Butterfly Weed: A Novel

Stay More #7

by Donald Harington

The raucous story of Doc Swain describes how he becomes a physician without attending medical school, his ability to heal patients with the "dream cure," his pursuit by a student and a music teacher from the high school at which he teaches, and the heartbreaking choices he must make

Genres: Fiction, Romance

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Donald Douglas Harington was an American author. All but the first of his novels either take place in or have an important connection to "Stay More," a fictional Ozark Mountains town based somewhat on Drakes Creek, Arkansas, where Harington spent summers as a child.

Harington was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. He lost nearly all of his hearing at age 12 due to meningitis. This did not prevent him from picking up and remembering the vocabulary and modes of expression among the Ozark denizens, nor in conducting his teaching career as an adult.

Though he intended to be a novelist from a very early age, his course of study and his teaching career were in art and art history. He taught art history in New York, New England, and South Dakota before returning to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, his alma mater, where he taught for 22 years before his retirement on 1 May 2008.

Harington is acclaimed as one of America's greatest writers of fiction, if not one of its best known. Entertainment Weekly called him "America's greatest unknown writer." The novelist and critic Fred Chappell said of him "Donald Harington isn't an unknown writer. He's an undiscovered continent." Novelist James Sallis, writing in the Boston Globe: "Harington's books are of a piece -- the quirkiest, most original body of work in contemporary U.S. letters."

Harington died of pneumonia, after a long illness, in Springdale on 7 November 2009.

Harington's novels are available from The Toby Press in a uniform edition, with cover illustrations by Wendell Minor. Since his death, The Toby Press has made available the entire set of Harington novels as The Complete Novels of Donald Harington.

Reviews

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best one of the series yet. I'm tempted to annotate the book in terms of historical fact. Couple of examples:

The frame story is told by Vance Randolph, who really was a folkorist who specialized in Ozarkian folklore.

Automobiles really were manufactured in Arkansas in the early 20th century by the Climber Motor Company.

Artificial pneumothorax and thoracoplasty(!) really were used as treatments for tuberculosis. There really was a tuberculosis sanitorium near Booneville Arkansas. In one way, the book is about tuberculosis.

[Bud Mallar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again, one should start with Mr Harington's first book in the Stay More series to pick up the running narrative of several characters.

But, like most of them, this will work as a stand alone.

This, like all the others, are full of Arkansas rural characters, folklore, stories and bits and pieces of reality.

But this story, like the others, touches us all. It is about life, and love, and choices, and acceptance and is a wonderful break from all the grit lit I go through. Perhaps the 'sex scenes' - although some are funny - are a bit more prevalent in this book, but they seem to work without being overly pornographic. In some cases they are more medical descriptions than something supposed to read a erotic.

If you haven't read Mr Harington, you should

[David Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's clever, this book, also rude. One could say this is also a sexy book, but only in the sense that attributes of sex are contained within (none of which are intended to be sexy). Such language abounds in this book, phrasings and idioms placed so perfectly carelessly; it was very nice. The people were only mostly horrible: they have sufficient crumbs of decency to make them interesting--therefore bearable (except for Doc Swain's actual father, who can fuck right off)--and capable of unexpected tenderness.

It's a good book.

[Veronika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fabulous Donald Harington book. This one focused on Doc Swain, his dream cures and his love between a few women.

[Hilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this book three stars because it was pretty inventive and humorous. However, if you took out all the sex it would be a twenty or thirty page pamphlet. This is the "Fifty Shades Of Gray" for Ozark hill people.
So, if you are an Ozark hill person and you like reading about LOTS of sex with brothers and sisters and Aunties and Uncles and gramma's and grampa's and dogs and cats (well...I don't specifically remember any sex involving dogs and cats...but that doesn't mean it's not in there), you should probably grab yourself a copy of this book and be well and truly entertained for a few days.

[Leah Hortin]

Dnf

[D'face · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Butterfly Weed’ takes the form of a novelist speaking with a retired folklorist at his nursing home. The folklorist stumbled into Stay More with typhoid and was nursed back to health by Doc Swain. Doc Swain was cut from the womb of his mother by his biological father who killed his parents and gave the baby to reclusive healer in payment for learning the trade of healing from the recluse. The recounts the story of Doc Swain a doctor taught by his adoptive father in their remote cave. Without formal schooling Doc Swain becomes a recognised doctor capable of not only the most advanced medical diagnoses, but also surgery, raising the dead and curing the sick in their sleep through the ‘dream cure’. The doctor marries one of his patients but finds his true love many years later in a 16 year old student Tenny. Their love is frustrated by the interference of a lusty female teacher Venda Breedlove who has her designs upon Doc Swain. Tenny contracts tuberculosis and dies in a very poignant passage at the end of the book, visiting the Doc after her death in his dreams. There are many graphic sexual scenes throughout the book, including the sexual awakening of two male characters through incest.

This is the first Harington book I have read. Each chapter is a session with the folklorist in the nursing home and the writing style is conversational making this a very comfortable read. I was introduced to Harington through ‘The Writer’s Almanac’ where he was described as "America's greatest unknown writer." Harington’s novels are difficult to place, they are magical realism in a small town he has richly created and populated. He died in 2009.

[Jae · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up as light reading after finishing Lonesome Dove. It was perfect. Harington knows how to tell a story. I laughed every single time I picked up this book. It is rife with Ozarkian folklore, folk medicine, folk humor, and folks. It's a bit fantastical as Doc Swain cures people in their dreams, meets his lover in their dreams for their first romantic liaison, and sets up a student who is endowed with two penises with another student who's got two vaginas, but this aspect is buffered by the telling of more than you ever want to know about tuberculosis. Harington has written a bunch of other books about the Ozark town of Stay More, and I think I might need to read one or two of them.

[Oldcoach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any book by Harrington is always a good read, but I was just a bit disappointed about one aspect of the book. Most of his books tell agreat story, have interesting characters, and have wonderful twists and turns to the plot line. Sex was just a natural part of the story. With Butterfly Weed I felt that sex drove the plot rather than events or the characters. This has not been the norm for other books by Harrington.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good Harrington starter. Harrington has more humor in his little finger than most have in their entire arm. He transfers his humor and personality to the page. His latest comes out in May 2008...more from the town of Stay More, where most of his novels take place. You get to know an entire community when you digest one of his books.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got caught up in Donald Harington's world of Stay More, Arkansas years ago, with his book Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks. I've read a number of his books since. Butterfly Weed is not my favorite, but it was an enjoyable read nonetheless. Very funny, bawdy, just a little too "self aware" for my taste.

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another beautiful story from Donald Harington. This time he tells the story of Doc Swain, one of my favourite Stay Morons. I was surprised to learn after reading it that the character Vance who narrates the story to Harington in the book (yes, it is meta) was a real-life folklorist.

[Jim Krotzman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy the folklore scenario of the novel.
The Ozark dialect is entertaining if not accurate. I don't know if it is.
There are many sexual situations in the novel.
The character of Colvin U Swain is well developed.
The superstitions and medical therapies of the mountain folk are entertaining.

[Noelle]

Okay. I didn't finish this. I tried to because the writing is interesting and unique--folklore of the Ozarks. However: I simply couldn't stick with it.

[Bridget · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never tire of this author.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this some time ago and never took it off my to read list. Hmmm, I remember that I enjoyed it enough at the time, but the book did not live within me like a really good book does.

[Veronika Suess · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was just lot of fun! A great book indeed!

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just amazing.

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another really fun book by Harington.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unusual!

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the funniest and most cathartic books I've ever read.