Blue

by Beth Kander

Full-Length Play | A modern fable about family, fallibility, and finding your way. The Alexander sisters have pretty hard-knock lives over in Worried Creek, Kentucky, in the late 1980s. April is a pregnant prize-fighter, May is dead, and the bookish June was born with the “family curse”: bright blue skin. Shamed into a hermit-like existence, June hasn’t entirely abandoned hope. When a Los Angeles plastic surgeon shows up at their door in Kentucky, all of the Alexanders’ lives (and deaths) take unexpected turns. (4F, 1M)

62 pages, Paperback

Published April 10, 2020

About the author

Beth Kander is a USA Today bestselling writer with tangled roots in the Midwest and Deep South. The granddaughter of immigrants, her work often explores how worlds old and new intertwine—or collide. Beth earned an MSW from the University of Michigan and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mississippi University for Women, where she has also served as a visiting professor. She calls Chicago home these days, and is lucky to live there with her very favorite characters: her heroic husband, their two brave, hilarious kids, and a giant rescue dog named Oz.

For more: www.bethkander.com

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a departure in several ways from what this author has done in the past beginning with a narrator who is dead. Second, this is based on an actual situation that most people who see the show would will be totally unaware of and will find nearly unbelievable.

This is the story of a family living in the Eastern Kentucky Appalachian hills with all the poverty and disadvantage that goes along with it. But, in addition, the one member who appears that she has what it takes to break free from the poverty and succeed has been stricken by the genetic curse of her family - blue skin.

I'm not a great reader but this was a play that I couldn't put down until I finished it. It was spellbinding. Don't pass this one up.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting.