Judy Garland, Ginger Love

by Nicole Cooley

In her extraordinary debut novel, critically acclaimed poet Nicole Cooley takes readers on a humorous, achingly beautiful journey to a world of magical escapes and startling restorative truths. Judy Garland, Ginger Love is about motherhood and sisterhood, being and becoming, loving and learning to let go. I know about sisters. Being a sister is the role in life I've always been best at, the one part I could play well. When I tried to become a mother, I failed. After a tragic pregnancy leaves Alice Carson bereft and unmoored, she turns for comfort not to her husband, but rather to her estranged identical twin Madeline. However, this attempted return to the past is fraught with emotional landmines. While Alice, calm and serious, is the older sister, born five minutes earlier, the explosive and wild Madeline has dominated the pair's solitary lives since childhood. From birth, Alice and Madeline shared a private, imaginary world--one colored by the larger-than-life tale of the dazzling and tragic MGM star Judy Garland. Handed down from their grandmother to their mother and now to them, the dramatic story of the actress' rise to stardom inspires Alice and Madeline to create their own Emerald City. Playing out their deepest fantasies in the empty swimming pool of the cheap New Orleans motel they called home, the young Alice and Madeline transform themselves into Judy Garland and her "baby sister" Ginger Love. The twins' enchanted world is shattered the day their mother abandons them, vanishing with little more than a brief goodbye. Now, years later, Alice gives herself up to her sister's outrageous scheme to find Lily. Having lost her unborn daughter, Alice desperately hopes to get her mother back. As the open road draws the sisters closer to their past, two women come face to face with life's painful realities; for the nearer they come to recapturing Emerald City, the more Madeline unravels, and the more Alice begins to see where her home is, and where her heart truly belongs. Judy Garland, Ginger Love resonates with profound insights that will leave no reader untouched. "A touching return to love."
--Barbara Esstman, author of Night Ride Home

Genres: Fiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1998

About the author

Nicole Cooley is a poet and non-fiction writer and the author of eight books: five books of poems, a chapbook, a novel and an artists book in collaboration with visual artists Maureen Cummins. Her collection of poems Breach from 2010 focuses on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, Her newest collection Girl after Girl after Girl is forthcoming from LSU Press in 2017. Essay Press published her digital chapbook Frozen Charlottes, A Sequence last year. Her work has been supported by a Creative and Performing Artists Fellowship at The American Antiquarian Society as well as a grant from the NEA. Her poetry and non-fiction has appeared most recently in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, Narrative, and Drunken Boat. She is currently completing a non-fiction project, My Dollhouse, Myself: Miniature Histories. She is a professor of English and the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation at Queens College—City University of New York.

Reviews

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a great novel. I actually read it straight through in one day. I highly recommend it.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this on the library sale rack. Despite the hideous cover I had a good feeling about it after reading the synopsis. It didn't disappoint! It's a unique and not quickly forgotten book with some pretty unique central concepts. And what great timing with the release of the new Judy Garland bio-pic "Judy"!

[Jen]

Brutal. Don't waste your time!