Lee Smith
Author
Language
English
Description
Its 1936 when orphaned thirteen-year-old Evalina Toussaint is admitted to Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, a mental institution 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 the cascading events leading up to the tragic fire of 1948 that killed nine women in a locked ward, Zelda among them.
Author
Language
English
Description
“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,...
“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,...
3) Saving Grace
Author
Language
English
Description
"LUCID IN EXECUTION, BREATHTAKING IN SCOPE AND HEART-RENDING IN EFFECT—A REDEMPTIVE WORK OF ART. . . . Lee Smith has done more than write another novel about the South. She has broken through the grotesque surface to the underground spring, the music of Scrabble Creek, and the effect is stunning—a beguiling, gentle prose formed by an honesty so severe we are brought to our knees. . . . This novel has a grand and singular purpose, to clothe...
4) Oral history
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A curse laid on the inhabitants of Hoot Owl Holler follows each succeeding generation for a century, in a tale of love, murder, obsession, and betrayal set in Appalachia.
Author
Language
English
Description
A dusty box discovered in the wreckage of a once prosperous plantation on Agate Hill in North Carolina contains the remnants of an extraordinary life: diaries, letters, poems, songs, newspaper clippings, court records, marbles, rocks, dolls, and bones. It's through these treasured mementos that we meet Molly Petree.
Raised in those ruins and orphaned by the Civil War, Molly is a refugee who has no interest in self-pity. When a mysterious benefactor...
Raised in those ruins and orphaned by the Civil War, Molly is a refugee who has no interest in self-pity. When a mysterious benefactor...
6) Dimestore
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Evenly divided between a book about Smiths process and her life, first as a Southern mountain child and, later, as the parent of a schizophrenic child, this book is interesting and compelling. Despite being surrounded by loving family and being blessed with an active imagination, Lee copes with a mentally ill mother. Later, her sons mental illness and early death brings her to the breaking point but she is saved by her writing. This is a read-alike...
Author
Language
English
Description
Nine-year old Susan lives in a small southern town, hemmed in by her family's petulance toward her -- her mother's frivolity, her father's distance, and her older sister's cruelty -- but she eagerly awaits the days of summer. This summer, Susan and her friends are joined by the visiting nephew of a neighbor, Eugene. All they plan to do is play. But it is in discovering Eugene's disturbing secrets and sorrows that Susan's life changes forever.
10) Fancy strut
Author
Language
English
Description
Speed, Alabama is frantically preparing for the event of a lifetime: Sesquicentennial Week. And all her proud citizens are kicking up their heels in a lively, pompous fancy strut.
Language
English
Description
"In this anthology of creative nonfiction, twenty-eight writers set out to discover what they know, and don't know, about the person they call 'Mother.' ... Writers Lee Smith and Samia Serageldin have curated a diverse and insightful collection that challenges stereotypes about mothers and expands our notions of motherhood in the South. The mothers in these essays were shaped, for good and bad, by the economic and political crosswinds of their time....