Lowcountry Summer
Dorothea Benton Frank, 2010
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061961175
Summary
When Caroline Wimbley Levine returned to Tall Pines Plantation, she never expected to make peace with long-buried truths about herself and her family. The Queen of Tall Pines, her late mother, was a force of nature, but now she is gone, leaving Caroline and the rest of the family uncertain of who will take her place.
In the lush South Carolina countryside, old hurts, betrayals, and dark secrets will surface, and a new generation will rise along the banks of the mighty Edisto River.
Wonderfully evocative, infused with humor and poignancy, and rich with the lyrical cadences of the South, Lowcountry Summer is vintage Dorothea Benton Frank, a deeply moving novel you'll want to savor and share. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1951
• Where—Sullivan's Island, North Carolina, USA
• Education—Fashion Institute of America
• Currently—lives in New Jersey and on Sullivan Island
An author who has helped to put the South Carolina Lowcountry on the literary map, Dorothea Benton Frank hasn't always lived near the ocean, but the Sullivan's Island native has a powerful sense of connection to her birthplace. Even after marrying a New Yorker and settling in New Jersey, she returned to South Carolina regularly for visits, until her mother died and she and her siblings had to sell their family home. "It was very upsetting," she told the Raleigh News & Observer. "Suddenly, I couldn't come back and walk into my mother's house. I was grieving."
After her mother's death, writing down her memories of home was a private, therapeutic act for Frank. But as her stack of computer printouts grew, she began to try to shape them into a novel. Eventually a friend introduced her to the novelist Fern Michaels, who helped her polish her manuscript and find an agent for it.
Published in 2000, Frank's first "Lowcountry tale," Sullivan's Island made it to the New York Times bestseller list. Its quirky characters and tangled family relationships drew comparisons to the works of fellow southerners Anne Rivers Siddons and Pat Conroy (both of whom have provided blurbs for Frank's books). But while Conroy's novels are heavily angst-ridden, Frank sweetens her dysfunctional family tea with humor and a gabby, just-between-us-girls tone. To her way of thinking, there's a gap between serious literary fiction and standard beach-blanket fare that needs to be filled.
"I don't always want to read serious fiction," Frank explained to The Sun News of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "But when I read fiction that's not serious, I don't want to read brain candy. Entertain me, for God's sake." Since her debut, she has faithfully followed her own advice, entertaining thousands of readers with books Pat Conroy calls "hilarious and wise" and characters Booklist describes as "sassy and smart,."
These days, Frank has a house of her own on Sullivan's Island, where she spends part of each year. "The first thing I do when I get there is take a walk on the beach," she admits. Evidently, this transplanted Lowcountry gal is staying in touch with her soul.
Extras
From a Barnes & Noble interview:
• Before she started writing, Frank worked as a fashion buyer in New York City. She is also a nationally recognized volunteer fundraiser for the arts and education, and an advocate of literacy programs and women's issues.
• Her definition of a great beach read—"a fabulous story that sucks me in like a black hole and when it's over, it jettisons my bones across the galaxy with a hair on fire mission to convince everyone I know that they must read that book or they will die."
• When asked about her favorite books, here is what she said:
After working your way through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor, of course, you have to read Gone with the Wind a billion times, then [tackle these authors].
The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy; To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee; The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood; A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley; The Red Tent by Anita Diamant; Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler; Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King; Making Waves and The Sunday Wife by Cassandra King; Islands by Anne Rivers Siddons; Rich in Love, Fireman's Fair, Dreams of Sleep, and Nowhere Else on Earth (all three) by Josephine Humphrey. (Author bio and interview from Barnes and Noble.)
Book Reviews
Here’s one for the Southern gals as well as Yankees who appreciate Frank’s signature mix of sass, sex, and gargantuan personalities. In this long-time-coming sequel to Plantation, opinionated and family-centric Caroline Wimbly Levine has just turned 47, but she’s less concerned with advancing middle age than she is with son Eric shacking up with an older single mom. She’s also dealing with a drunk and disorderly sister-in-law, Frances Mae; four nieces from hell; grieving brother Tripp; a pig-farmer boyfriend with a weak heart; and a serious crush on the local sheriff. Then there’s Caroline’s dead-but-not-forgotten mother, Miss Lavinia, whose presence both guides and troubles Caroline as she tries to keep her unruly family intact and out of jail. With a sizable cast of minor characters with major attitude, Frank lovingly mixes a brew of personalities who deliver nonstop clashes, mysteries, meltdowns, and commentaries; below the always funny theatrics, however, is a compelling saga of loss and acceptance. When Frank nails it, she really nails it, and she does so here.
Publishers Weekly
Reprising the characters introduced in Plantation (2001), Frank creates a richly atmospheric tale of a loving, if dysfunctional, southern family. —Carol Haggas
Booklist
More folksy love, marriage and magic in Frank's winning book. Caroline Wimbley Levine is at loose ends. The daughter of Wimbley matriarch, Miss Lavinia, she has returned to Tall Pines Plantation to take charge of the family home and, apparently, the lives of her relatives. The lowcountry of South Carolina may have limited romantic possibilities—neither of Caroline's major beaus (a barbecue chef and a local cop) tempt her to remarry—but its limited social circle is full of complications. The major one is her brother Trip's troubled separation from the falling-down drunk Frances Mae, a woman both Caroline and her mother had disapproved of from the start not because "she was a low class red neck slut from nowhere" but because "she was greedy, jealous, small-minded, petty and mean-spirited." The main conflict begins when Frances Mae crashes her car with her young daughter as a passenger, forcing Caroline—and an unwilling Trip—to take action. But as Caroline tries to channel Miss Lavinia's voice, she tends to hear only the old prejudices. While Frances Mae, a woman whose unrefined accent is made clear through her slurred protestations of "I love yew" when the extended family enacts an intervention, is hardly sympathetic, Caroline has a few lessons to learn about tolerance and commitment, too. Joined and amply supported by Frank's usual colorful lowcountry crew-particularly the ancient Miss Sweetie and the magical Millie Smoak-Caroline makes it through this particularly bumpy summer a little wiser and a lot happier. Although a particularly providential accident is necessary to bring about the usual happy ending, this chatty first-person tale of friendship, love and toothsome Southern food shares the appeal of its predecessors. Family complications and Southern charm bolster a proven formula.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Describe Caroline's relationship with her brother and the rest of her clan. How do the young people in the novel behave towards each other and towards their elders?
2. What things might Lavinia—coming from a different generation—have taken for granted that Caroline cannot? What accounts for these differences? How do the three generations of Wimbley women compare and contrast with one another?
3. What is Millie's role in the story? How would you characterize her relationship with Caroline?
4. Caroline firmly believes in good manners and propriety. Why? Do you think these attributes are out of date—or are they more necessary than ever in today's world?
5. Tradition is also important to Caroline. "Families like ours and Miss Sweetie's never downsized and moved to condos in Boca. Sell the blood-soaked land our ancestors had died to protect? Never in a million years! We stayed where we were born until we drew our last breath, making sure that our heirs swore the same fealty to the cause." How does such loyalty shape a person's life? Can someone be too loyal? When can loyalty to a cause, a place, a person become destructive?
6. "In our world, women took care of everything, especially each other, and the art of making each other look good was something that gave us great joy and satisfaction," Caroline explains when pondering her niece, Belle's graduation. "Lesson one of adulthood was putting the needs or even just the wishes of others before your own and then taking pleasure in making them come to pass." Do you agree with Caroline's assessment?
7. Dorothea Benton Frank uses the Lowcounty as both a setting and a character in the novel. How does this place shape its inhabitants? How would you describe it? Have you ever had a connection with a place like Caroline does with Tall Pines Plantation? Would having such a link be comforting or confining?
8. Compare Caroline with her sister in law, Frances Mae. Why do they dislike each other? Are they alike in any way? How can the two join together in the name of the family? Could such a bond be strengthened? Can it last?
9. The bond—or lack of one—between parents and children—is a prevalent theme of Lowcountry Summer. What is Trip's relationship like with his daughters? Why is he so helpless to contain them? Was he placing too much of a burden on his beloved, Rusty, to care for them? What did the girls think about their mother? What makes a good mother?
10. Trip asks his sister if she thinks his relationship with Rusty is wrong. How would you answer this? Should Trip have stayed with Frances Mae? Do you agree with his choices at the end? Do you think reconciliation can work? How much does success depend on Caroline?
11. Did Caroline overreact when she discovered her other niece, Linnie, was smoking pot at Belle's graduation party? Could she have handled the situation better? Did Linnie deserve the slap she got from her aunt? Millie doesn't like hitting and slapping, "But maybe sometimes a chile needs something to shake 'em up. Specially that knucklehead [Linnie]." What do you think of this?
12. What about Caroline's feelings for Matthew—why was she so reluctant to admit how she really felt about him? What do you think the future holds for them?
13. The book is filled with several rites of passage: weddings, funerals, a graduation. How is Caroline's position as matriarch defined by these rites?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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