Synopses & Reviews
This is why I have had to come back now, traveling these dusty old back roads one more time. For I mean to tell my story, and I mean to tell the truth. I am a believer in the Word, and I am not going to flinch from telling it, not even the terrible things
Florida Grace Shepherd, eleventh child of the itinerant, snake-handling Reverend Virgil Shepherd, grew up traveling across the Appalachian South. In her heart, she raged against the constant hardships that her parents insisted were part of the Lords plan. As she got older, she learned of her fathers backsliding” with other women, and watched as it drove her mother to an early grave.
Returning to Scrabble Creek, where her happiest memories took place, Grace recounts the harrowing journey of her life with the Lord, from her travels with her father to the day she finally broke free of him only to marry another preacher much older than she, as well as her own stumbles along the rocky and winding path to her own redemption.
Review
Praise for SAVING GRACE:
"Evocative...Lyric, poetic and subtly cosmic...her best yet." --San Francisco Chronicle
"Lucid in execution, breathtaking in scope and hear-rending in effect--a redemptive work of art." --The Washington Post Book World
"A Compelling journey into all matters southern and spiritual." --The Boston Sunday Globe
"Smith is peerless at evoking an entire world with a detail or two...The comedy is rich, and the sense of place is intense." --Detroit Free Press
Review
“A lively, warmhearted, wickedly perceptive and extremely funny book.”—
Newsday
“Immensely difficult to put down.”—The Village Voice
“With great skill, humor, and understanding, Smith gradually reveals the Hess family linen for all to see.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“A childhood memory relived through hypnosis, a funeral that brings about a family reunion, and the evacuation of a swimming pool on the site of an old well uncover a family secret in this darkly humorous novel…In the course of the story all the familys dirty linen is aired and Smith provides a behind-the-scenes look at life in a small Southern town.”—The Christian Science Monitor
Synopsis
Ivy Rowe, Virginia mountain girl, then wife, mother, and finally "Mawmaw," never strays far from her home-but the letters she writes take her across the country and over the ocean. Writing "to hold onto what's passing," she tells stories that are rich with the life of Appalachia in words that are colloquial, often misspelled, but always beautiful.
From childhood, when teachers encouraged her gift for language, to her rebellious teenage years when she swore against motherhood-only to then become a mother-and on through life, Ivy writes with insight, honesty, and a passion for living that is sure to be infectious.
Synopsis
When Sybill Hess drives over to the hypnotists 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 womans stammer. But what Dr. Diamond uncovers from Sybills subconscious goes much deeper than her nervousness over a new tenant who seems to want a date. A shocking memory from Sybills past threatens to upend everything she thinks she knows about herself and her family. But is it even real?
About the Author
Lee Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels, including Saving Grace and The Last Girls. One of the most distinctive literary voices to portray the American South, Smith has won the O. Henry Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, and the Southern Book Critics Circle Award.