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Fair and Tender Ladies

Lee Smith

4.16 · Rating details · 6,804 ratings · 654 reviews

From Ivy Rowe's birth on Blue Star Mountain, her life is full of passion and longing as she writes letters to family and friends. Ivy's talent as a budding writer is recognized early on, but just as she is about to realize her dream of going north to school, she is betrayed by her passionate nature. Facing an unwed pregnancy and publicly admonished for her sins, Ivy ...more

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Paperback, 316 pages

Published June 17th 1993 by Ballantine Books (first published 1988)

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Best Books Set in Appalachia

631 books — 753 voters

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

Best Southern Literature

1,189 books — 2,552 voters

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Mar 26, 2018 Candi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, favorites, american-south

"It’s funny how a person can be so busy living that they forget this is it. This is my life."

In the words of Ivy Rowe, one of the most spirited, wisest, and most memorable literary characters EVER, I am ‘ruint’ after reading this incredible novel! Seriously, I cannot get this book out of my head and out of my heart. It seems everything else will pale in comparison for quite some time. I had never heard of this book or the very talented author, Lee Smith, until now. I have surely been remiss, but "It’s funny how a person can be so busy living that they forget this is it. This is my life."

In the words of Ivy Rowe, one of the most spirited, wisest, and most memorable literary characters EVER, I am ‘ruint’ after reading this incredible novel! Seriously, I cannot get this book out of my head and out of my heart. It seems everything else will pale in comparison for quite some time. I had never heard of this book or the very talented author, Lee Smith, until now. I have surely been remiss, but it is never too late to make up for lost time. I’m sure Ivy would agree.

Make no mistake about this book – it’s not light and fluffy, not sappy, and not just another mundane book about the toils of a backwoods woman and her brood of children. What is this about then? Well, it’s so many things… it’s about the hopes and dreams of a young girl, love for family, courage, standing up for what you believe in, facing the consequences of your choices, middle age, great sorrow and abundant joy, love for the land, the passion for reading and writing, and about growing old with dignity. I’m sure as readers we’ve seen all of these topics tackled before. But never have I seen all of these things wrapped up in one package and expressed through a voice with such honesty, passion, and immediacy, with no excuses made nor any appeals for our sympathy or pity. "I have made my bed and I wish everybody would let me lie in it."

We follow the life of Ivy Rowe from adolescence to old age through a series of letters written to various persons – a childhood pen pal, siblings, parents, friends, teachers, and children. The letters are so intimate, however, that they are often more like a diary entry, sharing with us the deepest and truest thoughts of a very candid correspondent. Ivy Rowe was born up on Blue Star Mountain in Appalachia. Much of her writing is in the regional dialect, but this did not for one minute throw me off or confuse me. In fact, it added to the authenticity, as if I were reading real letters recovered from a young woman’s hope chest. As Ivy ages, likewise her writing matures. She dreams of becoming an author someday, and her letters are a testament to the fact that even if she never publishes a novel, she truly is a gifted writer. She shares with us her joy for life, memories of old stories, and her desire to travel and become educated. "I thought of sliding on the frozen river in the snow, and of the lady sisters skimming home across the snow after they had told their stories, I thought of the story of Whitebear Whittington, and then I thought of all the stories I dont know yet, of books and books full of stories in Boston. I immagined their lether bindings and their deep rich covers and the pretty swirling paper inside the covers, like the snow."

Ivy makes such astute observations on life; she makes mistakes – sometimes very big ones, and she forgives herself. I have often thought and said that forgiveness is a gift. Well, I do believe that is true. Ivy has taught me, however, that even more than forgiving another human being, forgiveness of one’s self is perhaps the most difficult yet the most generous of all. As Ivy enters middle age, a stage in life with which I can currently identify, her story becomes even more gripping and meaningful - perhaps because I can relate to those questions she asks herself about her own life and whether she has spent it in the way she had hoped. "I guess that the seeds of what we will do are in us all along, only sometimes they don’t get no water, they don’t grow. Other times, well – you see what can happen." Oh Ivy, you made me laugh, you made me cry, and you made me think… and think some more. I want to live my life as you did – with spunk, with acceptance, with strong affections and last but not least, with peace.

I probably don’t need to say it, but this is a clear favorite and I would tell anyone to please read this book! I have to return this little jewel to the library soon, but my very own copy should arrive any day now - along with one more Lee Smith novel I have ordered, likely to be followed by a succession of her work.

"This is important, I want to remember this, it is all so important, this is happening to me. And I am so glad to write it down lest I forget." ...more

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Feb 03, 2020 Angela M rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

If only I could give more than 5 stars !
A life in letters from a wise and wonderful character named Ivy Rowe. Through her eyes we come to know her life, more than her life alone, but anyone who was a part of it . It’s a family saga, a story of a place, a history of events. The letters are not written to us, the readers, but to friends and family and even to her father after he died. Yet, I felt like a confidant, a friend who one can bare their heart and soul to because Ivy gives of her heart and If only I could give more than 5 stars !
A life in letters from a wise and wonderful character named Ivy Rowe. Through her eyes we come to know her life, more than her life alone, but anyone who was a part of it . It’s a family saga, a story of a place, a history of events. The letters are not written to us, the readers, but to friends and family and even to her father after he died. Yet, I felt like a confidant, a friend who one can bare their heart and soul to because Ivy gives of her heart and soul in every letter we read. It is with courage and strength that she lives this life, with its struggles, acknowledging and accepting her mistakes, but living her life as it is with joy and hope, and love for those in her life.

“ I decided that I had made my bed and would lie in it as before. I’m getting to be an expert at makin’ beds”.

Ivy took me to Sugar Fork, VA and right from the beginning, I was everywhere with her as she moved from a mountain cabin to a town in Majestic, VA, to Diamond ,VA and then back to her roots in Sugar Fork.

“ ...daddy I’m like you , I need the pure high air and a mountain to lay my eyes against.”

Emanating from these letters is a history, as her words take us through changes in the country as the lumbering work turns to coal mining, the danger and misery that the mines brought, the railroad, electricity coming to the mountains, the wars, the flu, the deaths, the hard times and all of the changes in Ivy’s life. She takes us along with her as she experiences the people coming and going from her life, leaving or dying.

“It seemed to me life is nothin’ but people leavin’”

The older she gets, the more outspoken she becomes, the more wise she becomes, and the more aware she becomes of herself, her life, her past, where she hopes to go from each point in time. I can’t remember a character who was as genuine. Like so many others who loved this story, I wholeheartedly agree that Ivy is a character for the ages, a character who won’t be easy to forget. Ultimately, it isn’t the places she moves to and from, but the journey of her heart that moved me. It was a privilege to know Ivy.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the narrator Kate Forbes. The narration is perfect in tone, inflection and dialect. This is 2nd fiction book on audio read by Kate Forbes that I have listened to, actually the second fiction book I’ve listened to ever. It wasn’t an accident that I chose this one because of how much I loved her narration of A Parchment of Leaves . I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the beautiful review by my friend Candi which just so perfectly captures the essence of Ivy Rowe, now one of my all time favorite characters. Candi’s review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more

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Mar 26, 2018 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

“From where we stood, we could see for miles. I thought I could see Sugar Fork but I couldn’t be sure, there were lots and lots of hollers, and I saw them all, valley after valley, ridge after ridge, Bethel Mountain beyond — but now for the first time I could see over the top of Bethel Mountain to another mountain, blue, purple, then mountain after mountain, rolling like the sea. It was so beautiful. A single twisted pine grew bravely up out of the rocks before us. Mile after mile of empty air ...more

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Mar 01, 2018 Diane Barnes rated it it was amazing

Shelves: re-reads, favorites

I just re-acquainted myself with Ivy Rowe, after an absence of 30 years, and she is still the same wonderful woman I knew then. I have been in her heart and in her head for the last few days, and am now emerging with an inspired sense of just how wonderful life can be when you face it with awe and courage.

Ivy was not a paragon of virtue by society's standards. She followed her heart and her passions, never doing the sensible thing, though she was as smart as they came. She loved ...more

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Feb 13, 2020 Karen rated it it was amazing

I want to thank all of you who have written amazing reviews for this book that led me to read it!
Ivy Rowe had my heart, believe you me!
Ivy was a mountain girl who grew up in Sugar Fork, Virginia in a poor, big family.. one of eight children. From early on she loved writing! At the suggestion of her schoolteacher she begins to write letters.
So, this book is a series of letters written by Ivy to various recipients..from childhood till her death... from the early 1900’s through 1970’s.. through ...more

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Mar 17, 2018 Sara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-fiction, favorites, american, southern-lit, more-than-5-stars

This is a fabulous book with an unforgettable heroine named Ivy Rowe. It is great--believe you me! Set out in letters that begin with a twelve year old Ivy and take us through an entire lifetime, Ivy’s soul is put onto paper, sprinkled with all her hopes, dreams and disappointments. I defy anyone to get past the first letter without loving Ivy unreservedly. She surely made me laugh, cry, rejoice and lament, and she made me remember something of a life that I once had a glimpse of that is now This is a fabulous book with an unforgettable heroine named Ivy Rowe. It is great--believe you me! Set out in letters that begin with a twelve year old Ivy and take us through an entire lifetime, Ivy’s soul is put onto paper, sprinkled with all her hopes, dreams and disappointments. I defy anyone to get past the first letter without loving Ivy unreservedly. She surely made me laugh, cry, rejoice and lament, and she made me remember something of a life that I once had a glimpse of that is now gone forever. If you traveled deep into Appalachia, you might find people still living somewhat the same, but I doubt it. There just isn’t anywhere like Blue Star Mountain anymore.

I have sometimes thought that my own life has a soundtrack. I can conjure up specific events and people when I hear certain songs. Apparently, Ivy Rowe’s life had a soundtrack as well. I loved all the references to old songs and, after one of my fine GR friends, Tom, posted one of the songs off of Youtube, I felt compelled to seek out every song that was mentioned and listen to them one by one. It was a surreal experience, since they were songs that conjured my own father and his brothers, who loved nothing better than to get together on the porch with fiddle and guitars and fill the night with folk music, hymns and popular songs of their time.

Ivy dreams of a bigger life, one filled with purpose and travel and adventure, but she finds hers is destined to be a rather simple life, lived primarily at Sugar Fork and circling around a small community and a limited number of people. But, I think she finds, in the end, that simple lives have purpose too, and perhaps as many or more facets than those lived in exotic places or in fancy homes. Like the creek that leads to Sugar Fork, her life meanders and turns and changes, and it is the memory of all that moving water that matters the most.

"I felt a pain shoot through me, like an arrow in my heart. Oh Joli, you get so various as you get old! I have been so many people. And yet I think the most important thing is Don't Forget. Don't ever forget."

Lee Smith is an adroit writer, who almost paints her scenes, like airbrushing with words. I had a true sense of the beauty and wildness of Sugar Fork, the rising mountains, the foliage, and the fields of wildflowers.

"But night comes in slow over Bethel Mountain and we watch it come, like it is sneaking in I reckon, stealing across the mountains ridge by ridge, they go blue and purple before your very eyes, and then the mist will rise."

I could not be happier to have climbed this mountain with Ivy. She is so refreshingly open-minded, so kind, feeling, accepting and imperfect. Like so many of us, she doesn’t always appreciate what she has, she acts rashly, she caves into desires she barely understands, she falls for lines that she knows are not true, but she presses forward, forgives others and often forgives herself. But, through it all, she chooses. She never abdicates the choice to others and the responsibility, credit and the blame, are always hers alone. If, at the end of my life, I could look back and see a life as full of love and meaning as Ivy’s, I think I could be satisfied.

I am always indebted to Diane and The Southern Literary Trail for introducing me to the best authors and the finest books. I have discovered Tom Franklin, Howard Bahr, Tim Gautreaux, Michael Farris Smith, and now Lee Smith. How on earth do you say “thank you” for that?

...more

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Jul 24, 2015 Cathrine ☯️ rated it really liked it

4.5
Take me home country roads . I had a friend, recently deceased, who was raised in the Ozark mountains and I could hear her accent and unique phrases like “down to a gnat’s eyelash” as told through Ivy Rowe’s letters recounting her life on Blue Star Mountain as she describes passing through a field of "lighning bugs like walking among the stars in the sky." I was unfamiliar with the author until I heard her comments about Harper Lee and To Kill A Mockingbird as part of a recent documentary on ...more

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Oct 08, 2018 Cheri rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, historical-fiction, american-southern, 2018

”Baby when I get down I turn to you
And you make sense of what I do
I know it isn't hard to say
But baby just when this world seems mean and cold
Our love comes shining red and gold
And all the rest is by the way

“Why worry, there should be laughter after pain
There should be sunshine after rain
These things have always been the same
So why worry now”

-- Why Worry, Emmylou Harris, Mark Knopfler, Songwriters: Mark Knopfler

”Oh Ivy, sing ivory, rosebud and thorn…”

An epistolary novel, this story is told ...more

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Mar 25, 2018 Suzy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: listened-to, american-south, audio-faves, family-dynamics, historical-fiction, epistolary-books

I had not heard of this author nor of this book before I saw it was a pick this month of the GR group On the Southern Literary Trail. It’s a favorite group that has introduced me to many great authors and stories, so I dived right in. Boy, am I glad I did! This book will certainly have a place in my top ten books ever. Yes, it was that good.

Ivy Rowe is a woman born into a dirt-poor family on a farm beside Sugar Fork creek on a mountain in southwest Virginia coal country, an often-cruel I had not heard of this author nor of this book before I saw it was a pick this month of the GR group On the Southern Literary Trail. It’s a favorite group that has introduced me to many great authors and stories, so I dived right in. Boy, am I glad I did! This book will certainly have a place in my top ten books ever. Yes, it was that good.

Ivy Rowe is a woman born into a dirt-poor family on a farm beside Sugar Fork creek on a mountain in southwest Virginia coal country, an often-cruel circumstance. But Ivy has a zest for life, an unceasing curiosity, a drive for education, an outsized love of nature and a passion for writing. We meet her in 1915 when she is twelve and we get to know about her life through the letters she writes over the years to a handful of family and friends. And what a life! She wants to be a writer and gets oh-so-close to going north to be educated in Boston, but life has other plans for Ivy. Life is not always easy and her drive to live it fully doesn’t always lead her in the best direction, but Ivy is a model for making the best of her choices and what life throws at her.

I loved watching the sweep of history unfold through Ivy’s letters from 1915 through the early 1970’s. When she tells, for example, a friend about rural electrification coming to the valley below her, we too are amazed at the moment the lights go on, looking like a valley full of fireflies. We feel her heart break at the loss of lives from war, we know the thrill of her first store-bought dress, we marvel along with her getting a radio and listening to baseball, and we too chuckle at women wearing pantsuits.

Ivy doesn’t just live life, she sees life and from this seeing comes a deep knowing. As we experience life through Ivy’s eyes, we are able to see and to know as well. When I finished Fair and Tender Ladies, I was “ruint” for reading anything else for a few days, to borrow one of Ivy’s oft-use words.

A note on the audiobook
This was one of the best I’ve ever listened to. I felt as if I were sitting on the front porch up there on the mountain with Ivy as she told me the story of her life. While I was reading this book, I found myself thinking and talking with a southern accent! After all, if I were sitting up there with her, I must speak that way too. We likely had a pitcher of lemonade, a fan to keep us cool from the heat and perhaps bluegrass music playing on the radio. ...more

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Mar 02, 2018 Lawyer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: epistolary-novel, favorites, appalachia-southern-literature, on-the-southern-literary-trail, signed-first-edition, moderator-s-choice, virginia, 2018, weatherford-award

Fair and Tender Ladies: A Life Well Lived

My sincere thanks to Diane Barnes, my reading friend and a Co-Moderator of On the Southern Literary Trail, who selected Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith, as her Moderator's Choice for March, 2018.

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8, King James Version

Those few verses render the entire range of our lives on this earth. It is simple and it is wise. For it is the story of each of us. These are among my favorite verses of the Bible. Never have I seen it written so beautifully, so perfectly, as in this novel by Lee Smith.

Ivy Rowe is a woman whose life will remain indelibly a part of my life as a reader. While each of us lives out the words of Ecclesiastes, each of us must do so in our own way. This is Ivy Rowe's story. Told completely in the letters Ivy wrote through the course of her life, from a budding adolescent to a very old woman.

This book is one to cherish, to keep, to love, to return to, no matter how many books we have left unread in the time allotted to us. It is simply that special. Ivy has much to tell us and she does in a manner each of us can see a bit of ourselves, whether man or woman. We laugh with her. We cry with her.

As simple as the words of Ecclesiastes are, contained in them is the question just when is it time to do those things in our lives. Often the time to get may be easy. To keep may be as easy. But accepting loss and deciding to cast away what we have held dear is not so easily done.

The life of Ivy Rowe teaches the answers to the hard questions. Ivy's story is that of a life well lived. It now joins the relatively few books on my favorites shelf. May it be on yours as well.

...more

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May 26, 2014 Connie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audible-cd, best-of-2015-5-stars, 2015

Lee Smiths beautiful prose in this story told through the letters of Ivy Rowe made my heart and mind sing with nostalgia. This story follows the stubborn and very wise Ivy from a young girl at the end of the 18th century to a very old woman in the mid 1900's. Though poor and poorly educated she had a thirst for knowledge and a zest for life. She never lost that ability of the young to look around and see the beauty of your surroundings as well as be grateful for the simplest things in life. Ivy Lee Smiths beautiful prose in this story told through the letters of Ivy Rowe made my heart and mind sing with nostalgia. This story follows the stubborn and very wise Ivy from a young girl at the end of the 18th century to a very old woman in the mid 1900's. Though poor and poorly educated she had a thirst for knowledge and a zest for life. She never lost that ability of the young to look around and see the beauty of your surroundings as well as be grateful for the simplest things in life. Ivy was not simple, far from it but she always kept that sense of awe and wonder.
This story is about hardship, about great love, about great loss as well as about great yearning and disappointment. Family mattered, no matter what. Ivy travelled through her life with a dignity and quite a sense of humor that was matched only by how strongly she felt things. She had little fear and charged ahead without considering consequences, then accepted whatever came her way.
Having come from a family of strong midwestern pioneers, and having lived in the mountains of rural Tennessee and North Carolina that mimic the setting of this story I appreciated how on target Smith was in her descriptions of the people, the traditions, the lore of this generation. Her descriptions of the settings were lyrical, almost musical and I could close my eyes and see the fields of wildflowers, smell the rain in the air before the storm, hear the birds in the early morning and feel the dew on my bare feet.
Having also received a weekly letter from home for the last 35 years of my life (since I left home) I could appreciate Ivy's letters as her way to stay connected to those who held a place in her heart. These letters were full of great sorrows and joys and everything in between. I also appreciated the changes in society that were discussed in these letters, how progress in the world eventually comes to all corners. We learned about not only Ivy's life but that of her family as well through these letters. She was the person who kept them all connected.
With Fair and Tender Ladies Smith has cemented herself in my mind as the ultimate writer of Southern story telling. I listened to the audio and so appreciated the language of the mountains. The dialogue held the charm of the rural, mountain folk yet the speech was almost like the old English, no contractions but correct grammar. The spot on narrative took this to a 5 star rating. It has been a while since I have laughed, and cried and embraced a character as I did with Ivey. I will miss her. ...more

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Feb 09, 2016 Chrissie rated it really liked it

Shelves: usa, hf, life-stages, audible, love, 2016-read, southern

This book is special. The cover may give you the impression that this is fluff. It is not!

It is set in the Appalachians of Virginia. It covers the 1900s through to the 70s. Both wars and the Depression. Yet history is not the focus even if it of course plays a role in shaping events. The focus is a family, the family of Ivy Rowe. She has six siblings, aunts and uncles, grandparents, friends and her own five kids. They get married, and they have kids. Each one of these becomes a person you know. This book is special. The cover may give you the impression that this is fluff. It is not!

It is set in the Appalachians of Virginia. It covers the 1900s through to the 70s. Both wars and the Depression. Yet history is not the focus even if it of course plays a role in shaping events. The focus is a family, the family of Ivy Rowe. She has six siblings, aunts and uncles, grandparents, friends and her own five kids. They get married, and they have kids. Each one of these becomes a person you know. Not once was I confused about who was who! Ivy thought she would become a writer, but she never did. Yet she did, in her own way, because what we are reading are her letters to friends and those in her family. Her whole life is told through these letters. I never imagined that such a complete, heartrending and delightful story could possibly be told through only letters! She reveals her innermost thoughts in letters that are not sent, and thus in this way we get the truth. I would never have trusted only letters to friends and family, because don’t we hide stuff from each other?!

What is so special about this book is
- the writing. Ivy expresses herself simply and honestly and beautifully. Great writing. Beautiful lines and lines to ponder.
- the in-depth character portrayals. Each character becomes someone you know well. Each one is a mix of good and bad. Ivy tells all. She thinks, she simply cannot stop thinking. We watch her from early youth to old age. Through these letters we learn of her life and the life of those close to her. At the end when she is old, you don't want her to die. You cannot bear to lose her. Through her you think of your own life.
- the accurate and detailed picture drawn of a "mountain girl's" life in the South. Gorgeous writing about rural places - mountains and creeks and hollers. You don’t know what a holler is? In the Appalachians this word is used for a valley region between two hills or mountains, often with a creek. Southern expressions and dialect create a feeling of place.

The audiobook narration by Kate Forbes was superb. This is one of those cases where listening to the book is better than just reading it. The dialect and sound you hear further enhance the atmosphere. You hear as Ivy ages, scarcely noting that her voice has changed! Never hard to follow and a great choice for those who have little experience with audiobooks.

When I close this book I am sad because it is over.

I will be grabbing more by this author. My next will be her memoir: Dimestore: A Writer's Life.
...more

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Apr 11, 2019 Margitte rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: community, historical-fiction, reviewed, family-sagas, women-s-fiction, drama, american-history, american-novel, american-southern-prose, american-author

So here we have Ivy Rowe, daughter of Maude Castle Rowe and John Arthur Rowe. Her siblings were Silvaney, Ethel, Beulah, Garnie, Johnny, and Victor. Pardon me if I left one out. Sugar Fork farm was their homestead up in the Smokie Appalachians of South Carolina. Dirt-poor and dire spelled out their destiny. Oakley Fox was Ivy's eventual husband.

Her autodidactive life came out in different letters to a world full of characters. The one more sinful, adventurous or colorful than the next.

Oakley So here we have Ivy Rowe, daughter of Maude Castle Rowe and John Arthur Rowe. Her siblings were Silvaney, Ethel, Beulah, Garnie, Johnny, and Victor. Pardon me if I left one out. Sugar Fork farm was their homestead up in the Smokie Appalachians of South Carolina. Dirt-poor and dire spelled out their destiny. Oakley Fox was Ivy's eventual husband.

Her autodidactive life came out in different letters to a world full of characters. The one more sinful, adventurous or colorful than the next.

Oakley was the real gentle soul in this narrative. He lived for other people, he helped whomever needed it (including Ivy), and died a hero without realising it. But that's late in the story though.

Ivy was ' ruint', lost, sanctified, hellbent, spitfire, proud, scandalous, beholden and grateful (although at one point, she became sick to death of the latter two). In fact she was also tired to death of people with good intentions who tried to advise her. They were the worst of all, Ivy said. Her soul was wild. Yet, she was a puffweed underneath it all, she thought. Loving. (That's a matter of opinion, dear Ivy). Like Geneva Hunt, the woman who took her mother and surviving siblings in, was as scandalous as Ivy. But Geneva moved on to become an institution in the end. Perhaps Ivy did as well. Not really, Ivy thought. Her problem according to her, was that she couldn't give up a thing! Nothing. She couldn't forget. She could not move on. She was having a heart attack all the time.

Geneva is 70 if she’s a day, and still up to no good. There is something in me which admires this, and wants to ride hell for leather down the high road of life like Geneva does. But I am somehow lacking in gumption and pluck, or else it is that I have got to think about things too much finally . I can't help it. You know I have always got to write my letters, and think about what's happened, and what I've done....

... All of a sudden I remembered one time way way back when Revel was taking us someplace in the wagon, now this was not too long after Daddy died and before Revel had to leave here. We were going to town in the wagon and a mad dog came up and started barking and the mules tried to run off in opposite directions. We had to hang on for dear life! I remember Beulah’s screams, to this day. I remember how the mules’ breath hung white in the frosty air. Then finally Revel shot the dog, and that was that.

But sometimes I feel I am caught in that wild bucking wagon yet, with no one here to shoot the dog.

Then there was Franklin Ransom, who stirred her blood with his amorous adventures, his tireless hunt for satisfaction, and his ruthless pursuasion of debauchery. Ivy could color him in, but could never get his outline right.

The apple trees behind the house were like a rolling sea of sweet pink clouds. The rosybush by the front steps is still in bloom, and the lilac by the back door never had so many flowers. It is beautiful up here. Try to think of me like this, in all these flowers, and don’t be mad at me or disappointed because I failed to marry Franklin Ransom as you hoped, or make a schoolteacher either as Mrs. Brown and Miss Torrington wished. I guess I am too flighty to make a good schoolteacher anyhow—I still get all carried away! So I will just write my letters instead, for it means so much to me to keep in touch.

And later, in her forties, along came Honey Breeding...

Life seems contrary to me, as contrary as I am. I feel like you never say what you ought to, nor do as you should, and then it is too late. It is all over. I have spent half of my life wanting and the other half grieving, and most often I have been wanting and grieving the same thing. There has been precious little inbetween.

It is a sweet tale, filled with picturesque descriptions of Ivy's environment, interactions, and her rendition of history. The southern rhythmic language came through from beginning to end. A charming ode to hardship and happiness(which finally manifested itself when Ivy became a proud mountain woman in old age).

Just about everyone is falling over themselves to rate this book five stars. I can see why. And for me it is a recommended read for women, that is, if you share in the underlying philosophy. But like Ivy, I don't look at life through tinted lenses. So here is the reason why I did not rate it higher. Bite me if you feel like it.

The loss of two stars:(view spoiler)[
What can I say? Ivy ' blossomed' wherever she was planted and thrived, as long as her feeding source was misery. In the end it depends on the reader how much of it can be metabolized before the litarary diarrhoea becomes a reeking mess, devoid of any further intended shock value. It did not fascinate me. It annoyed.

The radical feminist narrative is followed to a tee: only single women thrive; marriage is overrated or undesirable; men are weak or disposable; religion and Republicans are unacceptable(in fact, in so many words) ....the list goes on and on, like the steady drip of leaking water into a bucket. Show, don't tell is done extremely well here, allowing the postmodernist concept of rewriting history to develop skillfully and unobtrusively. Okay, so you don't have to look for these elements in this novel. But I am by this time so sick and tired of this overexploited narrative, I can just about climb a tree with my teeth. Ugh. Grrrrr. Is there by golly, nothing new to explore or say?

Just enjoy the gory details of Ivy Rowe's life since the 1930s to her death. Her neurotic epistolary tales were written through various historical periods, and from different places:Sugar Fork, Majestic, Diamond, and then Sugar Fork again. Farming is a tough life, but an extremely rewarding one if your mindset is right. There were, and are, millions of women who, despite their dire circumstances, enjoyed whatever they were doing in their homesteads through the previous ages, and took up every imaginable challenge which headed their way. And yes, they were hit by disasters, death and a gazillion damnations, some man-made, and others a few curve balls from nature, yet they took it all on and won. Stronger and wiser than ever before. It's all in the mind, someone said.

Writing is a way of exploring the freedom of fantasies and even obsessions. It is after all one of the oldest form of communication. It's also a powerful propaganda tool - fiction being the most effective of them all. So while enjoying a well written tale, a deeper exploration of the elements building the plot can also expose the underlying intend of the story. The moral of the story as it was once known. This book took advantage of melodrama and emotional extortion to cut the deal with the reader. In my case it backfired grandiosely. But that's just me. (hide spoiler)] ...more

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Apr 12, 2007 JG (The Introverted Reader) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, southern-lit, all_time_faves, own, characters_i_love, womens_fiction, z_read_in_2009, appalachia, reviewed, signed

I'm an Appalachian mountain girl. I felt like I knew Ivy from the first sentence. She truly seemed to come to life on the pages. I came along a few generations after her time, but I felt like she could be one of my grandmothers. She talked the way I probably still talk :-) Education was important to her, and she was very smart, but she never really got a chance. I guess, really, I felt like I could have been reading family history. That says a lot about a novel.

Re-read June 28, 2009

There's not I'm an Appalachian mountain girl. I felt like I knew Ivy from the first sentence. She truly seemed to come to life on the pages. I came along a few generations after her time, but I felt like she could be one of my grandmothers. She talked the way I probably still talk :-) Education was important to her, and she was very smart, but she never really got a chance. I guess, really, I felt like I could have been reading family history. That says a lot about a novel.

Re-read June 28, 2009

There's not all that much to add. This is a book that touches my heart and it's hard for me to write about those.

Ivy Rowe is this book. She's spunky, she makes mistakes, she loves, she lives, she's stubborn, she's wrong sometimes; in short, she just feels real to me in a way that very few characters do. Oh, I write fairly often about how I love this or that character, but Ivy feels like someone I know. The novel is written in a series of letters that Ivy writes to others. You get inside her head and stay there. You follow Ivy from the time she's about 10 years old on. There's a whole progression of wide-eyed optimism to teenage carelessness and invincibility to repentance to more carelessness to acceptance and reflection. I live a whole other lifetime when I read this book.

Lee Smith chose to have Ivy write in our southern Appalachian dialect and she gets it just absolutely perfect. I literally "hear" Ivy with my grandmother's voice, and I hear the the preacher Sam Russell Sage as my uncle. Ivy's sister Silvaney doesn't really speak, but she reminds me of my grandmother's sister, Sue. Do you see the connection I make to this book?

It might be a little hard to read at first because Ivy's letters are full of childish mistakes and she spells our dialect phonetically, but don't be put off by that. It gets better and I think you'll understand it anyway. But for a story about a woman who makes her share of mistakes, but lives a life worth living, pick this one up. I think you'll enjoy it. And if you happen to be from the southern Appalachians, I think you'll feel the same strong connection I do. This book has a permanent place in my heart and soul. ...more

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Mar 09, 2018 Julie Durnell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: southern

A totally 5-star book! This is an exceptional epic story of Appalachia in the 20th century written entirely as letters to people in Ivy's life. I was so unexpectedly taken with this life story. The vernacular put me off just a bit at first but then I settled in to sit a spell with Ivy and her family and neighbors. It is just an incredible slice of the Virginia Appalachia life back then. It tells it like was but does not wallow in the poverty or anything that offshoots from that. Ivy loved ...more

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Apr 03, 2008 Lyn Cosby rated it it was amazing

I think that maybe I love Ivy Rowe more than any character I've read. The reader meets Ivy as a child and grows old with her. She's a natural-born writer, so the story is told in epistolary style through the letters Ivy is forever writing to her friends and family. Ivy believes she yearns to see the world, but as her life progresses and she has opportunities to escape the poverty of her Appalachian upbringing, she discovers that the pull of home and family are stronger than that of travel and ...more

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Mar 10, 2018 Camie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A delightful and thought provoking novel about the life and times of feisty Ivy Rowe as told in personal letters written from her early childhood to old age. Hailing from Sugarfork Farm in the mountains of Virginia she imparts a lot of life lessons from having lived as a strong, sometimes unconventional, woman who followed a life path predominately dictated by her own conscience. A book republished 3 times since it's first printing in 1988, and one that really needs to be rediscovered !!
Read for ...more

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Jul 21, 2015 Tom Mathews rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Lee Smith’s Fair and Tender Ladies portrays better than any other book I have ever read, the hopes and joys, and trials and tribulations of a life spent in the hills and hollows of Appalachia. Told in epistolary style using letters written to friends and family of Ivy Rowe, a girl born at the dawn of the 20th century up Sugar Fork on Blue Star Mountain in Western Virginia. Hers is a story rich in the vibrant history of the Scots Irish settlers who carved out a tenuous foothold in the wilderness ...more

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Dec 06, 2014 Mmars rated it it was amazing

Really 4.5 stars.

A couple years ago I fell in love with Lee Smith’s Appalachian storytelling in Oral History. I have finally returned to her with “Fair and Tender Ladies”. The book is penned by Ivy Rowe in letters to various friends and relatives, beginning with her preteen years during the WWI era. She loves to read but has not yet developed her spelling skills, so the first 70 pages or so took a bit longer to read as I ciphered out her words and many colloquialisms. But from the get go Ivy is Really 4.5 stars.

A couple years ago I fell in love with Lee Smith’s Appalachian storytelling in Oral History. I have finally returned to her with “Fair and Tender Ladies”. The book is penned by Ivy Rowe in letters to various friends and relatives, beginning with her preteen years during the WWI era. She loves to read but has not yet developed her spelling skills, so the first 70 pages or so took a bit longer to read as I ciphered out her words and many colloquialisms. But from the get go Ivy is one spirited and attractive red-head. She also has a huge heart and an overactive memory. Her family lives isolated on Sugar Mountain and her father is ill and passes away, leaving her mother struggling to manage their farm, and often relying on the kindness of relatives and neighbors to put food on the table.

Eventually her mother moves in with a friend in town and Ivy gets a “room” of her own. After her mother passes away when Ivy is 18, she goes to live with one of her older sisters in a mining town. I appreciated that Smith chose to add this mining community in her book. The societal strata and living conditions here post-WWI was informative and interesting.

After a mining disaster, Ivy marries and returns to Sugar Mountain for the rest of her life. I really don’t want to say more about the story, because there would spoilers and I’ve probably spoiled enough already.

I’m not a big fan of epistolary novels, but I loved this one. I think it’s easy to get bogged down by the mundane or the letters get repetitious, or are terse, or only skim the surface and are unable to give the reader the whole picture. None of that applies here. Ivy writes to many people and shares what she believes would be of interest to them. She gives advice. She tells great stories (Smith’s forte). And, she bares her soul and tells all to Silvaney, her disturbed sister placed in an asylum in the early part of the book. Interestingly, there are no love letters, though she was “ruint” at a young age and had flings, but she has a good marriage with a warm, caring husband.

I’ve taken a half-star away feeling that the late-life letters were spaced father apart. I would have liked more depth to her aging process. Perhaps this is realistic, though. As people age, it is not at all unusual to become more insular and have fewer close relationships.

Highly recommended slice of life in Virginia’s Appalachian mountains covering a large swath of the 20th century
...more

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Sep 25, 2013 Cheryl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Lovers of Southern Literature

Shelves: fiction, letters, library-books

I borrowed this book from the library of the mountain town where Lee Smith grew up--my first library book in quite a while. There I was, on my first trip to the library, wandering aisles and I ran across sectioned-off areas with Lee Smith's works. But of course. And I finished this book in one sitting.

Oh, Ivy Rowe--what a fascinating character. She is raised in the hollers of the mountains by a father who is too sick to work, and a mother who gave up a comfortable life to raise a family. At the I borrowed this book from the library of the mountain town where Lee Smith grew up--my first library book in quite a while. There I was, on my first trip to the library, wandering aisles and I ran across sectioned-off areas with Lee Smith's works. But of course. And I finished this book in one sitting.

Oh, Ivy Rowe--what a fascinating character. She is raised in the hollers of the mountains by a father who is too sick to work, and a mother who gave up a comfortable life to raise a family. At the onset, her father is dying, her mother is depressed, and her sister is dealing with mental issues. There is a farm that the women and children must run. Ivy wants to go to school but she can't--she must stay home to help on the farm. Luckily, a teacher mentors her and through her fascination with books, she learns to read and write. Hence the letter writing in the book.

At first glance, you're caught off track because the book is in letter form, as Ivy is writing to a pen-pal, to a teacher, and later to her sister who is taken off to a mental ward. The book starts with young Ivy and ends with an older Ivy who has by then, exchanged letters with family members as they move through different stages in life, so you learn the story through letter exchanges.

It is moving and melancholic. There is a lot of drama as you learn of marriage, divorce, affairs, illness, and a mine tragedy that brings with it a surprising twist midway in the book. Set against the backdrop of a coal-mining town deep in the mountains, the narrative is scenic and at times lyrical. Lee Smith really writes about southwestern Virginia with grace and authenticity. Written in the dialect of the area though, it may be a bit confusing at first, with words like 'once' for example, written as oncet:

I heard them guns popping all threw the hills and then I knowed it was Christmas wich I had clean forgot. All the rest of them was sleeping in the house. ETHEL I hollered, and direckly she come, wearing Daddys dead mommas old coat, she looked so funny I liked to of died. Get the gun I hollered, and whilst she was doing it I layed rigt down in the snow and made angels, I must of made a thousand angels but I never got wet, that snow was as dry as powder.

4.5 stars ...more

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Apr 28, 2018 L.K. Simonds rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Ivy Rowe is one of the great characters in American literature. She's smart, ambitious, and beautiful. She's feisty as all get out and liable to do anything, not to mention she's ruint. Ivy is a Virginia mountain girl through and through. We discover her story and the stories of those she loves and those she doesn't through the letters Ivy writes to family and friends over much of her life.

The New York Times called "Fair and Tender Ladies" Lee Smith's most fully realized novel to date (1988), ...more

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Apr 26, 2018 Tina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: on-the-southern-literary-trail-li, southern-books-to-read

This is a book of letters. The main character and letter writer, Ivy Rowe, was a poor Appalachian girl who began writing letters to her teacher about her life and family. Ivy had very little schooling, like most of the people in her community, but she possessed a fierce desire to learn. Through her letters to family and friends, we watch Ivy grow. We experience her hardships. Feel her grief. Learn of her mistakes and her triumphs. Especially in Ivy’s letters to her sister Silvany where Ivy bared ...more

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Aug 02, 2007 Ashley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporaryfiction

This novel is one of my favorite books of all time. Polly Hollar gave it to me in college with two lines from the book inscribed in the cover: "Slow down, slow down, this is the taste of spring" and "I have walked in my body like a queen." It's an epistolary book that appears as a compilation of all the letters written by a poor Appalachian woman named Ivy Rowe throughout her lifetime. Some letters are to herself, a pen pal, or to individuals who will never receive them. Some letters are to ...more

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Oct 30, 2017 Annie rated it it was ok

Well, my winning streak is over. I thought I would really like this because of what I thought it would be about and because it got good reviews overall, which really mystifies me. This novel starts out in the 30s in the Appalachian Mountains. I expected that I would read about a heartwarming community of mountain people who had it rough but helped each other through the tough times. I have to admit that I only got a third of the way through this. I never connected to the main character like I ...more

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Jan 17, 2009 Gail rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-group, 2009

Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith is an enchanting epistolary (told through letters) novel about a life. There is not one specific antagonist or event that this novel is centered on, instead it is centered on the heroine, Ivy Rowe, and the events of her life as they unfold through letters she writes to family and friends. The story begins a few years into the 1900's when Ivy is 12 years old writing about her life to a hoped for pen-pal, and continures into the 1970's as Ivy writes to friends ...more

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Apr 13, 2018 Deyanne rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

Almost all of my Goodreads friends have fairly raved about this novel. While I enjoyed it, I come away tired after reading a life overflowing with poverty and hard work. The many references to nature which the main character loved were refreshing and my favorite part. I was immersed for an entire afternoon in the Appalachian Virginia hills. The book holds many layers and would make for rich discussion. Ultimately, what brings happiness?

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Aug 06, 2018 Belle rated it really liked it

The best of the 4s.

This was a long story of Ivy Rowe’s life. She tells it all herself in letters to her loved ones.

It goes on my keep forever shelf because someday when I am old I will reread this woman’s story again. There are so many points of wisdom in it to be absorbed at future stages in my life.

I guess though I loved this book the very most because it put me in mind of my mom and my sister that Ivy seems to be an exact cross between. And I love them so much that I cannot help but love ...more

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Jan 05, 2009 Amy rated it it was ok

I really didn't like this book. I just thought that the themes of sex and death were way overdone. The main character has some personality, but her focus in life, and thus the focus of the book, was just too strange. I didn't get it.

I did like how the story was told in all letters. I thought that made an interesting forum. And I LOVED the "accent" you got from the writings. I just didn't like the plot or point.

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Aug 21, 2019 Donna rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, cultural

This is Historical Fiction set in the Appalachian mountains. The story is told entirely through letters of Ivy, the MC. She writes to many different people and bears all.

This book started off as a solid 2 stars for me. I wasn't really feeling it. Even though I liked Ivy as an MC, I can also say that I didn't "get" her in the beginning. She was quite naive to the ways of the world. And given the fact that she was raised in a loving home, albeit a poor one, I had a hard time with her ...more

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Sep 18, 2010 Leslie rated it it was amazing

Lee Smith. The name for me evokes memories of long days spent happily lost in books that speak to the minds and hearts of mountain girls everywhere. Oral History, Family Linen, Black Mountain Breakdown, The Devil's Dream, Saving Grace, and my particular favorite, Fair and Tender Ladies. I know so many of the women in these books, and I have been one or two of them. Thought provoking, funny, tender, haunting; each book has a meaning far beyond the story. The richness of detail about mountain
Lee Smith. The name for me evokes memories of long days spent happily lost in books that speak to the minds and hearts of mountain girls everywhere. Oral History, Family Linen, Black Mountain Breakdown, The Devil's Dream, Saving Grace, and my particular favorite, Fair and Tender Ladies. I know so many of the women in these books, and I have been one or two of them. Thought provoking, funny, tender, haunting; each book has a meaning far beyond the story. The richness of detail about mountain life, the deep understanding of the people and their ways and thoughts, and above all the portrayal of the changes that the modern world has inflicted on a proud people are woven into the stories.

The Friends of the Library in Floyd, with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, is hosting a wonderful series of author talks entitled "Celebrate the Past/Look to the Future". Lee Smith was the speaker at last night's gathering at the Presbyterian Church in Floyd, Virginia. Surrounded by wooden paneled walls, purple carpet and stained glass, Lee Smith was as charming and funny as her books. Haunting as well, as she spoke of personal experience and personal loss, inspiration for the writer from Grundy who grew up surrounded by story. Mountain people love story, playing with words and evoking emotion with family tales, complicated jokes and the richness of memory. Lee Smith's writings capture this love.

She spoke most about her more recent book, The Last Girls, another favorite of mine. I didn't realize that part of the plot was based on a trip she took in college down the Mississippi on a raft. Smith's description of this trip and the girls she traveled with rocked the large audience with laughter. Readings from the book describing the characters, accented in a true mountain voice, were both hilarious and touching. The charm of the writer echoed the charm of her books; she was funny, tender, thought-provoking and haunting, just like her written words.

She also talked about Fair and Tender Ladies, a novel written during a time of personal crisis for her. I think for a true writer the characters often take over the book, and Smith talked of Ivy Rowe, the main character in Fair and Tender Ladies, as if she were a friend. Ivy Rowe is the one character in all of her books that I can call to mind as a complete person. She is plucky and sensuous, proud and loving. Some of the reason may be that I saw an actress portray the character several years ago at the Reynolds Homestead here in Patrick County. After the program the director introduced favorite cousin and me to the actress. Mary startled me by describing me as sensuous. A bit of self-realization there, thanks to Lee Smith.

I looked around the audience as Lee Smith spoke. Floyd County is a unique blending of cultures. Women with deep roots that span generations in these mountains sat with women of different backgrounds, drawn to Floyd by the beauty of the countryside and feeling of community. Every face has a story, all unique, but all about the experience of being women in changing times. Lee Smith has captured these stories in the pages of her novels, speaking with tender understanding of the mountain people that are so often misrepresented and ridiculed. Speaking with pride in an accent that is fast becoming rare because of outside influences, these novels, as fiction, reveal more than truth about a disappearing time and generation. ...more

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About Lee Smith

Lee Smith

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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