The next two books in my summer reading roundup couldn’t be more different from each other. I’ll start with my friend Ellen Morris Prewitt’s very special novel The Hart Women. Ellen’s prose and moving points of view of the various characters reminded me of Carson McCullers’ A Member of the Wedding. There’s also a lingering fragrance of Eudora Welty in Ellen’s writing. This wonderful book deserves a serious review, but I’m just not up to the task right now, as I’m recuperating from surgery just last Thursday and my energy and mental alertness haven’t returned yet.
But it isn’t just Ellen’s prose and memorable setting and characters that make The Hart Women such a special book. Combine all that with Marisa Whitsett Baker’s hand-binding, which Ellen describes for us on her blog.
Ellen and Marisa will be at Novel Memphis on July 25. Get your tickets here for this special event. I can’t wait to hear Marisa talk about her process in hand-binding books, and I always love to hear Ellen talk about writing. Two amazingly creative women.
My fourth book of summer reading was Gail Honeyman’s first novel Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was surprised, entertained, and intrigued from the first page to the last. There’s an element of what I’m going to call “mental health mystery” that reminded me a bit of A Beautiful Mind. I fell in love with Eleanor from the beginning, empathized with her intense suffering, and never saw the ending coming until it came, and then wow.
Again, please forgive these poor attempts at book reviews (which they aren’t) as I continue to recover and get my energy back. Also, I’m having to learn a new version of WordPress, which is challenging. I hope you are enjoying the new look on my web site, and I hope I figure out how to maneuver it better soon! Thanks always, for reading, and please sign up to receive updates. I’m also going to eventually have a newsletter, but again, more learning curve for me!
Thank you so much, Susan! I know your standards are high—you do great reviews—but this is wonderful. I’m so grateful. I hope the remnants of the surgery bow out soon, and you feel all back to normal.
I enjoyed your event at Novel last night. I just now figured out how to approve and reply to comments on my “newly renovated” blog. Did you see Robert Connolly’s comment? I agree. THE HART WOMEN is a lovely work of art!
I very highly recommend Ellen Morris Prewitt’s The Hart Women. An intergenerational story set in Mississippi, I was intrigued from the first page and finished the entire book in just a couple of sittings. I particularly enjoyed that the story, though set in what I perceived as a Yazoo City Delta city, is worldly in its perspective. That is, the characters were well-developed and went beyond the stereo-typical cliches of Southern women, and men for that matter – not your predictable Southern Gothic.
A bonus is that the book is handprinted and bound and is simply a delight to hold and read.
If you are looking for a fresh approach on Southern fiction you will not be disappointed!
Thanks, Robert. I loved the book, and last night I went to her event at Novel Books here in Memphis, where she discussed the book and did a reading . . . AND Marisa Whitsett Baker, who did the hand-binding of each book, explained her process. These books are truly works of art!