Gone for Good

Zusatztext "A story that takes off like a 747 and doesn't let up until the very end." --San Francisco Examiner "WELL! MARK CHILDRESS HAS GONE AND DONE IT AGAIN! GIVEN US A NOVEL FULL OF HEART AND MAGIC! POETRY! AND GREAT GOOD HUMOR." --Anne Lamott "WONDROUSLY IMAGINATIVE . . . BRIMMING WITH MAGIC AND MYSTERY . . . A modern-day fable with echoes of Alice in Wonderland! The Little Prince! Peter Pan! and The Wizard of Oz . . . A terrific summer read--meaty enough to make you think! but breezy enough to consume with almost effortless delight." --The Charlotte Observer "ENTERTAINING . . . EXHILARATING." --The Philadelphia Inquirer Informationen zum Autor Mark Childress was born in Alabama, grew up in the Midwest and the South, and was graduated from the University of Alabama. His articles and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Times Literary Supplement, Southern Living, and the Birmingham News, among other publications. He is the author of three children's books and four previous novels, A World Made of Fire, V for Victor, Tender, and Crazy in Alabama. He lives in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica. Klappentext By the time Newsweek dubs thirty-four-year-old Ben (Superman) Willis "The New Super-Poet of Pop," he has millions of adoring fans, piles of money, a beautiful family--and a secret desire to chuck it all and disappear forever. He gets his wish after a violent storm, some wicked Mexican weed, and a faulty compass cause his precious plane to crash on a remote tropical island. When he hears Marilyn Monroe's breathless voice saying he's "kind of cute," Superman thinks he has woken up dead. Amelia Earhart is there too, noting the worst landing she has ever seen, while Jimmy Hoffa cooks up some fine chicken barbecue. They never died, you see. They just came here to escape their celebrity--invited guests, living out their lives in total privacy, all expenses paid, every need fulfilled. To Superman, it is heaven on earth. Until he discovers the one little catch: he can never leave. . . . Superman Considers His Obligations 1972 Superman ambled onstage in his flip-flops, old holey jeans, the tattered sky-blue work shirt. He squinted into the blaze of lights with an uncertain grin, like a stagehand who has wandered past the wrong curtain to find ten thousand people standing and cheering for him. Superman Willis was famous, and so was that shirt. He had worn it for years, at every concert, in every album-cover photo. It was part of his image, indelible as the ink stains under the breast pocket. His fans thought he must have a whole closet full of sky-blue shirts, identically tattered and stained, but in fact he had just that one. He never took it off unless his wife made him wash it, then he'd hang around bare-chested in the laundry room waiting for it to dry. One time after a show in Milwaukee, a moon-eyed young girl offered him five hundred bucks for the shirt. "Sorry, darlin'," he said, "Superman's got no powers without his shirt," but when he saw her little-rich-girl disappointment he put on his most charming smile. "Tell you what, though, I believe we could make a deal on these pants." He was part of the folk-rocker wave that rolled over America in the years just after the Beatles, when rock and roll wore itself out and people started buying the poetic crooners like Jackson Browne, Jim Croce, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and . . . Superman willis. He got his big break at Monterey, 1969. For three years now he'd been hot, hot. The single of "Superman's Revenge" sold four million copies, a triple-platinum smash. "When Time Stands Still" won the Grammy for Song of the Year. Newsweek put his face on the cover with the words the new super-poet of pop spelled out on his cheek. His nickname came from "Superman's Revenge"--not his best so...

Product details

• Authors: Mark Childress
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 06.07.1999
• EAN: 9780345414533
• ISBN: 978-0-345-41453-3
• No. of pages: 400
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 216 mm x 19 mm
• Series: Ballantine Reader's Circle
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense