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Family Linen
by
Lee Smith
"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 famil...more
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 famil...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
September 12th 1986
by Ballantine Books
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This is not my book. I have a lovely hardcover with a very delicate white-on-white embroidered linen design in the background of the dust jacket. This jumped into my hands as a result of my genealogical "bug" being about the aeration of family secrets and the resulting hanging the family linen out for all the world to see and know and being notated on the cover that she is also the author of Oral History -- another genie hook. It should be fun.
Well, maybe not exactly fu...more
Well, maybe not exactly fu...more
Just loved it. It started off slowly, but Smith just has such a way of writing people, and of building this story so carefully - excellent. Southern without being overtly gothic or cliched - these characters reminded me so much of my husband's family from mountain NC that it was scary. I'll be reading more Lee Smith.
Was assigned for my recent Southern Lit class, and she teaches at State. My favorite character is the sister who has a kooky-ass daughter who, like, wears oversized attire from the Army-Navy surplus store, hates her mother, and attends Friends School. That shit was almost-- just almost-- too close for comfort.
A cast of quirky family members get together for their mother's funeral. The oldest sibling has been hypnotized and thinks the father was murdered and buried in the backyard. Each tells their own history, reveals their own skeletons and the story unfolds. I would recommend this book.
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There's nothing like digging into sordid pasts of people who do their best to appear perfect. This was the second book I've read by Lee Smith, and hopefully not the last. A great story that sucked me in, and I enjoyed all the characters, although there were a few too many at times.
Good book, but I was irritated by the Faulkner-esque stream of consciousness at times. Though I have to say Smith is less...irritating (dare I say it?) The story is good, though I think it could use some tightening. Read Oral History instead.
This was my second Lee Smith book, and I intend to read more. While I enjoyed the first Smith book I read (Last Girls) better than this one, I really enjoyed this one as well.
This book was primarily a collection of detailed character sketches. With so many characters there was actually a lack of plot, but since I love reading detailed descriptions of characters, this was my kind of book. Still, I think this would have been a 5 star read for me if Smith had cut out a couple of the char...more
This book was primarily a collection of detailed character sketches. With so many characters there was actually a lack of plot, but since I love reading detailed descriptions of characters, this was my kind of book. Still, I think this would have been a 5 star read for me if Smith had cut out a couple of the char...more
Lee Smith tells great stories.
Lots of dysfunctional family stuff here.
You get a glimpse into the lives and experiences of several members of a family across three or four generations, which carries with it the limitation that it's only glimpses. No space to get deeper into the individual's psyche.
Some of the family are very into Keeping Up Appearances, while others totally reject this and seem to flaunt their unconventionality.
A good read.
Lots of dysfunctional family stuff here.
You get a glimpse into the lives and experiences of several members of a family across three or four generations, which carries with it the limitation that it's only glimpses. No space to get deeper into the individual's psyche.
Some of the family are very into Keeping Up Appearances, while others totally reject this and seem to flaunt their unconventionality.
A good read.
I want to like it more than I did, though I'm wavering between one and two stars. Tries to be all psychological/ Freudian and comes across crude and clunky. The "mystery" is all on the surface and obvious, the characters are stereotypes or parodies, none of them are likeable. Nothing much to say. Don't waste your time.
Airing the family "linen" this story starts off with one adult child in therapy who remembers seeing a murder as a child. Unfortunately, Mom dies before she can ask her. All the siblings, some cousins and mom's sister tell their stories in first person offering different views into the family and showing how our own emotions and situation determines how we remember an event and that it can be quite different from what other people remember happening.
Lee Ann
added it
Lee Smith must come from the world's largest dysfunctional family because she has no shortage of wacky relatives in her books. Another funny yet touching tale from the mountains of south west Virginia.
The perspective shifts so that the reader gets to see the character's perception of her/himself and then we see how others see them. Why the wedding at the end? To lighten it up? Good story, fun to read.
After thoroughly enjoying a couple of Lee Smith's books, this was a disappointment; my rating wavered between a one and two. Mostly I listened to this one on tape; but kept the book handy.
I read this because I really like The Last Girls. I didn't like this one as much. It wasn't a bad book, I just didn't like it as well - it seemed to drag a bit in places.
The plot was interesting enough, but I needed a character to like. There were too many family members at the center of the story, so none of them were sufficiently developed.
a woman remembers seeing her father murdered and then her mother passes away leaving all of the children to retell the family "laundry" Interesting but predictable.
A very enjoyable and well told family saga. Quite a few characters to keep track of, but very much in that southern fiction genre.
Lee Smith is one of my favorite authors. A great read about a behind-the-scenes look at life in a small Southern town.
This was definitely not my favorite of her books. Very dark and too much unnecessary swearing...
the summary was SOOO appealing I was expecting to be ROFLMAO but it just came across as a disfunctional family
Good book; great characters, minor mystery.
I really don't have much to say...snoring boring...& then the happy ending. Not my kind of book.
She actually set this book in Roanoke!
The ending was a little flat, but otherwise book enjoyable
Always enjoy Smith's books!
A little like a soap opera.
Fiction
This was a fascinating book; the characters were well-developed, the story was interesting, the pace suited me, the writing was good. This book - the author - really got inside the strange but believable story that was at the heart of this family's issues.
A very enjoyable read with an intriguing plot. I didn't like it quite as much as Smith's "Oral History" - it wasn't quite as charming and timeless. It also uses mulitple narrators to tell the story of one family's dark history, which adds a lot of complexity to the way the story unravels.
I'd like to give more stars because I really enjoyed the book about 160 pages in. But 160 pages is a lot to ask of a reader before the book gets good. I think this was a good story from a talented writer that would've benefitted from a really skilled editor.
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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.
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“The state of my nerves precludes any more active an existence”
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