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For Release Friday, Nov. 7, 1997 — Today's Fiction
Coming-of-age novels continue to strike a responsive chord from publishers, who these days seldom release fiction without feeling confident that a welcoming horde of readers will rush to their booksellers to acquire the latest version of how-I-grew-up-and-what-it-all-means. For many novice writers, a first novel often shows promise of things to come. Rarely does a writer debut in hardcovers with an exquisitely realized novel that entrances a wide segment of the book-buying masses. In the case of the recently published The Starlite Drive-In (William Morrow and Co., $23), the payoff is one of the most compelling first novels in memory. Marjorie Reynolds, who works for a movie advertising agency in real life, sets her wondrous story in small-town Indiana, circa the summer of 1956. Callie Anne Benton narrates her story of that special summer, when events transformed her from a tomboy into the beginnings of a mature young woman. Nearly 13, Callie Anne faces another long, boring summer with her parents. Her father, hobbled by a leg injury, manages a drive-in movie theater. The family lives in a small frame house on the drive-in's acreage. Callie Anne's mother Teal suffers from agoraphobia, an inability to leave the house without having a panic attack. No one is particularly happy. Teal's condition frustrates her husband Claude Junior, a harsh, cold, depressed, volatile man who feels life has dealt him an unfair blow. He feels trapped, a man with ambitions that can't be realized, working at a drive-in where the projection equipment demands constant attention. Trouble arises when the theater's owner hires a drifter named Charlie Memphis to handle sprucing up of the increasingly dilapidated Starlight Drive-In Theater. To Callie Anne, this visitor appears inordinately handsome and wonderfully mysterious; in essence, the culmination of her teen-age dreams of what the perfect person might be. To her dismay, Memphis begins to pay special attention to Teal, especially when Claude Junior's busy in the projection booth. The elements are present for tragedy, and it inevitably occurs. The novel transpires entirely through Callie Anne's point of view. Author Reynolds has captured her perky heroine in achingly believable terms. Callie Anne is a slighter older version of the entrancing Scout of To Kill a Mockingbird. Reynolds carefully tiptoes across a slippery tightrope while maintaining the authenticity of her book's first-person narrative. Once or twice the book stretches credulity — Callie Ann's eavesdropping on others' private conversations, or actions to make the story work. These awkward passages interrupt what otherwise is a marvelous debut. Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Growing Up at the Drive-In Movie in Contemporary Fiction is owned by . Permission to republish Growing Up at the Drive-In Movie in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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