Download or read book Fair and Tender Ladies written by Lee Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-07-05 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A tour de force." LOS ANGELES TIMES Ivy Rowe may not have much education, but her thoughts are classic, and her experiences are fascinating. Born near the turn of the century in the Virginia Mountains, Ivy's story is told completely through letters she is forever writing, and that you will forever want to read.... "Few readers will be dry-eyed as they watch this extraordinary woman disappear around that last bend in the road." CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Download or read book Guests on Earth written by Lee Smith and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Reading Lee Smith ranks among the great pleasures of American fiction . . . Gives evidence again of the grace and insight that distinguish her work.” —Robert Stone, author of Death of the Black-Haired Girl It’s 1936 when orphaned thirteen-year-old Evalina Toussaint is admitted to Highland Hospital, a mental institution in Asheville, North Carolina, known for its innovative treatments for nervous disorders and addictions. Taken under the wing of the hospital’s most notable patient, Zelda Fitzgerald, Evalina witnesses cascading events that lead up to the tragic fire of 1948 that killed nine women in a locked ward, Zelda among them. Author Lee Smith has created, through a seamless blending of fiction and fact, a mesmerizing novel about a world apart--in which art and madness are luminously intertwined.
Download or read book The Last Girls written by Lee Smith and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty-five years after a trip down the Mississippi on a raft with their classmates, four women are reunited to cruise the river once again where they plan to release the ashes of a fellow rafter, Margaret "Baby" Ballou.
Download or read book Black Mountain Breakdown written by Lee Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crystal Spangler lives in rural Appalachia. She's the apple of her mother's eye -- not yet beautiful, but she will be. She's the most popular girl at Black Rock High. She makes cheerleader, gets good grades, and is elected beauty queen. Crystal discovers God, goes to college, and falls in love. When she comes home, she's disheveled and confused. Crystal becomes a wealthy politician's wife. But there's something calling her, drawing her back to where it all began, in the shadow of Black Mountain . . .
Download or read book Family Linen written by Lee Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Sybill Hess drives over to the hypnotist’s office, she hopes he can cure her of the headaches interrupting her sleep the way her friend Betty once saw a woman on TV cure a woman’s stammer. But what Dr. Diamond uncovers from Sybill’s subconscious goes much deeper than her nervousness over a new tenant who seems to want a date. A shocking memory from Sybill’s past threatens to upend everything she thinks she knows about herself and her family. But is it even real?
Download or read book Oral History written by Lee Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-12-06 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The best novel so far by a writer whose growth has been steady and sure . . . . [Oral History] tells the story of the Cantrell family and the odd curse that its members believe to have hung over them. It is a tale that begins in the late 19th century with Granny Younger, the midwife, and continues well into the 20th century through several generations of Cantrells; it is also a tale deeply rooted in the folk culture of the Appalachians, a tale that in the best tradition of folklore contains 'story upon story.'" -- The Washington Post Book World "A novel as dark, winding, complicated as the hill country itself. . . You could make comparisons to Faulkner and Carson McCullers, to The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Wuthering Heights. You could employ all those familiar ringing terms of praise: 'rare,' 'brilliant,' 'unforgettable.' But Lee Smith and Oral History make you wish all those phrases were fresh and new, that all those comparisons had never before been made. For this is a novel deserving of unique praise." -- The Village Voice "Deft and assured . . . She is clearly drunk on the language of Appalachia, on its stories and its people . . . . She is nothing less than masterly." -- The New York Times Book Review
Download or read book The Devil s Dream written by Lee Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now back in print from the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Girls. It was in 1833 or '34 that Moses Bailey brought young Kate Malone down to Cold Spring Holler to be his wife. But Moses, wanting to become a preacher like his daddy was, left Kate time and again to look after the kids while he went out in search of a sign from God. Though he warned them about the evils of playing the fiddle, a kind of music he likened to the devil's own laughter, it passed the time for his bride and children, and soon became not just a way of life for the Baileys, but a curse that would last for generations.
Download or read book Wildings written by Eleanor Glewwe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Rivka, one of the magical elite, embarks on a quest to find her twin brother, Arik, who was sent away when he failed to develop his own magical abilities"--
Download or read book Mrs Darcy and the Blue Eyed Stranger written by Lee Smith and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lee Smith is a "teller of tales for tale tellers to admire and envy . . . [and] a reader’s dream" (Houston Chronicle). A celebrated and bestselling writer with a dozen novels under her name, including Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, and The Last Girls, she is just as widely recognized for her exceptional short stories. Here, in Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger, Smith collects seven brand-new stories along with seven of her favorites from three earlier collections. The result? A book of dazzling richness. As the New York Times Book Review put it, "In al- most every one of [her stories] there is a moment of vision, or love, or unclothed wonder that transforms something plain into something transcendent."
Download or read book Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison Bobbie Ann Mason and Lee Smith written by Paula Gallant Eckard and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dreadful Wind Rain written by Diane Gilliam and published by Red Hen Press. This book was released on 2017-04-24 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning author of Kettle Bottom, a sequence of fairytale-inspired narrative poems concerning the life of a troubled girl. Once upon a time, there lived a girl whose story was not her own . . . So the story goes: Neglected and abused by her family, eclipsed by her elder and more beautiful sister, a young girl longs for happily-ever-after, for something, someone to rescue her. She is soon swept away into the next chapter of her life: marriage—a promising world mirroring Old Testament stories and fairy tale traditions. But loving just anyone and living the age-old “ever-after” narrative, as it turns out, fails to bring true happiness after all. Dragged down by a destructive marriage, her sister’s continued manipulations, and the growing weight of roles and expectations created by others at her back, she must choose between continuing in her familiar, complacent life, or boldly breaking free—and finally making her own way. Named for an Appalachian murder ballad in which a girl is drowned by her sister, this lyrical fairy tale unseats expectations for what it means to live a fairy tale life, revealing the powerful force that comes from stripping away the traditional roles and beginning to write a story all your own. Praise for Dreadful Wind & Rain “Ache and lift and veracity tambourine through these lines and stanzas. This . . . collection exults its power inside our ears and through our hearts in a rich, stinging, marvelous way . . . I believe that Diane Gilliam is incorruptible as a poet.” —Nikky Finney, poet, winner of the National Book Award for Head Off & Split
Download or read book The Ballad of Laurel Springs written by Janet Beard and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-07-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A provocative new novel by the nationally bestelling author of THE ATOMIC CITY GIRLS, about nine generations of one family in Eastern Tennessee whose women, in eerie echoes of the notorious Appalachian murder ballads made famous by singers, over more than a century, have been traumatized by acts of violence"--
Download or read book Dimestore written by Lee Smith and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A memoir that shines with a bright spirit, a generous heart and an entertaining knack for celebrating absurdity.”—The New York Times Book Review “This is Smith at her finest.”—Library Journal, starred review Set deep in the mountains of Virginia, the Grundy of Lee Smith’s youth was a place of coal miners, tent revivals, mountain music, drive-in theaters, and her daddy’s dimestore. When she was sent off to college to gain some “culture,” she understood that perhaps the richest culture she would ever know was the one she was leaving. Lee Smith’s fiction has always lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. But never before has she written her own story. Dimestore’s fifteen essays are crushingly honest, wise and perceptive, and superbly entertaining. Together, they create an inspiring story of the birth of a writer and a poignant look at a way of life that has all but vanished.
Download or read book The Art of Saying Goodbye written by Ellyn Bache and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Bache writes straight from the heart, peopling her pages with characters you will never forget.” —Lee Smith, author of Fair and Tender Ladies “Ellyn Bache draws her characters from the inside.” —Baltimore Sun Critically acclaimed author Ellyn Bache captivates with The Art of Saying Goodbye, a beautiful and poignant story of four suburban women who gain new insights and appreciations of their own lives when a much-loved neighbor falls gravely ill. In the tradition of Kristin Hannah’s Firefly Lane and Marisa de los Santos’s Belong to Me, Bache’s The Art of Saying Goodbye is a beautiful and touching story of friendship, love, commitment, and self-discovery that will enthrall readers of Jodi Picault and Jill Barnett.
Download or read book One Foot in Eden written by Ron Rash and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2004-01-03 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Will Alexander, sheriff of a small town in southern Appalachia, is baffled by a murder case with no body and no suspect, and sets out to find the truth about what really happened to a local thug.
Download or read book The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed written by Lee Smith and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 1994-03-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "That whole summer is as clear and as still in my head as the corsage under the glass bell in Mrs. Tate's parlor. Even now, summers and summers since, I can remember everything. I remember the day summer started." So begins Lee Smith's disarming first novel, written while she was an undergraduate at Hollins College and a winner in 1968 of the Book-of-the-Month Club Writing Fellowship Contest. The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed, set in a small southern town at midcentury, tells the story of nine-year-old Susan, for whom the first bright, carefree, promise-filled days of summer slowly evolve into a time of innocence lost and childhood illusions shattered. Susan's mother is vain and frivolous, her father loving but distracted, and her sister, several years her senior, is coping with the first stirrings of serious love. Susan's circle of young friends is joined for the summer by Eugene, the frail, strange nephew of a neighbor. As the months pass, Susan witnesses the disintegration of her parents' marriage and learns from Eugene the cruelty people sometimes resort to. Lyrical and fanciful in spite of its dark moments, The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed puts on ample display the remarkable talent that has made Lee Smith one of our most popular writers of fiction.
Download or read book Cold Mountain written by Charles Frazier and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wounded Confederate soldier treks across the ruins of America in this National Book Award–winning novel: “A stirring Civil War tale told with epic sweep.” —People Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, a Confederate soldier named Inman decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge mountains to Ada, the woman he loves. His journey across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign. Meanwhile, the intrepid Ada is trying to revive her father’s derelict farm and learning to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away. As it interweaves their stories, Cold Mountain asserts itself as an authentic odyssey, hugely powerful, majestically lovely, and keenly moving.
