Product Details
Atria, May 2009
eBook, 368 pages
ISBN-10: 1416586016
ISBN-13: 9781416586012
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Chapter 1Description
From political commentator, book author, and multimedia personality Farai Chideya comes an intense and darkly funny debut novel about a woman who learns what you stand to gain -- and lose -- if you follow your dreams of fame.
Sophie Maria Clare Lee doesn't have the résumé of a rock star. She grew up a book-smart black girl in blue-collar Baltimore, then remade herself at Harvard into a hipster with an appetite for self-destructive men. One of them is the mesmerizing Ari Klein, a charismatic and handsome black-biracial trust-fund baby. Ari is her Harvard classmate, the man she toured America with as part of an indie rock band right after college, and -- by the time we meet Sophie at the start of the novel -- her ex-husband.
Ten years after graduation, Sophie has made a career as a music television host in Manhattan. But she's grown restless of interviewing pop culture icons and wannabes enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame. Spurred into a one-night musical reunion with Ari in order to help a friend, Sophie decides it's time to stop playing the good girl and snatch back the mic. She wants to be the next "It girl" in the music media circuit.
Sophie has the talent and drive to take her game to the next level despite the odds. She lands a record deal -- with the help of a new manager and paramour, Leo Masters -- but quickly discovers that her celebrity status brings new risks for her sense of self and even her safety. As she and Ari begin to play music together again, Sophie, Leo, and Ari also enter a complicated love triangle. It puts her in personal jeopardy just as she's beginning to achieve commercial success. With a Greek chorus of advice from her two best girlfriends from Harvard, Sophie tries to figure out how she relates to these two men, the music business, her loving but demanding extended family, and her penchant for alcohol and melancholy. As the band tours America, Europe, and Africa, will Sophie's faith, family, and friendships crumble under the weight of her dogged fight for fame?
Related multimedia
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1. Farai Chideya: Kiss the Sky02:5627802950001 -
2. Farai Chideya: Revealed00:4127796597001 -
3. Farai Chideya: My Pet Peeve00:5227798140001
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How did you come to write this book?
I spent my time in my 20s as a club kid, going out 4 or 5 nights a week in the electronica, dance, and rock scenes. I later covered the entertainment world. I decided to take some of the real life dramas most of us deal with--love, family--and the heightened ones of our times (drugs, money)--and put them in the context of a world I've, frankly, only seen a tantalizing part of.
"This effervescent novel hits the right note every time. It may end up being a defining novel of the Obama generation."
-- Colin Channer, author of The Girl with the Golden Shoes
"Kiss the Sky crackles with raw energy...Farai Chideya's prose is smart, fast, clever, and addictive, with not only a breathless tension in the literary flow, but infused with musicality. You'll be rooting for Sophie to navigate her way through her relationships, her corporate television job, divey clubs, family dynamics, European music tours, industry sabotage, and self sabotage. Once you start reading, you won't be able to put this book down."
-- Lalita Tademy, author of Cane River and Red River
"Farai Chideya brings her unique brand of freshness, humor, and heartbreak to Kiss the Sky. You'll feel the heat of the lights and hear music on every page of this pop culture insider's peek behind the curtain at the elusive quest for love and fame. This novel was a rare treat!"
-- Tananarive Due, American Book Award winner, author of Joplin's Ghost and Blood Colony
"There are few that can sum up the social political, yet cultural divides and collides like Farai Chideya."
-- Chuck D, Public Enemy
"Captures the New York music scene at the turn of the millennium...memorable cast of side characters."
-- Publishers Weekly
"Engaging shout-out to the rock-and-roll life."
-- Booklist
Newsday, July 4, 2009
...lives, but they knew one - Michael Jackson - and they liked him. Author and former NPR commentator Farai Chideya says Jackson was the first black global superstar to succeed at removing race from consideration. 'When Sidney Poitier won the ...
San Fransico Examiner, July 1, 2009
...Farai Chideya talks about her new book, ?Kiss the Sky,' at Book Passage at the Ferry Building. Who?s in town Author, journalist and radio host Farai Chideya talks about her ...
