Made in the U.S.A. (Letts)

Made in the U.S.A.
Billie Letts, 2008
Grand Central Publishing
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446582452

Summary
Lutie McFee's history has taught her to avoid attachments...to people, to places, and to almost everything. With her mother long dead and her father long gone to find his fortune in Las Vegas, 15-year-old Lutie lives in the god-forsaken town of Yankton, South Dakota with her nine-year-old brother, Fate, and Floy Satterfield, the 300-pound ex-girlfriend of her father. While Lutie shoplifts for kicks, Fate spends most of his time reading, watching weird TV shows and worrying about global warming and the endangerment of pandas.

As if their life is not dismal enough, one day, while shopping in their local Wal-Mart, Floy keels over and the two motherless kids are suddenly faced with the choice of becoming wards of the state or hightailing it out of town in Floy's old Pontiac. Choosing the latter, they head off to Las Vegas in search of a father who has no known address, no phone number and, clearly, no interest in the kids he left behind.

Made in the U.S.A. is the alternately heartbreaking and life-affirming story of two gutsy children who must discover how cruel, unfair and frightening the world is before they come to a place they can finally call home. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—1937
• Where—Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—B.A., Southeast Missouri State University
• Awards—Percy Walker Award
• Currently—lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Billie Letts is the author of numerous highly acclaimed short stories and screenplay, and a former professor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. Her first novel, Where The Heart Is, won the Walker Percy Award, sold more than three million copies, and became a major motion picture. Her second novel, The Honk and Holler Opening Soon, was named the first "Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma" selection. Her third novel, Shoot the Moon and her fourth novel, Made in the U.S.A. were both New York Times bestsellers. Billie Letts is a native Oklahoman, and currently lives in Tulsa. (From the publisher.)

More
Betts was married to professor-turned-actor Dennis Letts, from 1958 until his death from cancer in 2008. Dennis served as Billie's editor for her novels. Together they had three sons: Dana Letts; playwright and actor, Tracy Letts; jazz musician and composer, Shawn Letts. (From Wikipedia.)

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Book Reviews
In a second Letts title where a pivotal event occurs at a Wal-Mart (the first was the author's bestseller Where the Heart Is), two long-neglected kids have to fend for themselves—and quickly. After their father's ex-girlfriend, Floy, who is their guardian, drops dead at the chain's Spearfish, S.D., megastore, 15-year-old Lutie McFee persuades her 11-year-old brother, Fate, to take off in Floy's Pontiac to their long-gone dad's last known address, a fleabag hotel in Las Vegas. There, they discover discouraging secrets about their father's whereabouts. Lutie gets fake working papers and a string of dead-end jobs. But with the threat of foster care looming, Lutie and trivia-mad Fate are soon at the mercy of child predators. Letts (whose son Tracy won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) manages this potentially maudlin or lurid material with a frank lyricism, delivering a heartbreaking tale about love, loss and survival that will stick with the reader long after the last page is turned.
Publishers Weekly

(Adult/high school.) After the sudden death of Floy, her father's 300-pound girlfriend, 15-year-old Lutie McFee flees Spearfish, SD, with her 11-year-old brother, Fate. With only an apartment address to guide them, the siblings head toward Las Vegas in Floy's Pontiac, in search of the father they haven't seen or heard from in a year. Lutie's defiant personality lands the pair in a number of dangerous and precarious situations. However, her equally dominant determination drives her to do almost anything to protect her intellectual and withdrawn brother. When she is almost beaten to death during a robbery, a mysterious protector, Juan Vargas, comes to their aid. After getting medical treatment for her, Juan transports Lutie and Fate to his hometown in Hugo, OK. While Fate discovers a world of wonder and happiness, Lutie struggles to accept the support that is being offered to her. The ending, while unlikely, is satisfying and emotionally rewarding. Teens will immediately be drawn into the story by Lutie's feisty personality as well as the adventure, and ultimate hardship, of living by your wits. Recommend this one to those who enjoy gutsy protagonists, gritty plotlines, and fairy-tale endings.  —Lynn Rashid, Marriots Ridge High School, Marriotsville, MD
School Library Journal

Letts (Shoot the Moon, 2004, etc.) returns with another uplifting tearjerker, this time about an orphaned brother and sister who face travail before finding love and acceptance within an Oklahoma circus family. Fifteen-year-old Lutie McFee's mother is long dead. Her alcoholic father has decamped to Las Vegas, leaving Lutie and her 11-year-old brother Fate in the care of his latest girlfriend Floy. When Floy drops dead at Wal-Mart, tough but lovable Lutie and precocious but friendless Fate head to Vegas to find their father. By the time they arrive and discover he's died in prison, they're flat broke. Lutie earns money any way she can, including posing for porn, while Fate sells lost golf balls when he's not hanging around the library or the elementary school he hopes to attend. After a rape and a few other humiliations, Lutie, who has also developed a cocaine habit, is robbed and badly beaten. Fortunately, Lutie and Fate have a guardian angel. Juan Vargas, who has been helping them anonymously since their arrival, now saves Lutie. A former aerialist with Cirque de Soleil until a fall ended his career and left him disabled, Juan drives the McFees to Oklahoma where his family runs a circus. Juan has his own emotional baggage; having left Vargas Brothers Circus years earlier, he never returned to face his heartbroken father. Instead, after his accident, Juan drifted into addiction until joining AA (which he describes glowingly although he never attends meetings). In Oklahoma, Fate almost immediately feels at home, making his first real friend and learning to fish. Recuperating from her attack, Lutie at first resists the care offered by Juan's grandmother Mama Sim, but once she reveals to Mama Sim her deepest, guiltiest (most trite) secret, Lutie is emotionally ready to accept the love the Vargas family offers. And through Lutie's talent as an aerialist, Juan finds his own way back into the family fold. So much travail, so much uplift! So much phony plotting and superficial characterization.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions
1. This novel revolves around a brother and a sister who have both experienced hard times, but react to their plight quite differently. How would you describe their relationship to each other and their contrasting reactions to hardship?

2. Fate, as a younger sibling, seems to need Lutie more than she needs him. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

3. Early in the novel, Lutie makes the choice to flee Spearfish rather than risk being put in foster care. Toward the middle of the novel, Fate says to Lutie: “Well, maybe we should have stayed in Spearfish after Floy died. Sure, we would’ve gone on to foster care, but maybe we would’ve been lucky. Both of us might’ve gone with a nice family.” What do you think of Lutie’s decision? Do you think Lutie and Fate might have been better off if they’d been put in foster care?

4. Lutie often acts recklessly and impulsively. Why do you think she often puts herself and Fate in such dangerous situations—such as when she and Fate pick up Michael, the hitchhiker?

5. Much of this book is set in Las Vegas, a place known for its glitz and glamour and its promise of wealth, fame, and happiness. The Las Vegas described in the book, however, is a very different sort of place. Why do you think Billie Letts chose to set most of this book in Las Vegas?

6. How does Lutie change after the incident with her boss at the Desert Palms Motel?

7. Do you like Lutie? Do you empathize with her?

8. Juan Vargas helps Fate and Lutie out many times while they are in Las Vegas, but he does not reveal himself to them until later in the novel. Why doesn’t Juan identify himself to the children initially? He is a loner, so why is he drawn to these children?

9. Mama Sim is incredibly kind to Lutie and Fate. Why do you think she welcomes the children into her home so easily and why is she so tolerant of Lutie’s behavior?

10. Why is Juan Vargas insistent on returning to Las Vegas before his father comes home? Do you understand his reluctance to come back home?

11. How does Fate grow throughout the novel, and in particular, how does he change after he meets Johnny?

12. Why is Lutie so intent on leaving Mama Sim’s house, even after Fate asks her to stay? Why is it so hard for Lutie to accept love and help?

13. How are Lutie and Juan alike? In what ways do they learn from each other throughout the course of the book?

14. How is the word “family” defined in this novel? Juan describes his family as a “tribe.” Is there a difference between tribe and family?

15. Made in the U.S.A. is the story of two children’s journey to find a home. Do you think they’ve found one at the end of the novel?

16. Discuss the very last scene of the novel. Do Lutie and Fate seem changed from the beginning of the novel? Do you like the way Letts chose to end the novel or would you have ended it differently?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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