Lucky

Lucky is a novel by Jane Smiley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, about a folk singer whose career unfolds across several decades of change in America.

Jodie Rattler grows up in St. Louis in a warm, close extended family. In 1955, when she is six, her uncle Drew takes her to the racetrack, where she wins a roll of two-dollar bills. She keeps it with her ever after. Through a mix of hard work and good fortune, she later builds a singing career that carries her from St. Louis to New York City, the English countryside, the tropical beaches of St. Thomas, Cleveland and Los Angeles, and back again.

Jodie comes of age in recording studios, backstage and on the road, trying to establish herself in the shadow of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell. Even so, something still feels missing. She wonders whether it is true love, or whether love is not what she is looking for at all.

The book combines music, romance and longing with a vivid sense of place. It is a portrait of one woman's search for herself, shaped by chance, determination and real talent.