Would I have given this more stars if I hadn't found myself w tears streaming down my face the other night while watching 'The Best of Youth' aka La meglio gioventù an Italian film directed by Marco Tullio Giordana ?

First curiosity then pathos take over the viewer's response to the characters, to a consideration of family, brotherhood, parenthood, childhood, sanity, caring, empathy and whether it is possible for justice to play a fair part in a topsy turvy world.

Guests on earth examines some of the same themes but in such a different milieux and from a very different narrative perspective .

There are sympathetic psychiatrists and maddening patients in both stories, a juxtaposition of health and infirmity , vigor and frailty, the sane and the insane, the institution or collective and the family or the loner .



( )

3.5 stars, rounded up. This is the first novel I have read by North Carolinian author Lee Smith, but it likely won't be my last. Although the book may be marketed in a way that plays up the Zelda Fitzgerald connection, what truly interested me the most about was the depiction of life at Highland Hospital in the late 1930's and 40s. The tale largely revolves around the fictional stories of women patients at the hospital, from the perspective of narrator Evalina Touissant, and how mental illness (perceived or real) was treated during this time period. ( )

interesting read but it never really went anywhere. felt more like short stories, loosely connected and lacking depth. ( )

Well written and enjoyable. ( )

I liked this but I found myself thinking 'This is not plausible' or feeling like I could see the narrative gears grinding the plot into place which interrupted my enjoyment of the novel. ( )