Farewell Tour

<p><strong>From the author of the <em>New York Times</em> bestseller <em>Everybody Rise</em> a shimmering (<em>New York Times Book Review</em>) novel with the exquisite historical detail and evocative settings of <em>The Cold Millions </em>and <em>Great Circle </em>that tells the story of one unforgettable woman's rise in country and western music.</strong></p><p>It's 1980 and Lillian Waters is hitting the road for the very last time.</p><p>Jaded from her years in the music business perpetually hungover and diagnosed with career-ending vocal problems Lillian cobbles together a nationwide farewell tour featuring some old hands from her early days playing honky-tonk bars in Washington State and Nashville plus a few new ones. She yearns to feel the rush of making live music one more time and bask in the glow of a packed house before she makes the last and most important stop on the tour: the farm she left behind at age ten and the sister she is finally ready to confront about an agonizing betrayal in their childhood.</p><p>As the novel crisscrosses eras moving between Lillian's youth--the Depression the Second World War the rise of Nashville--and her middle-aged life in 1980 we see her striving to build a career in the male-dominated world of country music including the hard choices she makes as she tries to redefine music love aging and womanhood on her own terms.</p><p>Nearing her final tour stop Lil is forced to confront those choices and how they shaped her life. Would a different version of herself have found the happiness and success that has eluded her? When she reaches her Washington hometown for her very last show though she'll undergo a reckoning with the past that forces her to reconsider her entire life story.</p><p>Exploring one unforgettable woman's creativity ambition and sacrifices in a world--and an art form--made for men <em>The Farewell Tour </em>asks us to consider how much of our past we can ever leave behind.</p>