The Sky Club

It is the winter of 1929, and Josephine Salter’s mother is dying. A final wish for her only daughter is that she leave rural North Carolina and make a life that her mother can only imagine. Soon after, Josephine moves to Asheville and reinvents herself as the modern woman Jo, independent and in pants. With a gift for numbers, Jo finds work at the local bank, an inconvenient place to be with the Great Depression looming. Thankfully her life is more than accounts; she’s attracted to Levi Arrowood, the enigmatic manager of the Sky Club, a speakeasy Jo frequents to enjoy jazz music and apple brandy. Roberts (My Mistress’ Eyes Are Raven Black) is adept at Southern fiction. But there is a frustration to the unlikely good fortune of his protagonist. Tragedy unfolds around Jo in every direction, yet in the end things always work out for her and often improve her life even as she moves further into Levi’s underground world of bootlegging. It does keep the plot light-hearted and easy, despite the difficulties of the early 1930s.