Beginner's Luck: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) [Paperback]

Laura Pedersen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2003 | Series: Ballantine Reader's Circle

“There could be no doubt left in anyone’s mind that my life had all the makings of a country-and-western song.”

The second of seven children (with another on the way), Hallie Palmer has one dream: to make it to Vegas. Normally blessed with an uncanny gift for winning at games of chance, she’s just hit a losing streak. She’s been kicked out of the casino she frequents during school hours, lost all her money for a car on a bad bet at the track, and has been grounded by her parents. Hallie decides the time as come to cut her losses.

Answering an ad in the local paper, she lands a job as yard person at the elegant home of the sixty-ish Mrs. Olivia Stockton, a wonderfully eccentric rebel who scribes acclaimed poetry along with the occasional soft-core porn story. Under the same wild roof is Olivia’s son, Bernard, an antiques dealer and gourmet cook who turns out mouthwatering cuisine and scathing witticisms, and Gil, Bernard’s lover, whose down-to-earth sensibilities provide a perfect foil to the Stocktons’ outrageous joie de vivre. Here, in this anything-goes household, Hallie has found a new family. And she’s about to receive the education of her life.

From a wonderful new voice in fiction comes the freshest and funniest novel to barrel down the pike since Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café. In Beginner’s Luck, Laura Pedersen introduces us to the endearing oddballs and eccentrics of Cosgrove County, Ohio, who burst to life and steal our hearts–and none more so than Hallie Palmer, sixteen, savvy, and wise beyond her years, a young woman who knows life is a gamble . . . and sometimes you have to bet the house.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Hallie Palmer, a 16-year-old gambling whiz kid, gets kicked off her Ohio high school's soccer team for skipping class, she quits school altogether. With her parents and six siblings breathing down her neck, she also decides to leave her chaotic home, hiding in the summerhouse of the Stocktons-the delightfully quirky family for whom she's just started doing yard work. Pedersen (Going Away Party), a wunderkind in her own right who had a seat on the floor of the American Stock Exchange at the age of 20, uses her financial background and expertise as a childhood card shark to concoct this buoyantly zany coming-of-age tale. Hallie is at first perplexed and then captivated by the Dickensian residents of the Stockton manse. There's the enthusiastically eccentric, multi-cause obsessed Olivia, the 62-year-old grande dame of the family who takes care of her Alzheimer's-afflicted husband; Bernard, her foppish son, who owns an antique store and is a gourmet cook of outlandish theme meals; his partner, Mr. Gil, the self-proclaimed "normal one," who is into "tooth prognostication"; and Rocky, a mixed drink-guzzling chimpanzee trained to work with paraplegics. Pedersen has a knack for capturing tart teenage observations in witty asides, and Hallie's na‹vet‚, combined with her gambling and numbers savvy, make her a winning protagonist. As the first trade paperback original in the five-year-old Ballantine Reader's Circle series, this novel is funny and just quirky enough to become a word-of-mouth favorite. A preview of Pedersen's next book, an unlikely romantic comedy featuring a terminally ill Scotsman and a dying cloistered nun, also shows great promise.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Sixteen-year-old Hallie Palmer is bored with school and alienated from her family. She spends her spare time at the racetrack or crashing the secret, weekly poker game in the church basement. When she drops out of school, loses her savings at the track, runs away from home, and then is accused of robbery, it seems things have nowhere to go but up--and that's exactly what happens in this novel from Oxygen TV host Pedersen. Temporarily homeless and short of cash, Hallie takes a job as "yard person" for the quirky Stocktons and winds up finding the family she's always wanted. Olivia Stockton, a free-spirited, 60-something radical, schools Hallie in feminism, politics, and literature, while her son, Bertie, and his lover, Gil, introduce her to fine cuisine and culture. Pedersen overdoes the Stocktons' peculiarities--their household includes a bartending chimpanzee--and Hallie's incessant wisecracking soon wears thin. Still, this is a breezy coming-of-age novel with an appealing cast of characters. It's perfect book-club fare, and a reading group guide is included. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345458303
• ISBN-13: 978-0345458308
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #803,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laura Pedersen writes for The New York Times and is the author of Play Money, Going Away Party, Beginner's Luck (chosen as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection), Last Call, Heart's Desire, The Sweetest Hours, and The Big Shuffle. In 1994, President Clinton honored her as one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans. She has appeared on Oprah, Good Morning America, Primetime Live, and The Late Show with David Letterman, and she writes for several wellknown comedians. Pedersen lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kudos from an English Teacher, March 18, 2004

By 

Vivian Barnett (East Lansing, Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginner's Luck: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book to teach to high school students, probably the best I've ever come across. From the teacher's point of view there is symbolism, lovely descriptive writing including some nice similes and metaphors, great characterization, and several themes. Literary references are hidden throughout and thus suggest to the students that knowing poetry, how to write, and about books is not only fun, but can also be quite useful in life. From a students perspective BEGINNER'S LUCK is hilarious, modern, they identify with the characters and conflicts, and there's just enough fairly chaste sex scenes to keep them involved without raising any problems with parents or the school board (though the romance here is extremely mild when you consider what they watch on TV and see in the movies!). My students just loved this book and thanked me for assigning it. They completely understood the emphasis on acceptance, understanding, and the importance of friendship -- things we can never have enough of. I don't believe the novel was written with the intent of being a gold mine for teaching young adults, but then perhaps that's why my students enjoyed it so much. And they're all anxiously awaiting the sequel. In fact, one of the assignemnts was to write an outline for how they would tackle the sequel since the end is left with so many possibilities (much like their lives right now!).

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST BOOK I'VE READ IN YEARS, October 13, 2003

By 

Mickey Wallace (Atlanta, Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginner's Luck: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

Being a devoted fan of mysteries and science fiction I admit I came to "Beginner's Luck" reluctantly -- it was a double whammy of my mother's book club and extreme boredom while a knee injury healed. HOWEVER, this is one funny and charming book. It's actually hard to say that it's like this or like that. Pederson has the sense of humor of a late night comedian but combines it with believable characters and tons of charm. The scene where Hallie practically falls into a casket at a funeral is especially hilarious. There are so many terrific moments. It will make a great movie or TV series and Robert Downey Jr. should definitely play Bernard. The women in my mom's book club are mostly 50s, and loved the character of Olivia, who is about their age, but it has a lot of appeal for young people. The main character, Hallie, is 16. In fact, it shows young people with realistic problems, but also that teenagers can have fun without sex, drugs, and video games. And (cliche coming) that learning can be fun and actually serve a large purpose in life. Maybe we should make "Beginner's Luck" mandatory reading in all high schools.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not My Cup of Tea..., July 10, 2005

By 

Mercedes L. Johnmeyer "The Most Happy" (Summerville, SC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beginner's Luck: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

I got about half-way through this book and thought I'd check the reviews on it...I was floored that so many people loved it! I just had such a hard time getting into it, so much so that about 3/4 of the way through I gave up, and that hardly EVER happens to me.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a bad book, or poorly written, actually just the opposite. This book is written quite well, but I think my main problem was that I couldn't get into the story. Hallie's 16 years old and hates school. She has a bit of a gambling problem, and after losing all her car-savings on a bad bet at the horse track, she needs to find an honest job. Well, she finds one as a yard girl for the Stockton family.

This is where the story goes sour for me. I just didn't like the Stockton's and their incredible eccentricities. My mind just kept wondering off every time I picked this up. This is one of those rare books that, while I personally didn't take to it, it's not bad...get what I mean? I don't discourage anyone from reading this...but beware, it gets pretty slow in some parts, and I think you'll either love or hate the Stockton's. Oh well...better luck next time.