This is a charming book by Lee Smith, who was a teacher of Haven Kimmel.
I've also read Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies, set in the Appalachians and reflecting Smith's interest in and talent for rendering dialectal speech.
This novel tells the story of five women (and one husband) who decide to recreate a river raft trip, inspired by reading Twain's Huckleberry Finn, down the Mississippi that they took in college. This permits them to reflect on the 30 or so years that have passed since then, and allows us to reflect on the diversity of their life stories which reveal some of the profound changes that have taken place in the lives of women in this country since the fifties.
The edition I read was a book club edition (I love these things) with an interview with Smith and book club discussion questions. In her interview, Smith says that while the new freedom that women of her generation enjoyed gave women much greater freedom and enjoyment of their lives it also placed a certain kind of burden on them: given more freedom, they were forced to make choices and accept more responsibility for their lives. They lost a certain comfort zone of polite conduct and restraint that their mothers had enjoyed and did not anticipate all of the changes that they would encounter.
Smith is the author of one of my favorite short stories, "Intensive Care," which perfectly captures the language and the changes of how we live now.
I've also read Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies, set in the Appalachians and reflecting Smith's interest in and talent for rendering dialectal speech.
This novel tells the story of five women (and one husband) who decide to recreate a river raft trip, inspired by reading Twain's Huckleberry Finn, down the Mississippi that they took in college. This permits them to reflect on the 30 or so years that have passed since then, and allows us to reflect on the diversity of their life stories which reveal some of the profound changes that have taken place in the lives of women in this country since the fifties.
The edition I read was a book club edition (I love these things) with an interview with Smith and book club discussion questions. In her interview, Smith says that while the new freedom that women of her generation enjoyed gave women much greater freedom and enjoyment of their lives it also placed a certain kind of burden on them: given more freedom, they were forced to make choices and accept more responsibility for their lives. They lost a certain comfort zone of polite conduct and restraint that their mothers had enjoyed and did not anticipate all of the changes that they would encounter.
Smith is the author of one of my favorite short stories, "Intensive Care," which perfectly captures the language and the changes of how we live now.
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