These Days: A Tale of Nostalgia on a Burlesque Strip

By Margo Christie

"As original as it is addictive. A truly compelling read that is worthy of high praise." - Publisher's Weekly Independent Review.

Fueled by a passion for classic Hollywood movies and her jazz musician father's tales of a time when "every hole-in-the-wall bar had a band," 14-year-old Becky Shelling dreams of a career in show biz. It's 1974, hardly a high point in jazz history when trumpeter Ernie Shelling disappears, abandoning his daughter to an abusive stepmother, an indifferent stepsister and a step brother-in-law who lusts after her behind his wife's back. For solace, Becky befriends Carolyn Kibble, upstairs neighbor and barmaid at her dad's former haunt, the Half-Mile Bar. But it's the attention of smooth-talking Lenny Moss that Becky really craves. Taking her to work for him on Baltimore's "World-Famous Block," Lenny inadvertently leads Becky down a path of self-discovery on a once-stylish, now-decrepit adult-entertainment strip, where everyone has a tale about the good old days, but nothing is quite as it seems. As Becky struggles to reconcile her life as Lenny's mistress/star performer with the realization that her father's disappearance was no accident, THESE DAYS juxtaposes past and present, myth and reality in ways that challenge her notion of the "good old days."

" Margo Christie] paints the characters and settings with pinpoint accuracy." - Andy Bienstock, on-air host, WYPR, Public Radio in Baltimore
" These Days] is personal tale that is at once intriguing and touching. Any creative young person struggling for self-expression will be able to identify with this beautifully written story." - Charles Kelly, veteran reporter and author of Grace Humiston and the Vanishing

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FG3DXYBZ
• ISBN13: 9798285017608
• Release Date: May 2014
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"