Sarah McCoy's charming seventh novel, Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely?, combines a lush, compelling story of young love and Hollywood glamour with a quiet, nourishing narrative of a woman who found her true vocation thousands of miles from stardom. McCoy (The Mapmaker's Children) explores the motivations that led a rising young starlet to abandon her career for a lifetime tending gardens--and her own soul--in the woods of Connecticut. Inspired by several real-life actresses turned nuns, including Mother Dolores Hart, McCoy's novel asks important questions about one's calling, love, and whose opinion really matters.
In 1990, Lori Lovely's niece and namesake, Lu, travels to the abbey where Lori lives to interview her aunt about her abrupt career change and her life as a nun. McCoy chronicles the young ingenue's transformation from Lucille Hickey to Lori Lovely. McCoy creates a thoroughly detailed mid-century world, as Lori goes out dancing at London nightclubs or shoots scenes in an Italian villa. In the later Hollywood scenes, the movie glitter is mixed with a hefty dose of darkness, a sharp contrast to the eventual peace of the convent and its bucolic setting.
As Lu presses her aunt for answers about her life, she unearths a few hard-won insights about her own--both her past and her uncertain post-college future. Meanwhile, Lori reflects on her life and the choices--large and small--that made her the woman she eventually became. Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely? draws the reader in with an unlikely gown-to-habit costume change, but its true appeal is in its quiet contemplation of choices, challenges, and how they shape a person's life. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams