"Brazen, fast and wickedly smart, Billie Livingston knocks every gender stereotype you've ever held dear on its ass. Suspenseful and knowing, this novel unveils all the painful bits, the hard knocks and sacrifices between mothers and daughters - how we make each other strong."
From the Publisher:
Billie Livingstone
Hugely entertaining, irreverent and challenging, Billie Livingston’s new novel drives the bumpy road from the burlesque stages of Rat Pack Vegas to the bedroom Internet porn scenes of today, exploring just how far women have really come.
Vivian is late to her own mother’s funeral. Wearing a skintight lipstick-red suit, Vivian stands out like a pornographer’s dream amongst the raven collection of West Coast intellectuals mourning the untimely death of the famous feminist Josie Callwood. Self-medicating grief with vodka, Vivian can’t help trying to stick her finger in the eye of her dead mother’s expectations.
Dead people have a hard time protecting their secrets, and Josie has left one big surprise for her troubled daughter. When she opens a trunk in her mother’s basement, Vivian discovers that Josie wasn’t who she seemed – and that she had a flaming sexual past more exotic than anything Vivian has been able to pull off. Chasing the lies her mother told her, Vivian sets off on a road trip in which memory, reality and imagination collide to recreate the kaleidoscope world of America in the sixties. In disbelief and dawning admiration, she follows her mother’s trail through the Vegas nexus where movie stars, pop singers, strippers, politicians and the mob mingled, where the Rat Pack ruled and girls were arm and eye candy.
As she uncovers her mother’s true story, Vivian ends up confronting her own sexual lies and spiritual evasions. Billie Livingston’s fine novel leads us to consider the nature of our hidden desires – and to question whether the sky would really fall if we admitted our true needs and ceased to blush.
Reviews:
Globe and Mail “Provocative but wildly fun, [Livingston’s] second novel ably depicts the frustratingly circular route womankind has taken over the last 50 years, from a world where Barbara Billingsley vacuumed in pearls to one where Jessica Simpson vacuums in panties... Cease to Blush is proof that issue fiction is still being written, and very well too." (Best of 2006 Fiction)
The Vancouver Review "With Cease to Blush, Livingston has made her rep as one of the most dangerous writers you will ever be lucky enough to encounter."
January Magazine "Livingston writes beautifully, even soulfully and Cease to Blush is her best work to date." (Best of 2006 Fiction)
Vancouver Sun Review "With its parallel stories, Cease to Blush is a well-crafted, thought-provoking novel about women's beauty and vanity and where it can take them and how a person's exterior can hide an unknown story." (Editor’s Choice)
National Post “Wonderful energy, brisk pace, snappy dialogue.”
The Owen Sound Sun-Times “A bit of a sendup of a second wave feminism, it's a great and rapid read that you won't be able to put down until the last pastie is gone.”
Georgia Straight “What makes the book fascinating is Livingston’s willingness to let her narrator make whole chapters up. Vivian, lost and alone, with nothing but scraps and hearsay, constructs a credible past for her mother. Is it true? Undoubtedly not. Is it authentic? It’s balm to Vivian’s grieving heart and a razzle-dazzle tour of the glam-tastic ’60s, so why not?”
Books in Canada "Cease to Blush, by poet and novelist Billie Livingston, is an immensely readable tale of two women: Vivian Callwood, erstwhile model and actress, and her mother Josephine, a famous feminist academic. These are not the gals on the Mother’s Day cards; this relationship is a bitter blend of hopes unmet, expectations defied, and approval withheld."
Women’s Post “(Livingston) has created two irresistibly flawed heroines...Cease to Blush is an entertaining and titillating trip through the darker side of human sexuality.”
The Buzz (BC Medical Journal).pdf “I can enthusiastically recommend it...The story is packed with interesting history entwined with speculation and a journey into adulthood. Like a mixed-up friend Vivian is frustrating sometimes, but Cease to Blush is so well told that you are willing to forgive her as she sorts herself out.”
"I found it so juicy and gripping that I stayed up until 5 a.m. and devoured
the 462-page book in one sitting."
Yummy Mummy Club --January 2007
"We asked Yummy Mummies what their 'yummiest' read of 2006 was. Over 50% chose Cease to Blush by Billie Livingston! So, we've made it our pick of the month. Karen from Vancouver writes, 'It's a book about who mothers are to their daughters and vice versa, a book that makes you question who it is you're rebelling against and why. It's the Odyssey, The Edible Woman and a lot of laughs all rolled up.’”
“For writer, Billie Livingston, every person she encounters is a potential character in a novel.”
“…a hilarious, fast-paced and thought-provoking novel that alternates between 1960s Las Vegas, where we meet mobsters, politicians and entertainers like Frank Sinatra, and current day Vancouver, where Vivian struggles to make a living as an actress and ends up enmeshed in Internet porn."
Available through:
as well as larger online retailers such as
CBC's SOUNDS LIKE CANADA with host Jian Ghomeshi.
"In Cease to Blush, Billie Livingston has written a fascinating novel — one with chapters that have been entirely made up by the narrator.”
Hear the entire interview in QuickTime format.
Photo: Peter Battistoni/The Vancouver Sun
