WILDFLOWERS

A trio of female musicians in need of second chances struggles to find harmony in this emotionally resonant novel.

Robie introduces us first to Gloria Redmond, a brash, magnetic country/pop veteran living among chickens, dead snakes, and kooky neighbors. “She’s spent, out of the game,” Robie writes in her buzzing present-tense prose, describing how pesky reporters might characterize the aging musician. Her career ended with a messy divorce from her ex-husband–turned-manager, yet she can’t quite let go of the limelight. Honey Conaway, a onetime rising star from Baltimore who sang backup for Elton John, has fallen hard after industry rejection but persists: “Let me die singing, she thinks. Let me die happy.” Serafina, a slick pop icon with a stalled career, considers reinvention through female collaborations, leading to a failed project that leaves Gloria and Honey reeling—until Sian Harper, an infamous punk singer with a grown-out mohawk and custody battles, joins them in Staten Island to make their own music. At a small house, the big personalities collide and commingle. The women soon get into drunken brawls, intense writing sessions, and startling revelations that all fuel a new sound. It could return them to the spotlight, though what endures most may be their lasting respect and friendships. Robie treads familiar ground—the rise and fall of stars, the brutal realities of aging in an industry obsessed with youth, the eccentric personalities of artists. But her prose crackles with wit and verve, making it all feel fresh. Through Gloria’s rebellious outbursts (“The city can go to hell”) or Honey’s sharp awareness of the expectations on Black women artists (“Like everything else in the music business, the vision was negotiated”), Robie defines her characters in precise, memorable strokes. With candor, humor, and an eye for both the absurd and the heartbreaking, she reinvigorates the reality of music-making in a fickle industry ruled by algorithms.

A novel that strikes familiar chords, but with dazzling energy and specificity that creates something wholly new.