Helpful Score: 3
Enthralling, familiar, hilarious, poignant and a quick read. one of Gibbons best.
Helpful Score: 3
A story that traces the bonds between four generations of resourceful Southern women through stories passed from one generation to another.This novel is set from the 1920s to the 1990s and reiterates Kaye Gibbons's most persistent theme: that the really important thing in life is family.
Helpful Score: 3
This story traces the bonds between four generations of Southern women through stories passed from mothers to daughters to grandaughters. Very easy read and hard to put down. Enjoyable and well written
Helpful Score: 3
not a page in this novel doesn't sing! great read!
Helpful Score: 3
Great story. I read it in one day. Richly woven story, traces the bonds between 4 generations of Southern women through oral stories passed from mother to daughter to granddaughter. Witty, explosive story you won't want to put down.
Helpful Score: 2
From Library Journal
This episodic novel, Gibbons's third, is set during the Depression in back-country Virginia and Kentucky. In 19 vignettes, Betty Davies Randolph reveals her childhood and her mother's life along Milk Farm Road. Gibbons, winner of several literary awards for her first novel Ellen Foster ( LJ 4/15/87), has captured magnificently the dailiness and sense of community of rural life--from midwives and WPA ballads to suicides and men gone wild. Southern, and full of the folk wisdom of generations, Gibbons's voice reveals life's truths: "Listen and hear what men call their wives. . . . It's easier without a mother at a borning. . . . The ears are the most important parts of a baby." Times are tough--Betty's father kills himself and is found upside down on his head in the river with "rocks on either side, like bookends"--but the women are amazingly resilient; they help each other survive. As an old woman, Betty dies in "her chair talking, chattering like a string-pull doll," but the reader is assured that the storytelling will go on through her daughter and "the sounds of the women talking." Recommended.
This was the second book I read of Kaye Gibbons and I enjoyed it very much. Ms. Gibbons has quite a grip on the Southern experience and depicts it well in this story. She also has a special gift for weaving the experiences of several generations reminding us we are created from many people's pasts and we are the foundation for many people's future.
This episodic novel, Gibbons's third, is set during the Depression in back-country Virginia and Kentucky. In 19 vignettes, Betty Davies Randolph reveals her childhood and her mother's life along Milk Farm Road. Gibbons, winner of several literary awards for her first novel Ellen Foster ( LJ 4/15/87), has captured magnificently the dailiness and sense of community of rural life--from midwives and WPA ballads to suicides and men gone wild. Southern, and full of the folk wisdom of generations, Gibbons's voice reveals life's truths: "Listen and hear what men call their wives. . . . It's easier without a mother at a borning. . . . The ears are the most important parts of a baby." Times are tough--Betty's father kills himself and is found upside down on his head in the river with "rocks on either side, like bookends"--but the women are amazingly resilient; they help each other survive. As an old woman, Betty dies in "her chair talking, chattering like a string-pull doll," but the reader is assured that the storytelling will go on through her daughter and "the sounds of the women talking." Recommended.
This was the second book I read of Kaye Gibbons and I enjoyed it very much. Ms. Gibbons has quite a grip on the Southern experience and depicts it well in this story. She also has a special gift for weaving the experiences of several generations reminding us we are created from many people's pasts and we are the foundation for many people's future.
Helpful Score: 2
A good read. I like Gibbon's portrayals of Southern women and she's a good storyteller.
Helpful Score: 2
A VERY QUICK FUN READ.
Helpful Score: 2
This is a very fast read story about a daughter and her relationship with her Mother. I enjoyed the book.
Acclaimed author Kaye Gibbons writes about 4 generations of southern women.
This is described as a Large Print edition, but I can't find anything on the book claiming it to be large print. The print though, is larger than normal books, so I suppose it is...it's just not labeled on the book as such. This is a quick read and my first by Gibbons...I intend to read more by her.
from the back cover; "four generations of Southern women...prevailing over hard times and heartless men and finding unexpected pleasures along the way: gossip, gambling, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing more than they're supposed to."
