Set against the backdrop of the early 1960s Chicago jazz scene, a highly ambitious and stylish literary debut that combines the atmosphere and period detail of Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility with the emotional depth and drama of The Memory Keeper's Daughter , about a talented but troubled singer, her precocious ten-year-old daughter, and their heartbreaking relationship. It is the early 1960s, and Chicago is a city of uneasy tensions—segregation, sexual experimentation, free love, the Cold War—but it is also home to one of the country’s most vibrant jazz scenes. Naomi Hill, a singer at the Blue Angel club, has been poised on the brink of stardom for nearly ten years. Finally, her big break arrives—the cover of Look magazine. But success has come at enormous personal cost. Beautiful and magnetic, Naomi is a fiercely ambitious yet extremely self-destructive woman whose charms are irresistible and dangerous for those around her. No one knows this better than Sophia, her clever ten-year-old daughter. For Sophia, Naomi is the center of her universe. As the only child of a single, unconventional mother, growing up in an adult world, Sophia has seen things beyond her years and her understanding. Unsettled by her uncertain home life, she harbors the terrible fear that the world could end at any moment, and compulsively keeps a running list of practical objects she will need to reinvent once nuclear catastrophe strikes. Her one constant is Jim, the photographer who is her best friend, surrogate father, and protector. But Jim is deeply in love with Naomi—a situation that adds to Sophia’s anxiety. Told from the alternating perspectives of Sophia and Naomi, their powerful and wrenching story unfolds in layers, revealing Sophia’s struggle for her mother’s love with Naomi’s desperate journey to stardom and the colorful cadre of close friends who shaped her along the way. Sophisticated yet poignant, Last Night at the Blue Angel is an unforgettable tale about what happens when our passion for the life we want is at sharp odds with the life we have. It is a story ripe with surprising twists and revelations, and an ending that is bound to break your heart. “ Last Night at the Blue Angel is many things, all of them hugely admirable: a delineation of what it means, in technical and emotional terms, to be a singer; a plea, if not a demand, for tolerance; a panegyric to the liberating power of passion; and perhaps most importantly, one of the most evocative renderings of a child’s precocity and appreciativeness in the face of a mother’s distracted self-absorption―and how it actually feels to be in thrall to someone else’s happiness―since Mona Simpson’s Anywhere But Here .” - Jim Shepard, acclaimed author of Like You'd Understand, Anyway “A fascinating and extraordinarily moving first novel populated by complex, sympathetic characters and told in such gorgeous, poetic prose that you’ll frequently stop to linger over the sentences. Rebecca Rotert is the real deal. It doesn’t happen that often.” - Ron Hansen, acclaimed author of Atticus and Mariette in Ecstasy “One of the most evocative renderings of a child’s precocity and appreciativeness in the face of a mother’s distracted self-absorption―and how it actually feels to be in thrall to someone else’s happiness―since Mona Simpson’s Anywhere But Here .” - Jim Shepard, acclaimed author of Like You'd Understand, Anyway “A fascinating and extraordinarily moving first novel populated by complex, sympathetic characters and told in such gorgeous, poetic prose that you’ll frequently stop to linger over the sentences. Rebecca Rotert is the real deal. It doesn’t happen that often.” - Ron Hansen, acclaimed author of Atticus and Mariette in Ecstasy “A striking discovery, filled with surprises both marvelous and shocking. As the story weaves back and forth in time, spinning out the lives and dreams of a mother and a daughter, the language itself sings in moments of poignant beauty.” - Lauren Belfer, bestselling author of City of Light and A Fierce Radiance “A striking discovery, filled with surprises both marvelous and shocking. As the story weaves back and forth in time, spinning out the lives and dreams of a mother and a daughter, the language itself sings in moments of poignant beauty.” - Lauren Belfer, New York Times bestselling author of City of Light and A Fierce Radiance “A poignant tale.” - NY Daily News “A narcissistic single mom and an only daughter who is wise beyond her years. The storyline isn’t new to fiction, but Rebecca Rotert’s first novel, Last Night at the Blue Angel , offers an engagingly fresh and poetic take on the familiar relationship. . . . [but] the novel’s real strength is in watching Sophia gradually learn to make sense of her fractured life.” - Columbus Dispatch “[A] delicious debut . . . While Naomi may perform on stage, it is her daughter Sophia who steals the show and gives this novel its considerable heart.” - Chicago Tribune, Editor'