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116th out of 419 books
—
423 voters
On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon
by
Kaye Gibbons
Emma Garnet Tate Lowell, a plantation owner's daughter, grows up in a privileged lifestyle, but it's not all roses. Her family's prosperity is linked to the institution of slavery, and Clarice, a close and trusted family servant, exposes Emma to the truth and history of their plantation and how it brutally affected the slave population.
Her father, Samuel P. Tate, has an ag...more
Her father, Samuel P. Tate, has an ag...more
Paperback, 304 pages
Published
June 28th 2005
by Harper Perennial
(first published June 1st 1998)
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This book was just okay. I will say that all my criticisms of the book are about things that are perhaps intentional by the author. The timeline was very difficult to follow at times. Not sure if it was purposely structured this way, since the character is sort of (but not really) retelling the story on her last day. It doesn't feel like the occasion of her last afternoon because the book rarely focuses on the present day - it's almost a bit of afterthought at the end or beginning of the chapter...more
This book was assigned to us in my reading group, and I found it intensely depressing, while at the same time it was a REALLY easy read.
The story is told from the point of view of the main character, who is reminiscing about her life as she's about to pass away from old age. Yeah, you can tell just from that and the title that this will NOT be a happy book. Her life seems to be a series of tragic incidents (Horrible father, middle of the Civil War, first one person dies, then another person comm...more
The story is told from the point of view of the main character, who is reminiscing about her life as she's about to pass away from old age. Yeah, you can tell just from that and the title that this will NOT be a happy book. Her life seems to be a series of tragic incidents (Horrible father, middle of the Civil War, first one person dies, then another person comm...more
This book is a fictional autobiography of a southern woman, growing up on a plantation before the Civil War, and her marriage to a Yankee Doctor. Often, when reading old books, I find myself confused about why a character is so upset, or what on earth they are talking about, simply because the language and culture of the era in which it was written is so different from my own. This book succeeded (sometimes) in making me feel that way, which was very appropriate considering its antebellum voice....more
This was Gibbon's first historical fiction about the South during the Civil War. The story, told by a 70-year-old woman looking back at herself when she was a girl of 12, living on a plantation ruled by her bitterly angry father. It starts out when he "accidently" kills one of his slaves in anger. Short and poignant.
I picked this book up 2nd hand. I have read Kaye's books before and I thought it sounded like an interesting story. After reading some of the reviews here I was worried but I really did enjoy this book. I always enjoy reading about people who lived through difficulties but come out better for them and I think this is one of those type books. If you want everything to be sunshine and roses then do not read this book. The graphic descriptions of the civil war experience could also bother some but...more
We read this one for book club and everyone was excited because they have really liked the author in the past. I found the book to have a very strange style of writing. It was very unclear… sort of a cross between stream of consciousness and flashback. It is about a Southern plantation girl who marries a Northern doctor and their experiences during the Civil War. Most of the story is her battle with her ignorant, self made father. I found some of the book interesting and it did get better toward...more
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This was a quick read and a book I enjoyed a great deal. It was written by Kaye Gibbons (of Ellen Foster fame) and contains Gibbon's usual courageous girl who suffers the loss of a mother. This heroine, Emma Garnet, is a wealthy southern girl during the mid nineteenth century. Her father, Sam Tate is a hateful, nasty man who represents the south and all that is wrong with it while her husband, Quincey Lowell, is the symbolic "north." He is the hard- working, kind, moral doctor. Clarice is the al...more
Initially, I found the book hard to follow, as the storyline jumps about. However, once I got used to reading it from the viewpoint of an old woman reminiscing, I was captivated. We don't reflect on our lives in perfect chronological order; one memory ties into another, which reminds you of another...so on and so forth. I found the story to be haunting and bittersweet, fascinating.
I suppose the fact that I live in the part of Raleigh where the story takes place helped as well; I walk the Oakwoo...more
I suppose the fact that I live in the part of Raleigh where the story takes place helped as well; I walk the Oakwoo...more
In Kate Gibbons' "On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon", seventy year old Emma Garnet is looking back over her life. She was born in 1830 and is the daughter of a Virginia cotton plantation owner. Her father is a bully and her mother avoids tensions with headaches or by visiting friends. Emma Garnet no longer respects her father and he knows it and thus constantly berates her. She escapes by marrying young and moving to North Carolina. But we cannot escape our families and in that time and place...more
This is one woman's life from the 1840s to the late 1800s. Mainly it is about the two pivotal men who shape her: her father and husband. Raised in the south by an abusive, bigoted, cruel father who domineers his family and slaves, Emma escapes to a husband who is just the opposite. Quincy is a doctor/surgeon who is compassionate, gentle, and loving. The story goes from antebellum Virginia, through the Civil War, and toward reconstruction. Emma sees her mother, father, sister, and trusted servant...more
This book was mostly disappointing to me. It's about a woman who is born & raised on a plantation with a very domineering father. She "escapes" by marrying a doctor who comes from Boston but they settle in the south. It is set in the pre/post Civil War era. Husband of course doctors during the Civil War and she helps. I guess I was expecting something a little more gritty or real and this seemed like a stroll down Magnolia street. It's told in first person so it's almost like the teller just...more
This is the first Kaye Gibbons novel I have read. I found the narration of human complexity with a Father that embodied all that was wrong with the South and a husband who eschewed all that was right with the North to whet my appetite to check other novels that she has written - don't authors do their best story in a first novel rather than this, her sixth? Gibbons tells the heroine, Emma Garnet's, well heeled saga as an aged and mellow woman. Her childhood, marriage, and the Civil War plus her...more
A Southern author visits the Nation's war and the war within her main character's family. The author's gift in painting word pictures was at a high point in this book. Her necessary use of some of the unpalatable vocabulary from the time in which her book was set, lent searing credibility to awfulness of bigotry: at that time and at any time. She painted a loathsome picture of the father of the girl who became the woman who told her story, her family's story and the greater story of a nation ren...more
I cried when I read this book. And not because the story was amazing - which it was, but because I will never be able to write like Kaye Gibbons. Her use of language is amazing. Perhaps I'm not as widely read as others, but the way Gibbons puts words together send chills down my spine. I love an author who can convey a thought or an idea in the fewest words possible, but still manage to take my breath away with the beauty of a perfectly crafted sentence or phrase. I won't say anything about the...more
Once I got past (and used to) the fact that this story doesn’t stick to a chronological time-line (not even in the same chapter), I could start to enjoy it, more or less. This story is actually the reminiscing of an old woman on her last day of life on earth, looking back on her growing up with a tyrant of a father, a plantation owner, who clearly suffered of delusion and airs of grandeur. Her mother was a kind-hearted Southern Belle, who was equally affected by the verbal abuse of this cruel an...more
This is an extremely well-written book, with beautiful and haunting imagery, realistic dialogue and intriguing situations. I think the device of a woman looking back on her life on the occasion of her last afternoon on earth is quite brilliant.
I read that Kaye Gibbons mentored Charles Frazier through his writing of Cold Mountain. This book is like Cold Mountain in that it shows war in all its grimy squalor and blows the myth that war is noble and pure. I enjoyed it very much, as I do all of Kay...more
I read that Kaye Gibbons mentored Charles Frazier through his writing of Cold Mountain. This book is like Cold Mountain in that it shows war in all its grimy squalor and blows the myth that war is noble and pure. I enjoyed it very much, as I do all of Kay...more
Another venture into the Civil War south with the heroine as the victim of an abusive father who finds her way to redemption through marriage to an honorable man, family and work on behalf of wounded soldiers, both Rebel and Yankee. Once again Gibbons provides vivid imagery and captures the essence of the idea that we are all inhabited by sum of all of our experiences on our last afternoon of life. The tale seems to be one that has been told many times making it difficult to engage with the char...more
Dec 04, 2008
Jodi
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
women
Recommended to Jodi by:
Carlisle Book Club
Shelves:
book-club-books
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Maybe I've just been in a literary desert recently, but I loved this book. I generally love Kaye Gibbons and this story was beautifully written. This is a story of one woman's life from childhood, through the Civil War, and beyond. The author draws you in with beauty, brutality, heartache and the unyielding love Emma Garnet has for her family. I rarely re-read a book, but I could see myself picking this up again in a few years. I am definitely motivated to read more of Gibbons' work.
Recommended, but with reservations. The author’s writing style might not be to everyone’s liking. Tells the story of a girl who grows up on Southern plantation and how she copes with the knowledge that her family owns slaves. The family must also cope with a tyrannical father. Spans her life from age 12 to 60 or so, the bulk being the period of the civil war when she and her husband tended to injured soldiers. Good book for anyone interested in southern life.
I love Kaye Gibbons' books and this one had all the makings of a good historical fiction novel, but somewhere along the way I became confused. I wasn't sure what the message was or how I was suppose to feel about Emma the protagonist in the story. There were two ideas running through the book the first centered on how tyrannical Emma's father was and the next was about the horror of the Civil War as viewed through Emma's eyes working in a Civil War hospital. Emma's father was over-the-top and ce...more
I really liked this book to begin with as I read a lot of civil war journals and this sort of fit the theme. I was disappointed part way through when parts of the story sounded very familiar. I found that in the parts of the story were totally taken from a real civil war diary. I know this is a serious charge...I need to go back to the book and to the real diary (I believe it was Mary Chestnut) that are the same and list it here.
I started reading this book on the recommendation of a friend. About 100 pages into the book, I had to stop reading. Typically, I like the historical fiction genre, but this book was just extremely slow, boring, and depressing. It was not at all engaging. The whole time I was reading, I kept thinking "When will this be over?" Personally, I hate to leave books unfinished, but I'll make an exception for this book.
This book was such a nice surprise. I had low expectations, but the plot, characters & historical details really kept my interest. It was like a Charles Frazier book, but written mainly about women. It also lacked the excruciating detail that his books have, and it ended peacefully. I would recommend this book, especially to any friends with an interest in people stories from the Civil War.
Not a very happy book and written in a somewhat convoluted manner which made it a little difficult to follow in some parts. It was a good portrait of the life of one woman in the mid-nineteenth century.
I would give it just two stars and call it OK but if a book makes me cry, I have to give it at least 3 stars and I did cry at the end.
I would give it just two stars and call it OK but if a book makes me cry, I have to give it at least 3 stars and I did cry at the end.
I loved the first person narrative. Emma Garnet recounts the story of her life during the course of one afternoon. The bulk of the story takes place during the Civil War when she is married to her northern husband doctor and living in north carolina. Emma Garnet tries to overcome the terrorism inflicted on herself and family by her father. I recommend this book to anyone who likes stories of the old south, overcoming obstacles, and strong women. There are several strong women in this story to pe...more
Emma grew up on a southern plantation along the James River. Father is brutal against the black. She grows up, marries a doctor and lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. She helps her husband take care of soldiers in Civil War, concerned for helping others using their own wealth -- tells story as she is dying.
I enjoyed listening to this tale of a girl who idolizes her mother and demonizes her father through the filter of south versus north and the civil war. I was engrossed by the heroines journey from childhood to womanhood to old age and finally death. A gripping story. Of the time in which she lived.
Although the story was okay, I did not care for the writing style Gibbons used in On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon. Too often, I found myself re-reading a passage or a page trying to make sense of the choppy narrative. I do like historical novels, but this one wasn't my cup of tea.
Another great book from Kaye Gibbons. I did not read this when it first came out, but added it at a selection for book club to help celebrate the Centennial of Lincoln's Birth with Civil War related books. This was a great read, excellent character development with rich text.
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Kaye Gibbons was born in 1960 in Nash County, North Carolina, on Bend of the River Road. She attended North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying American and English literature. At twenty-six years old, she wrote her first novel, Ellen Foster. Praised as an extraordinary debut, Eudora Welty said that "the honesty of thought and eye and feeling and...more
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“This has been such a glorious afternoon -- my heart would not weep if I did not live to see another.”
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