Diane P. (KentuckyReader) - reviewed on 4/15/2011 + 37 more book reviews

I loved this book. It was the first book i have read by Kaye Gibbons and it certainly will not be my last. It was very well written and in an easy, conversational dialogue.

The book details the lives of grandmother Clarissa "Charlie Kate" Birch, a smart, stubborn, quirky, self-taught alternative healer/midwife, the mother, Sophia, the most romantic of the family, and main character and daughter Margaret, practical, intelligent, yet romantic- are unique, they stand out from the average woman of the 1930s-1940s of the South. Yet at the same time, they have the same basic desire, to be loved and respected, as anyone else.

The story is told from granddaughter Margaret's point of view but mainly centers around the grandmother, the hero of the family. Charlie Kate is the larger-than-life character, an "Ubermensch." Charlie delivers babies, heals with herbs, reads two books a week, saved a person from a lynching; sewed body parts together, treated malaria, and comforted the dying, along with directing the lives of her daughter & granddaughter.

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