Titles > Fiction > A Streak of Luck
A Streak of Luck
by Richelle Kosar
Novel
284 pages
Trade Paper w/ French Flaps
5.5" X 8.5"
ISBN: 1896951473
$22.95
A Streak of Luck
by Richelle Kosar
At forty-odd years of age, Mona is a waitress in a pizza joint. The mother of two daughters, she is married to an out-of-work labourer who still whiles his days away remembering when he was the lead singer in a band in Saskatchwan and dreaming of the future that arrived without the promise held out twenty years before. Mona shares the same memories, but she also remembers other, tragic, moments. Rebecca, Mona's eldest daughter, is certain that she's going to make it out of the two-bedroom crappy apartment go-nowhere life into which she was born. She workes in a dress shop on Queen Street and, beautiful and young, there she catches the eye of at least one man who returns to the store to collect her phone number. Cory, the youngest daughter, babysits to bring in extra money for the family, and is stuck in drama class playing a scene from the Glass Menagerie with a boy known as "Creepy Karko."
Everything changes when Jesse, Mona's husband, circles the six numbers on a lottery ticket he bought; the family has come into millions of dollars — financial security and a better life lie just ahead.
About Richelle Kosar.
| Reviews: |
| "If
you have ever dreamed of picking those magical six numbers, you
are going to love this novel of triumph and disappointment." — Andrew Armitage, Owen Sound Sun Times June 19 2003 -- "There's a line in an old blues song: 'if it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.' "And that just about sums up the predicament of the Masaryk family, transplanted by events from small-town Saskatchewan to the grimy rooming houses of glittering Toronto. "This is a novel about hopes and dreams, of schemes, and of the ability — to paraphrase another blues tune — to 'keep on keeping on.' Writer Richelle Kosar, better known as a playwright, crafts a compelling story about one family's hard, hard road, and the dreams they harbour. "Kosar's prose flows nicely from voice to voice, from setting to setting. She has a deft touch: she manages to temper the sadness of the characters -- we're not talking about their moods, but about their state -- with just a trifle of hope, just enough to make it seem that all is not abjectly dark. "The Masaryks are aptly described by yet another old blues tune: 'My green is lean and my coin is spent, I ain't busted but I'm badly bent.' And bent and bereft they are, in every conceivable way." — Gary Curtis, The Hamilton Spectator May 31, 2003 -- "Toronto writer Richelle Kosar takes readers on a unique and amazing narrative journey by entering the minds of three prominent characters in her latest novel, A Streak of Luck. [The novel] shows the resilience of the human spirit at its best. Kosar's writing is lively, humorous and imaginative, even when her characters are faced with unimaginable adversity. The Masaryk family will make you laugh, cringe and often relate all too well." — Tanya Enberg, Metro Toronto April 30, 2003 -- "Can wealth buy happiness? No one has ever come up with the definitive answer to that question. But in her new novel A Streak of Luck, Toronto author Richelle Kosar at least gives us a glimpse into what it means to four poor people to believe they will be wealthy." "As was the case with her first novel, The Drum King (Turnstone Press 1998), the main characters in A Streak of Luck spend a lot of time dreaming about the unattainable." "Kosar has a knack for creating memorable characters, and for involving the reader deeply in everything that's going on in her stories. In this book her own prairie roots show through (she grew up in Weyburn) in the authentic descriptions of small town and its people." — Verne Clemence, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix April 26, 2003 Praise for Richelle Kosar's previous work, The Drum King (Turnstone Press): "It's a hard book to put down.... The erotic writing ... is exceptionally well done and the author has a flair for creating atmosphere, whether its glamorous, frightening or nostalgic ... intriguing, imaginative and, above all, a good read." – The Globe and Mail "Kosar demonstrates an ability to create characters with compelling psychologies ... (her) examination of the psyche ... allows the lines between the savage and the civilized to vanish entirely." – Winnipeg Free Press |
