Me and My Baby View the Eclipse
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4.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
“Extremely powerful…Me and My Baby View the Eclipse is about striving and the secret nobility of people who live in a small-town American South. In these stories—thank heaven—not everything fits: they are loose, they are sometimes awkward, but just about every one shines with revelation and awe in the face of momentary greatness and tragedy.…Nearly every one of these stories could move a reader to tears, for in almost every one of them there is a moment of vision, or love, or unclothed wonder that transforms something plain into something transcendent.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Remarkable…Lee Smith is a Southern storyteller in the very best tradition, combining an unmistakable voice with an infallible sense of story.… Her craft is so strong it becomes transparent, and, like the best storytellers, she knows how to get out of the way so the story can tell itself.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“From its wonderful title to its final sentence, this book brims with the poetry of the South.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Marvelously entertaining…These are stories you want to read again to catch all the things you missed the first time around."—The Boston Globe
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Smith's accurately portrayed South ( Fair and Tender Ladies ; Cakewalk ), class consciousness, tradition and a strong sense of place (anybody not born in the South is a ``foreigner'') are of vital importance. Her characters, in blue-collar or the lowest of white-collar jobs, live mundane lives illuminated by flashes of yearning. With few exceptions, the women in these nine short stories have seen one or more marriages collapse; in two of the tales, the protagonists are still stunned by their husbands' departures. These are women trained to be gallant and to carry on; to take care of elderly parents and be polite at all costs. On the other hand, they are inflexible in their desire to preserve the status quo, and are surprised when life runs away from them. Only one character dares to make a break from orderly existence; this is the male protagonist of the touching ``Intensive Care''--who leaves his wife and children and marries a waitress. One story, parodying a Silhouette romance, is unsuccessful; the others gain significance from Smith's insights and the graceful, effortless prose that places her characters firmly in their regional--yet universal--milieu.
