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Screaming Divas by Suzanne Kamata
Publication Date: May 18th, 2014
Publisher: Merit Press
Pages: 208
Genre: YA Contemporary
At sixteen, Trudy Baxter is tired of her debutante mom, her deadbeat dad, and her standing reservation at the juvenile detention center. Changing her name to Trudy Sin, she cranks up her major chops as a singer and starts a band, gathering around other girls ill at ease in their own lives. Cassie Haywood, would-have-been beauty queen, was scarred in an accident in which her alcoholic mom was killed. But she can still sing and play her guitar, even though she seeks way too much relief from the pain in her body and her heart through drugs, and way too much relief from loneliness through casual sex. Still, it’s Cassie who hears former child prodigy Harumi Yokoyama playing in a punk band at a party, and enlists her, outraging Harumi’s overbearing first-generation Japanese parents. The fourth member is Esther Shealy, who joins as a drummer in order to be close to Cassie–the long-time object of her unrequited love–and Harumi, her estranged childhood friend. Together, they are Screaming Divas, and they’re quickly swept up as a local sensation. Then, just as they are about to achieve their rock-girl dreams, a tragedy strikes.
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from The
Screaming Divas
By Suzanne Kamata
Trudy got her hands on a guitar. Actually, it was her father’s guitar, the one
he’d played in his band. The instrument
had a history of smoky bars, fields of wild flowers, park benches, Greyhound
buses. It had been all over the place,
probably even Dahomey.
She was going to ask to borrow it, but when
she dropped by Jack’s apartment, he wasn’t home. Trudy decided to cart the guitar off
anyhow. He never played it any more and
besides, he might say no if she asked him to loan it to her. He didn’t trust her so much since all the
trouble with Adam.
She’d practice and innovate and turn
herself into a brilliant performer. And
then she’d start a band. It would be the most exciting thing to hit the town since
General Sherman. Yeah, these were good
thoughts.
By day, she practiced. By night, she hung out at The Cave, playing
records or slamming on the dance floor.
During breaks, she looked for musicians in the Pink Room.
“Hey, Maddy. I’m starting a band. Wanna join up?”
Her roommate Madeline tossed a lock of
black hair out of her eyes. “You must be
out of your mind.”
Trudy shrugged. She asked Jeff, the David Bowie
lookalike. She even asked Johnny
Fad. People laughed, blew smoke in her face. Sometimes they just turned away as if they
hadn’t heard her at all.
Why did everyone treat her proposition like
some sort of joke? She was as serious as
she’d ever been. The more she practiced,
the more she knew that her dreams lay in music.
She closed her eyes and saw herself on the stage, crooning into a mike
while a huge crowd lit and lofted their Bics in tribute.
When people were drinking and dancing, they
weren’t in the mood for serious talk.
She had to find another way to put her band together.
Trudy made a flyer with scissors and
magazines and Elmer’s glue. When she was
finally satisfied with her work, she rode her housemate’s rickety bicycle to
Kinko’s and made a hundred copies. Then
she ran around Five Points with a staple gun and plastered them to every
telephone pole in sight. When she was
finished, she went back to the apartment, picked up her guitar, and waited for
the phone to ring.
“Hey, what’s this?” Madeline barged into
her room just after midnight, smelling of booze and smoke. She waved one of Trudy’s flyers in the air
between them.
“I’m starting a band,” Trudy said. “I told you already.”
Madeline shrugged. “Yeah, whatever. I wish you hadn’t put our phone number down,
though. We’ll get half a million calls
from creeps.”
Trudy didn’t answer. Why was Madeline being such a bitch? She looked really cool with her tattooed
shoulder and asymmetrical haircut, but sometimes she could be totally square.
“I’ll get my dad to buy us an answering
machine,” Trudy said. “That way we can
screen calls.”
Madeline nodded, seemingly consoled, and
wandered off to her room.
Trudy giggled softly. Jack would never fork out cash for something
like that, but the lie had worked.
The first call came at noon the next day.
“Hey, I’m calling about the band,” a
gravelly voice said.
“What do you play?”
“Bass, drums, whatever. I’m versatile. Hey, wait.
You sound really familiar. What’s
your name?”
“Trudy Sin.”
“Hey, I know you. You’re that firestarter.” The line went dead.
Later, Southern Bell called about an
overdue phone bill. The manager at
Yesterday’s, where Madeline waited tables, called asking Madeline to report to
work early. Someone dialed a wrong
number.
Where were all the budding musicians, the
soulmates in tune with her dreams? Trudy
set aside her guitar and put on some music.
She threw herself on the bed and let Patti Smith comfort her.
How was she ever going to start a band?
Maybe she could go solo – set up a drum
machine and play the guitar herself. She
wracked her brains trying to come up with someone who’d gotten famous without back-up. Her mind went blank.
Two nights later, when she came home from a
trip to the Quick Mart down the street, Madeline greeted her with, “You got a
phone call. Someone wants to join your band.”
“Great. Who?” She pictured a pale, black-haired guy in
leather, a guitar strapped across his hard-muscled body.
“I dunno.
She said she’d call back.”
She?
Well, okay. This could be
good. A girl group. Yeah, that’s the ticket. They’d be like the Supremes with
instruments. The Gogo’s with
attitude. It would be a good gimmick,
something to get them started while they developed as a band.
{Giveaway}
5
signed copies of Screaming Divas of Screaming Divas with five $25 gift
cards.
Open Internationally.
Available when the book releases.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
About the Author:
Back in the day, Suzanne Kamata spent a lot of time hanging out in a club in Columbia, South Carolina, much like the one in Screaming Divas. (The beat goes on . . .) She later wrote about musicians for The State newspaper, The Japan Times,
and other publications. Now, she mostly writes novels. In her free
time, she enjoys searching for the perfect fake fur leopard-print coat
and listening to the Japanese all-girl band Chatmonchy. Her YA debut, Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible was named the 2013-2014 APALA YA Honor Book and Grand Prize Winner of the Paris Book Festival. For more info, visithttp://www.suzannekamata.com or follow her on Twitter @shikokusue.
This seems to be really well-written, and this book looks like a great one that i can add to my reading list, by the way, are the gift cards from a specific online store like amazon or barne&nobles or can we choose which? Thanks for the great opportunity!
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