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29th out of 219 books
—
380 voters
Saving Grace
by
Lee Smith
"LUCID IN EXECUTION, BREATHTAKING IN SCOPE AND HEART-RENDING IN EFFECT--A REDEMPTIVE WORK OF ART. . . . Lee Smith has done more than write another novel about the South. She has broken through the grotesque surface to the underground spring, the music of Scrabble Creek, and the effect is stunning--a beguiling, gentle prose formed by an honesty so severe we are brought to o...more
Paperback, 273 pages
Published
April 23rd 1996
by Ballantine Books
(first published 1995)
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Another Lee Smith. I find myself missing her voice when I'm not reading one of her books. Smith follows a family of snake handlers this time. For those of you who aren't from these hills, I'll tell you: snake handlers are holy rollers, people on the fringe of a Christianity that has no room for ambiguities. An interview in the back of this book shows us what Smith was thinking; she says this book really explores the vulnerability of children and how they have absolutely no control over what happ...more
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I read this on the bus to the Quilt Show in Paducah. As I add it to my list (it is now July) I actually remember very little about it. I re-read the reader's guide and remember it is about Florida Grace Shepherd and the southern dysfunction of her family sired by a serpent-handling preacher.
From reviews: LUCID IN EXECUTION, BREATHTAKING IN SCOPE AND HEART-RENDING IN EFFECT--A REDEMPTIVE WORK OF ART. . . . Lee Smith has done more than write another novel about the South. She has broken through th...more
From reviews: LUCID IN EXECUTION, BREATHTAKING IN SCOPE AND HEART-RENDING IN EFFECT--A REDEMPTIVE WORK OF ART. . . . Lee Smith has done more than write another novel about the South. She has broken through th...more
I try to read books from a lot of different genres, but it seems that I am consistently drawn back to books that are based in Appalachia. Saving Grace is the story of Florida Grace whose father is a snake handling, Pentecostal preacher. It’s a hard life she lives; always poor and always wanting. It seems like everyone is caught up with the enthusiasm her charismatic father exudes but Grace never really feels the presence of God in her life. When she becomes a teenager things begin to change in t...more
Good fiction. In talking about children's reading habits, I frequently hear that "it doesn't matter what they read as long as they read." I have always disagreed with that sentiment, because I believe it does matter - on many different levels -- what children and young adults read.
What we read eventually affects our value-systems, our vocabularies,our thought patterns, and even to some degree our approach to problem-solving. Observing a book character (a realistic human being) move through the...more
What we read eventually affects our value-systems, our vocabularies,our thought patterns, and even to some degree our approach to problem-solving. Observing a book character (a realistic human being) move through the...more
The setting (mountains of Appalachia) and the writing captured, then held me. I wavered a lot about the main character Florida Grace. After the perfection of Ivy Rowe in my first Lee Smith novel (Fair and Tender Ladies), maybe my expectations were too high. Grace is the daughter of a serpent-handling Pentecostal traveling preacher who searches for and struggles with her own spirituality. Her journey seemed very believable, but became so sordid and depressing - I wanted her to rise above her upbr...more
I really enjoyed this story. Grace is the daughter of a fanatical preacher (the kind that handles snakes and drinks poison) and often feels like she's on the outside of "normal" life, looking in -- especially since she grows up in poverty, even by the modest standards of Scrabble Creek, North Carolina. Her own relationship with God is strained at best -- she often feels that there's something bad inside her, and that badness reveals itself at different points throughout her life. It's a book abo...more
If you are unable to tolerate reading about snakes skip this book. This is the story of the daughter of a man possessed with God and the "old time religion". Tragic and fascinating.
This was the first book by Lee Smith I have ever read and immediately become hooked. She has such an amazing style of writing that caputres your heart.
Appalachian voices are missing a lot from American fiction and often go unnoticed. I feel like a lot of readers might push this book aside as being "hokey" or "hillbilly reading" (to be perfectly honest, the title doesn't help) but it is worth the read. A wonderful exploration of Appalachia, particularly Sevier County Tennessee (of Dollywood fame, and where I have lived for years). Also an amazing portrait of fanatic religiosity in the form of the snake-handlers of the story. I suprised myself b...more
I love Lee Smith as an author -- she's sort of my literary crack. Her writing is lyrical and her character development makes reading her novels an absolute delight.
But I just could not find that reading buzz that I've come to expect from Smith in this novel. It had all the right ingredients -- oppressive/obsessive religion, rural setting, intriguing characters -- but it just didn't grab me, and I'm not sure I know why.
Unlike some of Smith's other novels, this one sticks with just one life, just...more
But I just could not find that reading buzz that I've come to expect from Smith in this novel. It had all the right ingredients -- oppressive/obsessive religion, rural setting, intriguing characters -- but it just didn't grab me, and I'm not sure I know why.
Unlike some of Smith's other novels, this one sticks with just one life, just...more
Because I love fiction set in clear regional settings, I loved this book for that reason alone. It's set in Appalachia, and tells the story of Grace through childhood and middle adulthood. There is a profound focus on the effects of zealous religious practices such as snake-handling on family members, the community, and Grace herself, and how those effects meshed (and didn't mesh) with the evolving societal characteristics right around them. The prose was magnificent--very "real"-- and gripping....more
Have you ever seen a movie and realized that all the best parts were in the trailer. The blurb at the back of Saving Grace is a little like that. The blurb tells you all very misadventure Florida Grace is going to encounter on her journey from Snake-charming preacher's daughter to Preacher's wife to adultery. Grace herself is a wonderful heroine, but all the other characters seem like the paper dolls she and her sister play with early in the book.
I enjoyed this book but it wasn't nearly as good as Fair & Tender Ladies (my favorite of Smith's). The story followed the lives of the Shepherd family, the father of which was a snake-handler preacher.
I felt like the first 2/3 of the book covered a lot of years in a lot of pages, but then towards the end it was like it sped up so much and glossed over so many details that could have been more expanded upon.
It was good, but I wouldn't read it again.
I felt like the first 2/3 of the book covered a lot of years in a lot of pages, but then towards the end it was like it sped up so much and glossed over so many details that could have been more expanded upon.
It was good, but I wouldn't read it again.
As a native southerner with roots in East Tennessee, the birthplace of the serpent handlers, this book struck a chord with me. I fell into the world Lee created in this novel and didn't want to come out. I met Lee in North Carolina at an autographing for this book and we had the most wonderful conversation. She is an amazing person and author, and this is an amazing book.
I'm not sure why I seem to identify with this girl, but I could not stop reading. Read it in 8 straight hours. It's a story about the Appalachian area in the 50s and 60s. Her father is a traveling preacher, who handles snakes in his revivals. Her journey from adolescence to adulthood, and through the trials and mistakes, is a very good read.
Frankly, I found this book boring. A crazy snake handling preacher seems like it would provide some excitement to the story, but the book wanders through the life of his daughter and the bad decisions she makes. I didn't find her particularly likeable and her situation was not interesting enough for me to empathize with her.
This book is rather wordy. The author has written the book so that Florida Grace, the main character is telling the story. Family moves a lot as the father is a preacher. He uses snakes in his services and gets in trouble with the law because of the snakes. Grace is kept in the dark for most of the book about what is really going on around her. OK book.
I really enjoyed this book. There is almost nothing I like more than a snappy narrator and Florida Grace is a hoot. Also, I liked the interesting subject matter - pentacostal-like religious up-bringing. The ending was rather ambiguous, but I like a book that makes me think. I definitely recommend this book.
An Applachian novel, about the evolution of a young woman out of her Pentecostal past, this is one that brought me to my knees.
Her simple use of language, her ability to make it seem so easy and natural, is amazing.
And the storytelling--as I said, it brought me to my knees.
Enough said.
Her simple use of language, her ability to make it seem so easy and natural, is amazing.
And the storytelling--as I said, it brought me to my knees.
Enough said.
A well-written story about Grace's crazy life in Eastern Tennessee that kept me wanting to sit down and finish it quickly. I fell in love with Grace and could relate to her struggles with God as she viewed Him through her own experiences versus others' experience in Church and with life.
If you have not yet discovered Lee Smith, you must begin reading her works immediately. Fair and Tender Ladies is still my favorite book by her, but this one comes a close second. On the surface, the novel tells the life story of Florida Grace, a young woman whose father travels across the mountains of North Carolina and Georgia living plainly and preaching snake handling and poison drinking to the hill folk. Beneath that surface is the true story of a woman trying to find some sense of who she...more
This book was a bit on the dark side. I had a hard time dealing with the parade of human wreckage left in the wake of the main characters; especially the children. For me, its always about the children and I find it difficult to divorce myself from the pain they suffer.
I came across this book on my shelves and couldn't fully recall the details of it, so I decided to indulge in the pleasures of re-reading. This is one of my favorite Lee Smith books, about the daughter of a charismatic snake-handling preacher. Gracie Shepherd is such a relatable protagonist, even as her problems stop being the result of other people's choices and start being the result of her own. I love that Lee Smith will write about a character like Gracie and not try to "class her up" so tha...more
My bookclub read this one. It is a bit of a strange book. I didn't really like it but it was interesting, about a sub-culture I know nothing about. (Churches that do snake "charming" etc.) I guess in the end I found the main character kind of annoying.
The first half, it totally had me captive--well-written, vivid characterization and good story. The second half, it went off the deep end a bit, and I was a little disappointed. But it was truthful. I recommend Gods in Alabama if you liked this book. :)
I finished this one in less than a weekend. It wasn't a book that I expected to like as much as I did and I had never read anything by Lee Smith, but I love stories set in the South and Appalachia. This was a very unique and strangely uplifting story.
If I could give this 1.5 stars I would. I loved the way the book began and the Southern setting, but I hated the left turn in the plot and the way the book ended. It is the story of Florida Grace Shepherd who is the daughter of a serpent-handling minister. As Grace comes of age, she realizes that her father is more of a womanizer than a preacher and that he excuses himself by claiming that God forgives him whenever he backslides. His behavior eventually drives Grace's mother to suicide and Grace...more
This story about Grace who was raised in the world of the snake-handling tent preacher who was her father was interesting but made me angry. I don't get how anyone buys into these crazy religious fanatics.
Saving Grace is one of those books that will haunt the reader long after he or she has read it. The narrator is the daughter of a holiness, snake-handling preacher who controls his family with an iron hand.
I really wanted to like this book! I liked Grace but everyone else in the book seemed distant. Rich characters but it was hard to like or empathise with any of them because their flaws were so raw.
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Growing up in the Appalachian mountains of southwestern Virginia, nine-year-old Lee Smith was already writing--and selling, for a nickel apiece--stories about her neighbors in the coal boomtown of Grundy and the nearby isolated "hollers." Since 1968, she has published eleven novels, as well as three collections of short stories, and has received many writing awards.
The sense of place infusing her...more
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