The Farewell Tour
Set over a period extending from the main character’s childhood in the Great Depression to her late singing career in the 1980s, The Farewell Tour is rich in historical touches and will appeal to fans of American culture and country music alike.
The novel is the second by a New York Times bestselling author with a no-nonsense ear for both narrative and dialog; the style is well-paced and accessible without sacrificing depth. The story follows the life and challenging career of Lillian Waters, a country music singer with roots reminiscent of Coal Miner’s Daughter and an arc which resonates more with that of the character played by Bette Midler in The Rose.
Like the latter story, the pseudonymic “Water Lil” opens the novel with a singing tour taking her back to her hometown and forcing her to seek closure in confrontation. Lil is suffering from medical issues with her vocal cords, a device familiar to fans of diva vocalists, and facing the end of her career in her mid-50s as a result. Perhaps the richest characters are the small towns and honky-tonks themselves, giving voice to the surprising and fascinating regional cultural diversity of the American West still discoverable in the last century. The diversity does not disguise the structural racism and sexism of the time, however, and characters such as the Asian-American bluegrass fiddler Kaori, whose parents were shipped to an internment camp during the war, frame Lil’s own struggle to survive in the fact of the conflicting themes of sexualization and shame that marked the public perception of women performers of the time.
Her final tour stop is both book-end and epiphany for a woman who had sacrificed self-awareness for a life lived in the minds of others. Recommended reading.
