Lee Smith. The name for me evokes memories of long days spent happily lost in books that speak to the minds and hearts of mountain girls everywhere. Oral History, Family Linen, Black Mountain Breakdown, The Devil's Dream, Saving Grace, and my particular favorite, Fair and Tender Ladies. I know so many of the women in these books, and I have been one or two of them. Thought provoking, funny, tender, haunting; each book has a meaning far beyond the story. The richness of detail about mountain life, the deep understanding of the people and their ways and thoughts, and above all the portrayal of the changes that the modern world has inflicted on a proud people are woven into the stories.The Friends of the Library in Floyd, with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, is hosting a wonderful series of author talks entitled "Celebrate the Past/Look to the Future". Lee Smith was the speaker at last night's gathering at the Presbyterian Church in Floyd, Virginia. Surrounded by wooden paneled walls, purple carpet and stained glass, Lee Smith was as charming and funny as her books. Haunting as well, as she spoke of personal experience and personal loss, inspiration for the writer from Grundy who grew up surrounded by story. Mountain people love story, playing with words and evoking emotion with family tales, complicated jokes and the richness of memory. Lee Smith's writings capture this love.She spoke most about her more recent book, The Last Girls, another favorite of mine. I didn't realize that part of the plot was based on a trip she took in college down the Mississippi on a raft. Smith's description of this trip and the girls she traveled with rocked the large audience with laughter. Readings from the book describing the characters, accented in a true mountain voice, were both hilarious and touching. The charm of the writer echoed the charm of her books; she was funny, tender, thought-provoking and haunting, just like her written words.She also talked about Fair and Tender Ladies, a novel written during a time of personal crisis for her. I think for a true writer the characters often take over the book, and Smith talked of Ivy Rowe, the main character in Fair and Tender Ladies, as if she were a friend. Ivy Rowe is the one character in all of her books that I can call to mind as a complete person. She is plucky and sensuous, proud and loving. Some of the reason may be that I saw an actress portray the character several years ago at the Reynolds Homestead here in Patrick County. After the program the director introduced favorite cousin and me to the actress. Mary startled me by describing me as sensuous. A bit of self-realization there, thanks to Lee Smith.I looked around the audience as Lee Smith spoke. Floyd County is a unique blending of cultures. Women with deep roots that span generations in these mountains sat with women of different backgrounds, drawn to Floyd by the beauty of the countryside and feeling of community. Every face has a story, all unique, but all about the experience of being women in changing times. Lee Smith has captured these stories in the pages of her novels, speaking with tender understanding of the mountain people that are so often misrepresented and ridiculed. Speaking with pride in an accent that is fast becoming rare because of outside influences, these novels, as fiction, reveal more than truth about a disappearing time and generation.
Lee Smiths beautiful prose in this story told through the letters of Ivy Rowe made my heart and mind sing with nostalgia. This story follows the stubborn and very wise Ivy from a young girl at the end of the 18th century to a very old woman in the mid 1900's. Though poor and poorly educated she had a thirst for knowledge and a zest for life. She never lost that ability of the young to look around and see the beauty of your surroundings as well as be grateful for the simplest things in life. Ivy was not simple, far from it but she always kept that sense of awe and wonder. This story is about hardship, about great love, about great loss as well as about great yearning and disappointment. Family mattered, no matter what. Ivy travelled through her life with a dignity and quite a sense of humor that was matched only by how strongly she felt things. She had little fear and charged ahead without considering consequences, then accepted whatever came her way. Having come from a family of strong midwestern pioneers, and having lived in the mountains of rural Tennessee and North Carolina that mimic the setting of this story I appreciated how on target Smith was in her descriptions of the people, the traditions, the lore of this generation. Her descriptions of the settings were lyrical, almost musical and I could close my eyes and see the fields of wildflowers, smell the rain in the air before the storm, hear the birds in the early morning and feel the dew on my bare feet. Having also received a weekly letter from home for the last 35 years of my life (since I left home) I could appreciate Ivy's letters as her way to stay connected to those who held a place in her heart. These letters were full of great sorrows and joys and everything in between. I also appreciated the changes in society that were discussed in these letters, how progress in the world eventually comes to all corners. We learned about not only Ivy's life but that of her family as well through these letters. She was the person who kept them all connected. With Fair and Tender Ladies Smith has cemented herself in my mind as the ultimate writer of Southern story telling. I listened to the audio and so appreciated the language of the mountains. The dialogue held the charm of the rural, mountain folk yet the speech was almost like the old English, no contractions but correct grammar. The spot on narrative took this to a 5 star rating. It has been a while since I have laughed, and cried and embraced a character as I did with Ivey. I will miss her.
Do You like book Fair And Tender Ladies (1993)?
We read Fair and Tender Ladies for my book club, and I must say that the novel grew on me . I liked the main character from the get go--it was the epistolary structure that slowed me down. The dialect and the spelling was difficult to move through. I read the first couple of chapters and put it down for a week. But then, the rhythm of her letters, and the unraveling of Ivy's life, drew me in. Ivy is spunky and smart, one of nine siblings living with her parents on a mountain farm in Sugar Fork, in Appalachian Virginia. The book follows her turbulent and poverty stricken life, from her girlhood around the turn of the century until she is an old woman, seven decades later. The changes in society and technology are seemlessly interwoven in her personal letters to family members. Ivy loves to read, write and learn, and wants to make a living as a writer. She also loves the tradition of storytelling that is a part of her Appalachian family’s background. In her drive for education, Ivy almost goes up north to school. But life, and passion, get in the way, and Ivy ends up pregnant and “ruint”. Education was not an option for Ivy, and the reader winces at her decision to end her schooling. She is passionate and sexual, and for this reason, the book was even banned as late as the 70's. Her love for her daughter is so tender and so heartbreaking, that I turned to love the story. In her letters to her friends and family, Ivy reveals her journey from a young naive girl to a wise "mountain" woman and grandmother. She is the kind of person you would want on your side, a relative you could rely on in the hardest of times. Ivy does not judge and she is always open to taking in someone needing guidance. Ivy's voice is consistently honest and forthright. I loved her letters to relatives soothing them in times of embarassment, divorce or scandal. Ivy says in the book, life is nothing but a series of losses. She is never undone by the tragedy that surrounds her. There are some one line gems in this novel, a favorite of mine when her relative tells Ivy's daughter to "buck up" (after her marriage falls apart) and buy a new pair of shoes. A new pair of shoes makes anyone feel better. The most poignant part of the book, however, is the fact that the majority of Ivy's letters are written to her mentally disabled sister, Silvaney, who was forcibly carried away to an asylum. We learn that Ivy knew she had died, but continued to write to her anyway. She needed to tell her stories.As a lover of the written word and letter, I remain, forever, a fan of Ivy Rowe.
—Kate
A very interesting read, and I did enjoy the letter format once I grew accustomed to all the spelling and grammatical errors that made me wince when I started. Although I appreciated the heroine (Ivy's) focus on family and her roots, I felt like she really didn't live up to her potential, which was a bit disapointing. I suppose my biggest beef with the book (me being the prude that I am) is Ivy's adulterous relationship with the wandering honeybee man. Although initially she seems to have remors
—Sarah
Oh Lord! How could you not love Ivy Rowe? Reading this book reminds me of what it was like to sit on my Great Grandmothers porch and listen to she and her sisters remember their lives. Whenever I need to go back to that safe and warm place I always find my battered copy and read it again. This epic novel chronicles the life of a wise, loving , funny and dear mountain lass who observes the 20th century from her beloved mountain. Anyone who grew up in the southern Appalachians will fall in love with Ivy.
—Sean Farmer
