Saturday, May 10, 2014

What is Kate Racculia reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Kate Racculia, author of Bellweather Rhapsody.

Her entry begins:
The last book I fell in love with was My Misspent Youth: Essays by Meghan Daum. I don’t typically seek out essay collections, which may be part of the reason why this book—like David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again—totally blew me away. It felt so fresh yet so familiar, hysterical and smart and quietly heartbreaking. Her essay about being a lapsed oboist, “Music is My Bag,” sang to me, as a fellow former double-reed player myself (albeit a lapsed bassoonist). Whether she was explaining the no-man’s land that exists between a relationship online and in person, the literal and figurative cost of being a young professional writer, or her soul-deep aversion to wall-to-wall carpeting, I felt as though Meghan Daum had...[read on]
About  Bellweather Rhapsody, from the publisher:
A high school music festival goes awry when a young prodigy disappears from a hotel room that was the site of a famous crime, in a whip-smart novel sparkling with the dark and giddy pop culture pleasures of The Shining, Agatha Christie, and Glee

Fifteen years ago, a murder/suicide in room 712 rocked the grand old Bellweather Hotel and the young bridesmaid who witnessed it. Now hundreds of high school musicians, including quiet bassoonist Rabbit Hatmaker and his brassy diva twin, Alice, have gathered in its cavernous, crumbling halls for the annual Statewide festival; the grown-up bridesmaid has returned to face her demons; and a snowstorm is forecast that will trap everyone on the grounds. Then one of the orchestra’s stars disappears—from room 712. Is it a prank, or has murder struck the Bellweather once again?

The search for answers entwines a hilariously eccentric cast of characters—conductors and caretakers, failures and stars, teenagers on the verge and adults trapped in memories. For everyone has come to the Bellweather with a secret, and everyone is haunted.

Full of knowing nods to the shivery pleasures of suspense and the transporting power of music, this is a wholly winning new novel from a writer lauded as “charming” (Los Angeles Times), “witty” (O, The Oprah Magazine), and “whimsical” (People).
Visit Kate Racculia's website.

Writers Read: Kate Racculia.

--Marshal Zeringue