Catch a fallen star

both a vivid psychological portrait and a tale of adventure, catch a fallen star traces the journey of billy ray smith, a lost soul who learns the meaning of love and sacrifice. at the story's outset, billy ray is a stardom-seeking professor whose life is an elaborately maintained sham. he falsifies research data to climb the academic ladder, marries for money, and then cheats on his wife by sleeping with students. billy ray's greed and lust are driven by memories of his father, a cruel man who disrespected women and believed in looking out for one person alone himself. but in spite of billy ray's faults, his compassion for outcasts of every stripe is extraordinary from interracial couples to lesbians to homeless people. haunted by his mother, who taught him that he should be honest and kind, unlike his father, and motivated by his own feelings of empathy from having suffered as a child, billy ray decides to flee his old life when his misdeeds finally catch up with him. billy ray ends up becoming the ultimate outcast a fugitive from the law. after faking his death, he takes on the identity of loren buyers, a stranger whose death billy ray witnesses in new orleans. as a university student in montana under the name of loren buyers, billy ray's life is transformed by dorothy, a passionate writer and environmentalist, who teaches billy ray that real love requires sacrifice.