This a quiet and charming read about friends and relatives who live in rural Georgia. No plot - just great character studies that remind me of the people who lived in the small town where I grew up. Check out the everyday lives of this group to see how they are affected by age, love and change. Enjoy their comments about birds, gardening, cooking, agriculture, livestock, and, yes, people watching. Humor flows through the pages giving continuity and linking the characters through their experiences and encounters.
The characters include two retired schoolteachers, Hilma and Meade, friends who are very different. Hilma is gentle, thoughtful and kind but Meade tells it like she sees it. They are friends with Eula, indispensable member of her family. Meet Tom, her divorced son, who loves cars. He has a son who lives with his exwife in California but spends summers with his father and grandmother.
Louise, Eula's sister, probably has Alzheimer's disease but her family showers her with love, tolerating her belief that aliens are attracted to arrangements of letters, numbers, and shiny objects. For this activitye she teams with Bruce, a a typographer, who is vacationing in the area.
Louise's daughter, Ethel, is a schoolteacher and Roger's ex-wife. She's a bit of a sex-loving kook. A local celebrity, Roger is a plant pathologist whose specialty is peanut diseases, holds sminars and publishes articles on the topic.
Roger is attracted to unusual women so it's no surprise that he finds newcommer Della interesting. In fact, women of all ages seem to love him. Della came to the area to paint birds and gives her studies simple titles like chickens, ducks, etc. They meet at the dump where she takes items she no longer needs or wants leaving criptic notes such as "This fan works, but it makes a clicking sound and will not oscillate."
As the author introduces the characters the reader learns about topics such as nematology, controlled forest fires, a rare 1914 GE fan, painting chicken feet (according to Della), and folk tunes. Using portraits about wonderfully quirky people, see how time changes life while people so caught up in their own lives do not seem notice until it's done. I think one has to be ready for a quiet sensitive read like this. I know I was because I really liked it.
This is the third book I have read by Bailey White, and although her characters are fun, and created based on real people, I don't enjoy her style of writing. This book felt very much like her short stories, it was very choppy with both stories and characters. It ended in a completely strange and abrupt manner as well. Perhaps she is setting up for a sequel? it's a quick, fun read, but not my favorite author.
This was a delightful, light hearted story. Very interesting characters, a little romance and a little craziness all tossed together.
No deeper message or long-lasting impact, but I really enjoyed reading this book.
Read by the author - good audio cassette for a long commute or vacation trip.
