The Skylark's Song - Hardcover

Segal, Harriet

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786201134 ISBN 13: 9780786201136

Publisher: Thorndike Pr, 1994

Synopsis

As the widow of a 1940s songwriter and her children and grandchildren gather in New York for a salute to the composer, they must cope with crumbling marriages, affairs, and scandal. (General Fiction).

About this title

From the Author:

Who doesn't love to dance to the beat of a Gershwin tune or hear the clever lyrics of a Cole Porter song? I love this period in American history, the jazz-age music, the hedonistic pleasure-seekers, trying to ignore the approach of World War II. In Broadway's heyday, Julia comes to New York City from upstate Troy and lands a job with the foremost agent for musical-comedy talent. Thrust into this exciting world, she falls in love with the handsome, gifted Michael Shane, who is having his first show produced on Broadway. They marry, Michael's career soars, but in too short a time, his life ends tragically. The years pass, Julia remarries, and she has all but forgotten the bitter memories. Suddenly, there is an event that forces Julia to confront the past. It is a test of her strength of spirit and Julia must summon every inner resource to deal with the challenges. I took the title of this evocative tale from Anne Brontė's Views of Life:
                                                                 Because the road is rough and long,
                                                                 Shall we despise the skylark's song?

From the Inside Flap:

Harriet Segal has woven a wondrously involving tale, full of engaging characters and surprising plot threads that take the reader into the colorful sights and sounds of twentieth century America. The Skylark's Song centers on a matriarch, Julia Rhinehart, the widow of a popular Gershwinesque musical-comedy composer. The occasion that brings the Rhinehart clan together is the 75th Birthday Salute in New York to the composer, whose work is enjoying a resurgence on Broadway. As the celebration approaches, Julia, her children and grandchildren cope with a variety of diffculties, past and present...  The family is divided in the search for the composer's "lost scores," an entire portfolio he produced in a final burst of creativity before his death in the late Forties.  Interspersed  throughout the contemporary narrative are richly evoked flashbacks to World War II-era New York and Julia's whirlwind romance with the composer, their marriage and his eventual betrayal ...  The Skylark's Song is a rich, tumultuous narrative by one of the most talented and mature voices in contemporary fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thorndike Pr
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0786201134
• ISBN 13: 9780786201136
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 800