Lucy Star

Cathy Cassidy

Puffin Books

0141383267

Aug 2007

Mouse, familiar to readers of Cathy Cassidy’s debut novel, ‘Dizzy’, makes a reappearance and meets with his counterpart in Cat in this latest novel by Cathy Cassidy. The spirit of egalitarianism alongside soulful attempts at self-expression and personal evolution run through ‘Lucky Star’. The novel opens as Mouse, Martin Kavanagh, writes a letter to his headteacher, Mr Brown, apologising for the graffiti art he daubed on the school premises. Mr Brown, however, is unconvinced as to the sincerity of the apology.
Following a meeting with his social worker, Mouse bumps into Cat, whom it transpires is a petty shop-lifter. The two of them form an alliance and are able to relate parts of their past to one another.
Together the pair help Mouse’s mother re-establish the Phoenix Centre, the drugs rehabilitation centre in the ironically named ‘Eden Estate’, following its destruction in an arson attack. Cat and Mouse become convinced that the vicious circle the estate is trapped within can be broken and so they embark upon carrying out vigilante style retribution. Whilst this is, in part, successful, it throws them into the arms of the police whereupon the secrets they have kept concealed from one another are revealed with huge consequences.
The phoenix motif in the novel is particularly apt to this story about rebirth and regrowth. Cathy Cassidy has paired the importance of responsibility against the essential nature of self-expression in this heart-warming, life-affirming tale.