Landscapes of the Heart: A Memoir

by Elizabeth Spencer

With charm and vivid detail, the acclaimed novelist Elizabeth Spencer acquaints readers with the places and people, the pleasures and heartaches, she has known in her life. From her idyllic childhood in small-town Mississippi onward, a questioning spirit and voracity for reading and writing shape Spencer's course: her formal and informal educations at Vanderbilt and in Rome, Florence, New York, and Montreal, and her break with the culturally rigid segregated society from which she sprang; her friendships with such great writers as Eudora Welty, Saul Bellow, John Cheever, and Robert Penn Warren; and her own many remarkable literary successes. A deeply affecting memoir by an esteemed American author, Landscapes of the Heart reveals Spencer to be both a part of and forever apart from her beloved southern roots.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography

368 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1997

About the author

Elizabeth Spencer was an American writer. Spencer's first novel, Fire in the Morning, was published in 1948. She has written a total of nine novels, seven collections of short stories, a memoir (Landscapes of the Heart, 1998), and a play (For Lease or Sale, 1989). Her novella The Light in the Piazza (1960) was adapted for the screen in 1962 and transformed into a Broadway musical of the same name in 2005. She is a five-time recipient of the O. Henry Award for short fiction.

Reviews

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent memoir of author who grew up in Mississippi. Born in 1921, she had an idyllic childhood, surrounded by family and friends, an adored and sheltered child. It was a perfect place and time. As she grew up and went away to school, she began to realize that it was only perfect for white children, and her writing and themes began to illustrate the inequalities that depended on skin color, religion, and even political leanings that didn't fit into the closed society where she had been raised. She made her escape, but always loved her home and southerners.

"I am sure, however, of what the trouble really is: It's not that you can't go home. Rather, there isn't any home to go to."

She moved in literary circles in the 50' and 60's, friends with Eudora Welty, interested observer of William Faulkner and protégé of Robert Penn Warren, so lots of gossipy anecdotes, plus her wanderings in Europe, are all included. I thoroughly enjoyed my slow read of this book.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Spencer, whose memoir is a delightful read in the spirit and style of Eudora Welty, is a Southern writer that grew up and was educated in the pre-civil rights South but came of age and matured faster than the rest of the local populace. She stands alongside writers such as Welty, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Carson McCullers, Katherine Anne Porter and others who forged a new, modern Southern style following Faulkner's trailblazing work of the early 20th century. Spencer's comments on the killing of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi in 1955 place her writing and comment at the forefront of a Southern Enlightenment, a path seen more maturely in her best work, A Light in the Piazza. Worth your time.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had recently read "The Voice at the Back Door", which I thought was terrific--a novel examining race relations in a small Mississippi town during the early 1950's. I thought it was a more sophisticated/complex study than "To Kill A Mockingbird".

Spencer was what is known as a "Southern writer". This book is a memoir of her life up to a point. The first half of this is really interesting. It's about growing up in a small town in north Mississippi, surrounded by family and acquaintances, and her experiences going to college, and eventually grad school at Vanderbilt. (As an aside, Spencer's mother was a McCain, and her maternal grandfather was Senator John McCain's great-grandfather.) During her grad school days, she begins to meet many of the well-known Southern writers--Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, etc.

However, the second part of the book, which describes her experiences starting out as a writer and eventually spending a good deal of time in New York, Italy and Paris, was less interesting to me. Again, there's a lot here about different writers she meets and often becomes friends with. But her descriptions of these people tend to be fairly superficial, and she's not telling any tales out of school. She alludes to difficulties with her family back in Carrollton, Mississippi once she started getting published, but she doesn't give much of a sense of this. This part of the book tends to be "I met this person, then I met that person, then I had lunch with these people, I went here, then I went there."

[Sonja · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lovely book. I liked the last half better but she writes very well and explained her world with great affection. I had never heard of her before this book landed in My Little Free Library. I checked her books on Amazon and she had a 5 star review on one of her short story collections so I'd like to give that a try. She certainly knew and seemed to be very respected and well-liked by a multitude of famous writers. She still had family troubles, tho, in the fact her father lavishly financially gave to his son/grandson but was very frugal when it came to sharing his wealth with her. Seems like Elizabeth had strong feelings that slavery was awful and her parents were so Southern that they clung to the feeling that it was "tradition and all right" in their world. She was well-traveled and, having married but with no children, she was able to concentrate on her career. She really led quite a charmed life. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy memoirs.

[Shirley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gently and well written, the author recounts a southern heritage I experienced and resented, as she did during part of her life. She writes directly, engaging the reader in the story and is compelling in her art. I look forward to reading some of her fictional work.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

She is wonderful.

[Peg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Southern author, perhaps most known for having written Light in the Piazza, turned into a show and movie. She will be a guest at a forthcoming Chapel Hill, NC book club meeting.
Interesting to learn, not only about her growing up in rural Mississippi and developing into an author, but also for her friendships with Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Saul Bellow, Katherine Anne Porter, and other authors.
Well written, engaging.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved hearing Elizabeth Spencer comment about the south at the Southern Writers Conference in 2011 in Chattanooga and wanted to read this memoir especially after seeing the movie they are making about this book. Her life in very interesting and inspiring.

[Linda Leith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir that begins very strongly, with a wonderful evocation of a childhood in the southern U.S. in the 1920s and 30s. It fades after that, as discretion gets the better part of valour, and too many crucial moments are skimmed over too quickly and with too little details.

[Boyd · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'd always liked Spencer's writing until I came across this autobiographical specimen. Snobbish, mean-spirited, and preposterously self-aggrandizing. Sometimes it's better not to know.

[Cathie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thank God I've finished it. Death by boredom.

[Daniel Siler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful! I've got an audio book version of this coming out. Watch for it

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this for a second time. Love it! Beautiful writing.