The Lockhart Women: A Novel
(Paperback)
Publishing Details
The Lockhart Women: A Novel
By (Author) Mary Camarillo
She Writes Press
She Writes Press
15th July 2021
United States
Classifications
General
Fiction
Physical Properties
Paperback
344
Width 139mm, Height 215mm
Description
Brenda Lockharts family has been living well beyond their means for too long when Brendas husband leaves themfor an older and less attractive woman than Brenda, no less. Brendas never worked outside the home, and the familys economic situation quickly declines. Oldest daughter Peggy is certain shes heading off to a university, until her father offers her a job sorting mail while she attends community college instead. Younger daughter Allison, a high school senior, cant believe her luck that California golden boy Kevin has fallen in love with her.
Meanwhile, the chatter about the O. J. Simpson murder investigations is always on in the background, a media frenzy that underscores domestic violence against women and race and class divisions in Southern California. Brenda, increasingly obsessed with the case, is convinced O. J. is innocent and has been framed by the LAPD. Both daughters are more interested in their own livesthat is, until Peggy starts noticing bruises Allison cant explain. For a while, it feels to everyone as if the family is falling apart; but in the end, they all come together again in unexpected ways.
Reviews
2022 Page Turner Best Book Award Winner in Women's Fiction
2022 California Indie Author Project Winner in Adult Fiction
2022 American Writing Awards Finalist in Women's Fiction
2022 WILLA Literary Awards Finalist in Multiform Fiction
2022 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Competition Finalist
2022 Los Angeles Book Festival Honorable Mention in Regional Fiction
2022 Hollywood Book Festival Honorable Mention in General Fiction
2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner in First Novel (Over 90,000 words)
2021 American Fiction Awards Finalist in Women's Fiction
A family is thrown into chaos in 1990s Southern California in Camarillos debut . . . and the novels ending is a satisfying one. An emotional portrait of three women dealing with unexpected change.
Kirkus Reviews
Camarillos prose is lively, companionable, and quite satisfyingly observant in ways that surprise and delight, as if a friendly someone you know well is murmuring in your ear, giving you living presences, using history as the canvas across which the drama takes place. Bravo!
Richard Bausch, award-winning author of Peace and Hello to the Cannibals
The Lockhart Women is deeply and thoroughly Southern Californianin all the perfectly detailed cities and streets and, of course, freeways, but also in the evocation of its time: the 1990s. These women in this page turnerflawed and desperate and seeking redemptionare vivid portraits.
Susan Straight, award-winning author of In the Country of Women
With control, compassion, and surprising humor, Camarillo dissects how a modern family comes apart. . . . Unputdownable.
Eduardo Santiago, PEN Emerging Voices Rosenthal fellow and award-winning author of Tomorrow They Will Kiss and Midnight Rhumba
Like Mona Simpsons Anywhere but Here, The Lockhart Women sensitively illustrates what happens to children coming of age under the influence of childish parents. But unlike Simpson, Camarillo provides hope that everyoneparents and childrencan grow and develop. An authentically hopeful and realistic novel.
Shelley Blanton-Stroud, author of Copy Boy
. . . an intimate portrayal of a Southern California working class family that splinters apart when the father leaves. Brenda Lockhart and her two daughters are complicated and not always admirable characters, but they are relentlessly human. Camarillo laces their story with concise prose, dry humor, and flinty realism, allowing love, resilience, hope and eventual forgiveness to shine through.
Samantha Dunn, bestselling author of Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life
"O. J.s famous white Bronco flight and his trial for murder is the perfect backdrop for this story of a mother and her two daughters watching their lives implode. Great writing, compelling and fast-paced, The Lockhart Women is impossible to put down.
Diana Wagman, award-winning author of Spontaneous and Extraordinary October
The Lockhart Women make mistake after mistake in this delightful debut novel, but that's part of their charm. Touching on themes of motherhood, fidelity, and responsibility, this is a coming-of-age tale for both Brenda and her daughters, teaching us that the indelible bonds of love can steer families through the roughest of passages.
Julie Zuckerman, author of The Book of Jeremiah
This is a gripping, sometimes funny, novel that will keep you turning the pages.
San Francisco Book Review
Author Bio
Mary Camarillo went to work for the Postal Service after high school. It might be genetic; both her grandfathers were railway mail clerks. She sorted mail, sold stamps, balanced the books in the accounting office, went to night school to get her degree, earned her CPA, authored countless audit reports, and then started writing fiction. Her short stories and poems have been published in The Sonora Review, The Bookends Review, Lunch Ticket, and The Ear, among others. This is her first novel. She lives in Huntington Beach, California, with her husband, who plays ukulele, and their terrorist cat, Riley, who has his own Instagram account. She lives in Huntington Beach, California.
