] engaging debut . . . Rotert has composed a soulful and touchingly sad mother-daughter blues that lingers after it's over." — San Francisco Chronicle

     "Rebecca Rotert traces the difficult contours of love and devotion—a fame-bound singer desperate to change her life, and her daughter, Sophia, who'll risk anything to stay in her mother's marred circle of light. Luminous and deeply affecting, this book swept me along and stole my heart." — Paula McLain, New York Times bestelling author of The Paris Wife

     "Filled with music and memory, humor and poetry, Last Night at the Blue Angel is about the burdens of the past and the sometimes unrealistic promise of the future. You'll carry these characters around in your head long after you finish this exuberant, big-hearted novel." — Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train

     "One of the most evocative renderings of a child's precocity and appreciativeness in the face of a mother's distracted self-absorption—and how it actually feels to be in thrall to someone else's happiness—since Mona Simpson's Anywhere But Here." — Jim Shepard, acclaimed author of Like You'd Understand, Anyway

     "Sophia Hill can take her place proudly beside such affecting child narrators as Francie Nolan of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. . . . an engaging story." — Omaha World-Herald

     "A fascinating and extraordinarily moving first novel populated by complex, sympathetic characters and told in such gorgeous, poetic prose that you'll frequently stop to linger over the sentences. Rebecca Rotert is the real deal. It doesn't happen that often." — Ron Hansen, acclaimed author of Atticus and Mariette in Ecstasy

     "Rebecca Rotert's stirring debut does what the best novels do: it draws us deep into the lives of indelible characters while also telling us the broader story of a time and place, in this case, a mid-twentieth century Midwest where repressive social mores are just beginning to fray." — Marisa Silver, New York Times bestselling author of Mary Coin

     "Last Night at the Blue Angel is a gorgeously written coming of age story and a clear-eyed account of the human damage that great artistry can leave in its wake." — Jean Thompson, New York Times bestselling author of The Year We Left Home

     "A striking discovery, filled with surprises both marvelous and shocking. As the story weaves back and forth in time, spinning out the lives and dreams of a mother and a daughter, the language itself sings in moments of poignant beauty." — Lauren Belfer, New York Times bestselling author of City of Light and A Fierce Radiance

     "A moving portrait of a tumultuous yet tender mother-daughter relationship . . . With lush prose and well-drawn characters, this heartbreaking novel of love, loss, and the redemptive power of music also offers a satisfying glimpse of Chicago at a pivotal point in history." — Booklist (starred review)

     "[An] astonishing debut novel . . . Rotert's musical background informs Naomi's passion for performance, but it is her heartbreaking...

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     April 21, 2014
     Set in mid-1960s Chicago, Rotert’s debut depicts Naomi Hill’s struggles to succeed as a jazz singer, largely from the perspective of her young daughter, Sophia. “Mother is a singer. I live in her dark margin. For the first ten years of my life, I watch her from the wings.” A reckless single mother, Naomi believes in living in the moment and depends on her friends to help care for Sophia. The girl grows up in an erratic lifestyle revolving around Naomi’s club act at the titular Blue Angel. The stress Sophia already feels as a result of their unpredictable routine is heightened by school civil defense drills, which leave her feeling anxious about the threat of nuclear warfare. However, she has an ability beyond her age to understand her mother’s flaws while still being able to cherish their relationship. In flashbacks told from Naomi’s point of view, the woman reflects on what drove her to flee her Kansas hometown in the 1950s and what drives her to pursue the spotlight. Rotert has created a complicated and engaging heroine in Sophia, a memorable character portrait which is her book’s most striking aspect. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     May 1, 2014
     

     Rotert's astonishing debut novel opens with ten-year-old Sophia sitting behind the dusty velvet curtains at Chicago's Blue Angel Jazz Club. She peeks out at the audience, yearning to be noticed. But it's the singer, her mother, Naomi, who's center stage, the place that she was born to be. Naomi is single-mindedly focused on achieving fame, and therein lies the conflict for Sophie and everyone else caught up in Naomi's thrall. Her daughter, her lovers, and her best friend, Jim, though complex, nuanced characters, are just bit players in her entourage. Naomi may seem abusive, living as she does in a run-down hotel, keeping Sophie out half the night at the Blue Angel, entertaining various men and women until morning, and using the deeply smitten photographer Jim as dad, cook, and housekeeper. We begin to understand better when Rotert shows us Naomi's 1950s Kansas childhood, during which her siblings worked the farm and a dissident teacher, Sister Idalia, recognized Naomi's potential, encouraging her musical talent. This, too, is where Naomi fell in love with Laura, sparking a scandal that would reverberate over the next 20 years. VERDICT Rotert's musical background informs Naomi's passion for performance, but it is her heartbreaking portrait of Sophie, so wise yet so vulnerable, that readers will remember long after the final page. [See Prepub Alert, 1/10/14.]--Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

     Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from June 15, 2014
     A debut novel about a nightclub singer preoccupied with her own desires and a young daughter who yearns for her love.Ten-year-old Sophia Hill knows her mother's life is about to change as she watches her final performance at the Blue Angel. Naomi's picture now graces the cover of Look magazine, and she's famous. Naomi has achieved her goal, but Sophia's dream is different: She just wants her mother's love. It's 1965, and Sophia lives in a Chicago motel with Naomi, meticulously documenting the comings and goings of the men and women who spend time in her mother's bedroom, including a couple of guests from the past. She doesn't fully grasp the meaning behind all of Naomi's visitors, but Sophia is wise beyond her years in many ways. Surrounded by adults who've always protected and indulged her mother, she's never experienced a normal family life. Instead, her days and nights revolve around Naomi's needs, and she worries that her mother will leave her behind the same way she imagines Naomi left her own parents. However, unbeknownst to Sophia, Naomi's life has been one of turmoil and deprivation. One of seven children born in poverty in Kansas, she was a rambunctious student until a teacher recognized her talent and encouraged her to sing. After graduating from high school, she was forced to leave town after becoming sexually involved with the daughter of a prominent community leader, sparking a complicated future with regard to relationships. Telling the story from Sophia's and Naomi's distinct perspectives, Rotert creates an expressive and haunting narrative highlighting Sophia's innocent vulnerability and her mother's single-minded obsession. Though the characters are very different, the author's interpretation of both emerges spot-on. And, while Naomi's journey is interesting, Sophia's story hooks the reader from the beginning and dominates, particularly as the final chapters unfold.A tale that's poignant, poetic and heart-wrenching throughout.

     COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from May 15, 2014
     Set in mid-1960s Chicago, this impressive debut novel tells the story of 10-year-old Sophia and her mother, Naomi. With chapters alternating between the two characters' perspectives, Rotert paints a moving portrait of a tumultuous yet tender mother-daughter relationship. Naomi, a talented and very troubled jazz singer, performs at a past-its-prime nightclub while trying to catch her big break. Irresponsible and selfish (yet somehow likable and sympathetic), she drinks too much and hosts a variety of lovers in the hotel apartment she shares with her daughter. In flashbacks to Naomi's childhood in rural Kansas, we learn of the painful past that both shaped and haunts her. Sophia essentially serves as her mother's caretaker. Kindhearted and wise beyond her years, she obsesses about nuclear destruction and keeps a list of things that must be reinvented once it happens. Sadly, a normal childhood is forever beyond her grasp. With lush prose and well-drawn characters, this heartbreaking novel of love, loss, and the redemptive power of music also offers a satisfying glimpse of Chicago at a pivotal point in history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

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Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s Chicago jazz scene, a highly ambitious and stylish literary debut that combines the atmosphere and period detail of Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility with the emotional depth and drama of The Memory Keeper's Daughter, about a talented but troubled singer, her precocious ten-year-old daughter, and their heartbreaking relationship.

It is the early 1960s, and Chicago is a city of uneasy tensions—segregation, sexual experimentation, free love, the Cold War—but it is also home to one of the country’s most vibrant jazz scenes. Naomi Hill, a singer at the Blue Angel club, has been poised on the brink of stardom for nearly ten years. Finally, her big break arrives—the cover of Look magazine. But success has come at enormous personal cost. Beautiful and magnetic, Naomi is a fiercely ambitious yet extremely self-destructive woman whose charms are irresistible and dangerous for those...

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