Books by Lee Smith

A collection of traditional English, Irish, and Scottish songs and folktales, retold in graphic novel form by some of today's top fantasy writers, includes Neil Gaiman's "The False Knight on the Road," Sharyn McCrumb's "Thomas the Rhymer," and Jane Yolen's "King Henry" and "The Great Selchie of Sule Skerrie." Reprint.

A funny and evocative story introduces three generations of women who partake in the great American tradition of catching up on family news every Christmas by reading the vivid, gossipy letters from Birdy, Mary, and Melanie, who are all storytellers at heart. Reprint.

In the magnanimous tradition of Henry James's Hawthorn, Charles Olson's Call Me Ishmael and Susan Howe's My Emily Dickinson, our fall issue will present innovative homages by a diverse group of important contemporary American writers in honor of our great forebears and predecessors. In these iconoclastic (break the icons) and post-canonical (quash the canon) times, what better way to review the directions in which literature may now be headed, than to rethink where it has been?

Offers tough-minded, sensible solutions to America's burgeoning economic woes.

Returning to Appalachia, Lee Smith, author of Oral History, creates an unforgettable heroine: Ivy Rowe. From girlhood to old age, Ivy nourishes her family with her passion, imagination, and strength.

"Brilliant, haunting, dark, joyous, remarkably compelling...immensely difficult to put down...a master storyteller."

THE VILLAGE VOICE

A childhood memory re-experienced, a funeral that brings about a family reunion, and the excavation of a swimming pool on the site of an old well, uncover family secrets and air the dirty linen in this behind-the-scenes look at life and family, memory and forgetfulness, anger and forgiveness in a small Southern town.

"Falls in line with the best of classical Southern fiction...but Ms. Smith's vision is her own and places her among the best of contemporary Southern writers."

THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION


From the Paperback edition.

Speed, Alabama, is frantically preparing for the event of a lifetime: Sesquicentennial Week. And all her proud citizens are kicking up their heels in a lively, pompous fancy strut....

The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed, set in a small southern town at midcentury, tells the story of nine-year-old Susan, for whom the first bright, carefree, promise-filled days of summer slowly evolve into a time of innocence lost and childhood illusions shattered. Susan's mother is vain and frivolous, her father loving but distracted, and her sister, several years her senior, is coping with the first stirrings of serious love. Susan's circle of young friends is joined for the summer by Eugene, the frail, strange nephew of a neighbor. As the months pass, Susan witnesses the disintegration of her parents' marriage and learns from Eugene the cruelty people sometimes resort to. Lyrical and fanciful in spite of its dark moments, The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed puts on ample display the remarkable talent that has made Lee Smith one of our most popular writers of fiction.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

LEE SMITH
Author of News of the Spirit

THE LAST GIRLS
A Novel

“Wise and insightful . . . The Last Girls deserves to be shared, pondered, and treasured.”
–The Dallas Morning News
“[A] GENIAL, THOUGHTFUL, FUNNY NOVEL, WRITTEN WITH THE WIT AND ASSURANCE OF A BORN STORYTELLER.”
–The Hartford Courant

“RICH AND DELICIOUS . . . THE STORY OF FOUR WOMEN . . .Years ago, they were girls, not women–the last generation of American females to be called ‘girls’–who traveled down the Mississippi River . . . on a makeshift raft while they were on summer vacation . . . There were twelve of them on that trip; now there are these four, brought together by tragedy. One of their classmates . . . has died in an automobile wreck (was it really an accident?), and her husband has asked the old friends to re-create the river journey and scatter her ashes at the mouth of the Mississippi. . . . It’s a reunion of classmates with all of the in-between revealed in intimate detail, as only a skilled and classy storyteller can do it.”
–The Boston Globe

“AN HONEST PORTRAIT OF INTELLIGENT, WELL-ROUNDED SOUTHERNERS is always refreshing, and The Last Girls delivers. The book may be influenced by Twain, but Smith proves she has a voice all her own.”
–USA Today
“BREEZILY WRITTEN AND DISPLAYING SMITH’S TRADEMARK PITCH-PERFECT EAR FOR DIALOGUE, funny but with the dark touches of all good comedy, the novel charts the course by which the ‘girls’ . . . seek love and self-fulfillment during the three decades approaching the end of the century. Call it Huckleberry Fin de Siècle.”
–Time Out New York

“SMITH’S COMIC GENIUS SPARKLES . . . Under Smith’s deft hand, these woman bloom exceptionally authentic.”
–Winston-Salem Journal
A 2002 BOOKLIST EDITOR’S CHOICE PICK

“[SMITH IS] NOTHING LESS THAN MASTERLY.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“Rich, personal, charming, and compassionate . . . Using the premise that both a reunion and a riverboat provide good lookouts on the past, she details the passing terrain as she details each woman’s emotional history, from child to adult, from dates to love affairs, from silly shenanigans to tragic accidents. And what details! The book is filled with memorable scenes. . . . Smith adds a purely feminine, deeply southern twist to the Mark Twain tradition of humor and precision applied generously to the subject of human weakness.”
–Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Lee Smith’s genius is in her seamless weaving of the two stories, past and present, so that we realize what the stakes are for these women, and how they have arrived at the reunion as footsore pilgrims–a bit battered and bruised, but sailing on nevertheless. . . . Smith has that talent that all storytellers envy: the ability to dive deeply into the lives of her characters, to bring them to life in their rich fullness, warts and all. Each of these women could energize an entire book. Each brings something unique and captivating to a superb tale that will stay with you long after the reading is done. Together they compel each of us to ask what has brought us to the near shore, and how we set sail from here.”
–The Boston Globe

After talking with her friend Emily, six-year-old Jessica isn't sure she believes in Santa Claus, until her correspondence with the North Pole brings her letters from Santa, Mrs. Claus, Jingles the elf, and even one of the reindeer that young readers areinvited to remove from the envelopes and read.Jessica isn't sure she believes in Santa Claus until she receives letters from Santa, Mrs. Claus, an elf, and a reindeer that young readers may remove from the envelopes and read.

Discovered in the ruins of a North Carolina plantation, an old box containing the mementos of a young girl's life--including letters, poems, newspaper clippings, court records, toys, and an 1870s diary--bring to life the world of young Molly Petree, an orphan growing up in the smoldering remains of the post-Civil War American South.

With "an ear for speech and a voice that most other writers can only envy" ( The New York Times Book Review), the author of Oral History has created a darkly comic and compelling novel about Gracie, blessed with a gift she doesn't want, who pursues earthly and divine love on a road that comes to a disturbing but inevitable conclusion.