Synopses & Reviews
"A gorgeous, Technicolor take on America in the middle of the twentieth century." —Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Nickel Boys
From the award-winning, bestselling author of Chang & Eng and Half a Life, a new novel about Lucille Ball, a thrilling love story starring Hollywood's first true media mogul.
This indelible romance begins with a daring conceit — that the author's grandfather may have had an affair with Lucille Ball. Strauss offers a fresh view of a celebrity America loved more than any other.
Lucille Ball — the most powerful woman in the history of Hollywood — was part of America's first high-profile interracial marriage. She owned more movie sets than did any movie studio. She more or less single-handedly created the modern TV business. And yet Lucille's off-camera life was in disarray. While acting out a happy marriage for millions, she suffered in private. Her partner couldn't stay faithful. She struggled to balance her fame with the demands of being a mother, a creative genius, an entrepreneur, and, most of all, a symbol.
The Queen of Tuesday — Strauss's follow-up to Half a Life, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award — mixes fact and fiction, memoir and novel, to imagine the provocative story of a woman we thought we knew.
Review
"Strauss's ambitious metafictional latest (after the NBCC Award-winning memoir Half a Life) blends autobiography and family history in an investigation of celebrity, memory, and the legacy of ambition." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Part elegy, part mystery, part speculative memoir....Strauss is a beautiful and funny and piercing writer, and this book is a gift." Karen Russell, author of Orange World and Other Stories
Review
"The Queen of Tuesday is a beautiful cinematic story....Like The Great Gatsby, Strauss's novel reminds us that ghosts unseen who remain deeply felt renew our hearts' most passionate yearnings and ambitions." Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko
About the Author
Darin Strauss is the author of the bestselling novels Chang and Eng, The Real McCoy, and More Than It Hurts You; the memoir Half a Life, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; and a bestselling comic-book series, Olivia Twist. These have been New York Times Notable Books and Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, and NPR best books of the year, among other honors. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Library Association award, and numerous additional prizes, Strauss has been translated into fourteen languages and published in nineteen countries. He is the clinical professor of fiction in the graduate writing program at New York University.