Reviews for Under magnolia : a southern memoir
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
Mayes, adored for her famed Tuscany books (Under the Tuscan Sun, 1996; Every Day in Tuscany, 2010), mined the murky depths of her family's history for her first novel, Swan (2002). She now returns to the scene of the crimes in both literal and figurative senses. Her southern memoir is a tale straight out of Faulkner, rife with episodes of dissipation and disillusion, parents who loved and fought with equally wild abandon, and ancestors with names like Big Mama and Daddy Jack. While on a book tour in Oxford, Mississippi, Mayes realized her southern roots ran deeper than she believed or would have liked. But she and her husband were sufficiently compelled to relocate from Northern California to North Carolina, settling in a university town with a far enough remove to allow her an objective distance from which to analyze the signature episodes of her childhood. With her trademark skill for capturing the essence of place and time, Mayes candidly reveals a youth riddled with psychological abuse and parental neglect that, nevertheless, ignited a fiery passion for adventure and self-discovery. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A best-selling sensation worldwide, Mayes will galvanize readers with this vigorously promoted coming-of-age tale set on her home terrain.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2014 Booklist
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Here Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun) returns to her childhood in Fitzgerald, GA. As in her earlier memoirs, the author brings her hometown to life using descriptions of smells and tastes that are particular to place. Mayes explores the hold that landscape, home, and family had over her in childhood; her need to build a new life elsewhere; and her subsequent desire to return home to the place-the South-that most shaped her. Among the family members she discusses are her beautiful, fragile mother, Frankye; her unpredictable father, Garbert; and the family maid, Willie Bell. Mayes now divides her time between Tuscany and North Carolina. VERDICT Fans of Mayes's work will appreciate knowing more about the forces that shaped her, and fans of Southern memoir will appreciate that it is indeed possible to go home again.-Pam Kingsbury, Univ. of North Alabama, Florence (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
