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by James Sie
Recent high school graduate and aspiring artist Walter Stahl lives with his ailing father in the dregs of Las Vegas, their lives overshadowed by the disappearance of Walter's mother, who drove off when he was five and never returned. Although Walter has never so much as seen a photograph of his mother, it doesn't stop him from keeping an eye out for her in the groups of tourists he caters to in his dead-end job along the Strip.
Then Walter meets Chrysto and Acacia, a brother and sister working as living statues at the Venetian Hotel, and his world cracks open. Spending less time caring for his father, and more time riding on the backs of Vespas and drawing, Walter finds life has more to offer than he could have imagined. But as his feelings for Chrysto deepen, and as clues behind his mother's disappearance start to reveal themselves, Walter is forced to face the truth about himself and his family history.
Threading through this coming-of-age story are beautiful and heart-wrenching graphic illustrations, depicting how Walter's mother Emily, a Vietnamese-born accordion player, abandoned her family to chase a vision of Liberace across the country; and how Walter's father went searching for her amongst the gondolas of the Venetian Hotel.
In Still Life Las Vegas, the magical collides with the mundane; memory, sexual awakening and familial ties all lead to a place where everything is illuminated, and nothing is real.
"Sie's debut novel is an often mesmerizing look at grief and coming of age...Engrossing." - Publishers Weekly
"Sie's first novel is richly imagined and beautifully written with a well-realized setting and memorable characters. Together they make for an altogether auspicious debut." - Booklist"
Still Life Las Vegas is one of the most startlingly assured debut novels I've ever read. James Sie's writing is gorgeous and the story is heartbreaking. I am in awe." - Augusten Burroughs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Running with Scissors and This is How
"Still Life Las Vegas is powerful, comical, and it breaks your heart. I did not want it to end." - Diana Wagman, author of The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets
"James Sie took me on the most amazing ride. Intriguing, textured characters fill this debut novel. The charming illustrations compliment this gem of a story that will forever change how we see that (in)famous desert city of Las Vegas." - Noel Alumit, author of Letters to Montgomery Clift and Talking to the Moon
This information about Still Life Las Vegas was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
James Sie was born and raised in Summit, NJ., the son of immigrant parents, a Chinese father and an Italian mother. After attending Northwestern University, he lived in Chicago for many years, working as an actor and an award-winning playwright of literary adaptations. Currently, he lives in Los Angeles with his husband and son, where he works as a voiceover artist in animation, most notably in Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness; King of the Hill and Jackie Chan Adventures.
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