Summer In the South

Summer always puts me in the mood for Southern literature. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's because, like the South, life feels slower in the Summer than during other times of the year. Whatever it is, the season calls for revising some favorites, which just happen to have equally delightful film adaptations:

Fried Green Tomatoes At the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg
When Cleo Threadgood and Evelyn Couch meet in the visitors lounge of an Alabama nursing home, they find themselves exchanging the sort of confidences that are sometimes only safe to reveal to strangers. At 48, Evelyn is falling apart: none of the middle-class values she grew up with seem to signify in today's world. On the other hand, 86-year-old Cleo is still being nurtured by memories of a lifetime spent in Whistle Stop, a pocket-sized town outside of Birmingham, which flourished in the days of the Great Depression. Most of the town's life centered around its one cafe, whose owners, gentle Ruth and tomboyish Idgie, served up grits (both true and hominy) to anyone who passed by. How their love for each other and just about everyone else survived visits from the sheriff, the Ku Klux Klan, a host of hungry hoboes, a murder and the rigors of the Depression makes lively reading -- the kind that eventually nourishes Evelyn and the reader as well. Though Flagg's characters tend to be sweet as candied yams or mean clear through, she manages to infuse their story with enough tartness to avoid sentimentality. Admirers of the wise child in Flagg's first novel, Coming Attractions, will find her grown-up successor, Idgie, equally appealing. The book's best character, perhaps, is the town of Whistle Stop itself. Too bad the trains don't stop there anymore. (Publisher's Weekly)

The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd
This sweeping debut novel, excerpts of which have appeared in Best American Short Stories, tells the tale of a 14-year-old white girl named Lily Owen who is raised by the elderly African American Rosaleen after the accidental death of Lily's mother. Following a racial brawl in 1960s Tiburon, SC, Lily and Rosaleen find shelter in a distant town with three black bee-keeping sisters. The sisters and their close-knit community of women live within the confines of racial and gender bondage and yet have an unmistakable strength and serenity associated with the worship of a black Madonna and the healing power of honey. In a series of unforgettable events, Lily discovers the truth about her mother's past and the certainty that "the hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters." The stunning metaphors and realistic characters are so poignant that they will bring tears to your eyes. (David A. Berone, Library Journal)

The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
 When Vivi and Siddalee Walker, an unforgettable mother-daughter team, get into a savage fight over a New York Times article that refers to Vivi as a 'tap-dancing child abuser,' the Ya-Yas, sashay in and conspire to bring everyone back together. In 1932, Vivi and the Ya-Yas were disqualified from a Shirley Temple Look-Alike Contest for unladylike behavior. Sixty years later, they're 'bucking 70' and still making waves. With passion and a rare gift for language, Rebecca Wells moves from present to past, unraveling Vivi's life, her enduring friendships with the Ya-Yas, and the reverberations on Siddalee. The collective power of the Ya-Yas, each of them totally individual and authentic, permeates this story of a tribe of Louisiana wild women who are impossible to tame.  (Publisher's Review)

Readers Abroad

While recently traveling in Madrid, Spain, I stumbled upon an outdoor book fair in Madrid's famous 300 acre park, Parque del Retiro (the former garden of Felipe IV). The book fair featured over 300 independent book vendors who sold everything from local authors, to those we might find in our very own libraries and book stores. In fact, there was a lot of popular American literature available (in Spanish), for children and adult readers alike. Based on what the vendors of juvenile literature were featuring, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid is just as popular with Europeans as it is here in the States.  Check out some of these photos and see if you spot anything familiar...

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For Mystics & Romantics

If you like Daphne Du Maurier (author of Rebecca and Jamaica Inn), you'll love Robert Goolrick's A Reliable Wife.  Like the novel Rebecca, A Reliable Wife is written in the tradition of Gothic Romance:  it features an old (haunted) house, darkness, death, revenge and lust.  Unlike Rebecca, these characteristics take on more contemporary forms:  the ghosts aren't apparitions, they're psychological; further, the romance takes on a much sexier description.  It's because of these contemporary features, which Goolrick utilizes to progress the storyline, that the novel reads in a quick, gripping fashion (I began and finished it in about 7 hours while on a flight).

The premise of the story revolves around an older single (and very wealthy) man's desire for companionship.  He thus puts an ad in the newspaper calling for "a reliable wife".  The woman who answers his ad, Catherine Land, has various motives for entering into the relationship--but none are so devious as the slow and methodical arsenic poisoning of her new husband.  The catch:  Ralph knows full well of her acts and the motives behind them.  The joy for the reader is that we do not; in fact, Goolrick leads us to the end of the novel with unexpected twists and turns that I'm not about to reveal here.  A Reliable Wife is a juicy good read, perfect for independent reading or a book club.