Lee Smith (1) (1944–)

’ve been wanting to read this ever since I first heard about it several years ago, and thanks to receiving a copy from Anita Endrezze as a gift this Christmas (or was it for my birthday?) - anyway I know it was in December – I wasted no time.

Fifteen essays that take us from Lee Smith’s childhood in the Appalachian mountain town of Grundy, Virginia through her college years in Roanoke, Virginia, and conclude in North Carolina with the book’s publication in 2016. This is a memoir that is also a coming-of-age story and a discourse on writing.

In addition to the memories of her childhood and growing up years, I found her thoughts about writing and imagination were perceptive treasures that any good writer would value. Just like Edora Welty’s commentary in One Writer’s Beginnings, this book contains thoughtful observations and honest reflections on the craft of writing. For instance, she takes a mentor’s advice to “Get your head out of them clouds, honey. Pay attention.” And Lee writes: “I’ve been trying to pay attention ever since, realizing that writing is not about fame, or even publication. It is not about exalted language, abstract themes, or the escapades of glamourous people. It is about our own real world and our own real lives and understanding what happens to us day by day, it is about playing with children and listening to old people.”

Yes, this is a memoir about growing up in the Appalachian Mountains – but more than that it is a collection of brilliant observations and amazing insights about writing. This is the book for you if you want to enjoy personal and succinctly written essays chronicling the development and growth of a writer.… (altro)

In the summer of 1965, twelve girls from a women's college, inspired by reading Huckleberry Finn in an American literature class, decide to recreate his ride down a raft on the Mississippi.  Thirty-four years later, four of them - Harriet, Courtney, Anna, and Catherine - agree to meet on a steamboat cruise from Memphis to New Orleans, to spread the ashes of a fifth, their former roommate/suitemate, Baby (aka Margaret).  She had died recently in a car wreck, and her widower had requested that they do this.

The cruise provides the framework for their reminisces of that 1965 trip (and other college activities), as well as their own individual pasts and presents.  Each chapter is told from the viewpoint of a different girl, and there are even some chapters told from the viewpoint of Russell, Catherine's third husband, who came with her on the trip.

Harriet is a college teacher, never married.  Courtney's still married to the man she dropped out of college to wed, but he's cheated on her for years - so she's also had a long-standing affair going on.  Anna is divorced and a successful romance writer, and Catherine is a sculptor.  Harriet and Anna were scholarship students, while the other three came from wealthy families.

All of the women are Southerners (from Virginia, West Virginia, Alabama, and North Carolina), and the cruise of course is in the deep South, and writing about Southerners and the South is author Lee Smith's forte.  The novel was inspired by a similar raft trip she took with Hollins College classmates in 1966, although she makes clear in the acknowledgments (page 383) that the book is "truly fiction....but the idea of river journey as metaphor for the course of women's lives has intrigued me for years."

They're the "last girls," because, according to Harriet (page 71), "they'd call us women in the newspaper if it [the raft trip] happened now."

I enjoyed this book.  I could relate to the characters to some extent, despite being about 12 years younger.  I went to an all-girls high school in Houston, where many of the girls were wealthy, but I was on scholarship.  Our high school still offered home economics classes then (they haven't for some time).  There was a group of eight to ten of us who were close in high school and college, but drifted apart as we got older - especially in my case, as I was the one who didn't return to our hometown after college, eventually living over 2000 miles away for over 20 years.  Like the women in the book, I wasn't especially close to any of these girls 34 years later.

I also enjoyed the snippets of a cruise experience in the book, and could relate to those.  Although I've never been on a Mississippi riverboat cruise (but would like to go), the Caribbean and Hawaii cruises I've been on had a lot of similarities.  Particularly funny was the couple who shared a dinner table with the five women and Russell (who, by the way, was a hoot).

I did at times have trouble following the quick switches between past and present in the chapters, and I don't understand why Smith felt a need to add a chapter at the end (after the end of the cruise) that summarized the lives of the other seven girls on the 1965 raft trip.  And I also felt the book left some questions - what did Harriet and Courtney end up doing in New Orleans - and how did Baby really die?… (altro)

I had a couple other books by Lee Smith on my to-read list, and this one came up as available now, so being the appropriate season, I checked out The Christmas Letters.  It's a epistolary novella told through (mostly) Christmas letters to friends and family from 1944 to 1996 (not every year though), written by a woman (Birdie), one of her daughters (Mary), and one of her granddaughters (Melanie).  As I've been writing a Christmas newsletter (now mostly e-mailed rather than snail-mailed with my cards) since 1987, I could relate, although some of these letters were far more detailed - and revelatory of character - than anything I write.

Birdie's letters, beginning as a young mother living with her in-laws far from her home while her husband Bill serves in World War II, were the most interesting.  They end with Bill's death in 1967, and Mary begins writing letters the same year.  Her letters, reflecting a lot of societal changes, end with a New Year's letter in 1995, and there is one letter from Melanie for the next year.

Each letter ends with a recipe.  The book was a quick read, but felt a little lacking - maybe because there wasn't enough of Melanie's life in it.  But the book was published in 1996, the same year as Melanie's single letter.… (altro)