From the Bookshelf of Ms. Okes's Classes 2012…

Fair and Tender Ladies

Lee Smith

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Jun 30, 2014 Emily O rated it liked it

Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith is a masterful telling of life growjng up in the Appalachian Mountains. Though set in Virginia, it could easily be the blue hills of my own home state that are described by protagonist Ivy Rowe. In fact, the colloquial grammar put me in mind early on of my own grandmother, whose accent and voice seemed to pervade the rest of the book. As someone who has been fortunate enough to read letters of my grandmother's young days going to school and courting, I feel Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith is a masterful telling of life growjng up in the Appalachian Mountains. Though set in Virginia, it could easily be the blue hills of my own home state that are described by protagonist Ivy Rowe. In fact, the colloquial grammar put me in mind early on of my own grandmother, whose accent and voice seemed to pervade the rest of the book. As someone who has been fortunate enough to read letters of my grandmother's young days going to school and courting, I feel the book pretty acurately dexcribes whst life was like for many people jn the hollers and on the ridges.
Ivy Rowe was one ofmeight children growing up on the highest homestead on a hard mojntain. She begins her collection of letters explaining her family and life to a ninrespinsive pen pal, but Ivy's personslity shjnes through the whirlwind of her jumbled thoughts tonshow how much family means to her and hoe they all rely on each other to make ends meet. Happy tidings and sad events follow her through old traditions and eventually movjng down the mountajn to town. It is in the contrast of Majestic to Sugar Creek that we see how little the Rowes had in materialthings, but how much safety they had from the outside world. Her family becomes increasingly smaller as sibljngs marry, die, and move. Ivy herself is not without trsgedy as she learns the difference between love and lust, and what she and society agree and disagree on.

Lee clearly did her research as demonstrated by the myriad details she includes to depict settjng and the passage of time. Special attention was paid to when roads would havr been paved, when CocaCola became prevalent, and what kind of dresses girls wore. In addition, cultural milestines like the coal mining wars and unionization, World Wars 1 and 2, and the spread of electricity showed how northern Virginia connected to the rest of the world.

I'll admit that this was jot a fast read, but it wasn't hard either. I foucnd myself wondering which characters would disappear or magically return home. Though the whole book is told from Ivy's perspectivr, the cast of characteds was as wide and varied ss a field of wildflowers. ...more

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