The Starlite Drive-In

The open space of a rural Indiana drive-in theater in 1956 provides an ironic backdrop for this moving first novel, a story of confinement and entrapment, and of events that can free the spirit at long last. When human remains are found at the long-abandoned theater site, Callie Anne Benton, now 49, must look back at the summer of her 13th year. It's easy to guess the identity of the body; it's easy, too, to figure out who killed him. The tension of the narrative derives from the family drama that leads to the murder, which also marks Callie Anne's achingly poignat coming-of-age. As the daughter of the Starlite Drive-in manager, she lives at the edge of the grounds and learns to follow dialogue--onscreen and otherwise--from a removed vantage point. Her father, Claude Junior, is thoroughly mean-spirited and violently abusive, though it's clear that he's both trapped and thwarted by his wife Teal's agoraphobia. After Claude suffers a debilitating injury in a fall, he hires drifter Charlie Memphis to do the heavy labor; at night when Claude runs the projector, Charlie is coaxing Teal out of her house and into his arms. Though the killing is predictable, the steps to the act and its resolution are paced with unflagging tension and a sure sense of how the world looks from a young girl's eyes. Literary Guild alternate; rights sold in Germany, Denmark, Holland; movie rights to Polene/Winer; a Bn Discover Great New Writers Program selection. (July)