Coming of Age

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Filled with unpredictable plot twists and heartbreakingly tender relationships, Jeannette Walls’ newest novel, The Silver Star, is the story of two young sisters struggling to survive in a harsh adult world. Precocious 12-year-old Jean “Bean” Holladay and her older sister Liz suddenly find themselves on their own after their singer/actress mother abandons them with only enough money to last a month or two. When a police car shows up at the house one day, the two girls decide to skip town and head to the small Virginia suburb where their mother grew up and their Uncle Tinsley still resides in a decaying mansion. Here they settle down and begin to put their lives back together, albeit with momentous coming-of-age struggles.

Set in the tumultuous 1970s at the height of racial integration and a declining economy, The Silver Star shares the story of a resilient and idealistic child with enough strength to persevere through even the toughest of challenges.

Jeannette Walls is the bestselling author of the memoir The Glass Castle. She is a regular contributor to MSNBC and has worked at several publications, including USA Today and Esquire. Walls will speak at Boswell Book Co. at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 20.

Book Happening

Poetry Reading by Jim Chapson and James Belflower

7 p.m., June 21

Woodland Pattern Book Center

720 E. Locust St.

Two visionary poets will perform at Woodland Pattern Book Center. Jim Chapson, the 2013-2015 Milwaukee Poet Laureate, and James Belflower, the author of the forthcoming book A Public Primer, will feature selected works in a live reading. Chapson has lived in Milwaukee since 1976 and currently teaches creative writing at UW-Milwaukee. His most recent books are Daphnis & Ratboy and Scholia. Belflower, who resides in New York, is the author of Commuter, which was voted the 2009 Best Book Length Long Poem/Sequence by ColdFront magazine.