Sullivan's Island: A Low Country Tale
Dorothea Benton Frank, 2004
Penguin Group USA
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780515127225
Summary
Sullivan's Island is a real place, a barrier island seven miles off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. Home to Fort Moultrie, which is known for its role in the American Revolution and the Civil War, it is also called the "Ellis Island of Slavery" as over 200,000 slaves from the west coast of Africa entered our country on its shores between 1770 and 1775. As a young soldier, Edgar Allen Poe was stationed at Fort Moultrie and wrote The Gold Bug during that time. It is said the island is a haunted place, populated with the ghosts of broken hearts and lives of untold courage.
Dorothea Benton Frank's first novel, Sullivan's Island combines the stories of love and family with history and place. Set in 1963 and in 1999, it compares and contrasts coming of age in the tumultuous early sixties to coming of age in the peace of the early nineties. It introduces the Gullah Culture to many people for the first time and explains its significance in forming the traditions and values of the island children, which they carry into their adult lives. Sullivan's Island looks at the rigors of Catholicism during the early sixties, shattered childhood innocence, betrayal and revenge and the magic of Lowcountry life.
The protagonist, Susan Hamilton Hayes is in her early forties when we meet her. She is the wife of Tom, a prominent Charleston attorney and the mother of their daughter, Beth. In the prologue, we watch her life implode and then watch and learn how she puts it back together with great humor and pure grit.
We travel back with her to revisit the bitter disappointments of her childhood until she discovers decades later that those juvenile conundrums and challenges gave her the strength to face her adult years. And, most of those lessons were taught to her by Livvie Singleton, an African American woman, descended from slavery.
The Lowcountry itself as important as any character in Sullivan's Island, because its rich history and great beauty teach all the characters who they are and where they belong on the planet. Perhaps most importantly, the Lowcountry and the night sky of Sullivan's Island guide the characters to connect with the spiritual side of life and show them that love never dies. (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
Frank's debut novel is a story of redemption set in South Carolina's steamy low country. Susan Hamilton Hayes's comfortable Charleston existence is shattered when she finds her husband in bed with another woman. Faced with a failed marriage, a confused teenage daughter and a mediocre job, she sets about the business of healing. Slowly, supported by visits to her sister in their childhood home on sleepy Sullivan's Island, Susan becomes a successful newspaper columnist, regains her confidence as a woman (despite a hilariously deflating date) and finally explores the death of her complex, abusive father decades before. Chapters alternate between the present and 1963, the year her father died, as Susan faces both the strength and the damaging effects of her family legacy. The ending—complete with a perfect suitor reemerging from Susan's youth—is almost too picture perfect to ring true but both the setting and the characters are blazingly authentic. Frank evokes the eccentric Hamilton family and their feisty Gullah housekeeper with originality and conviction; Susan herself—smart, sarcastic, funny and endearingly flawed—makes a lively and memorable narrator. Thanks to these scrappily compelling portraits, this is a rich read.
Publishers Weekly
Set on the coast of South Carolina, this book explores one woman's journey from a contentedly married middle-aged wife and mother to a newly divorced woman looking back on her past for reassurance and to the future for some means of regaining her self-esteem. The story opens with Susan walking in on her husband and his young lover, a shocking surprise to her and an annoyance to him. Susan escalates the situation by throwing them both out, packing her husband's toiletries, and then beginning a new chapter. The tale moves back and forth between present and past as Susan reminisces about her South Carolina Lowcountry upbringing, with all of its "geechee" and Gullah cadences and the African American housekeeper who raised her and her siblings. Throughout, Susan draws strength and support from her sister, and her appreciation for her roots deepens as she tries to come to terms with divorce and raising a teenager. Frank's novel deals with dating, divorce, family life, and teenagers in an outrageously funny way. Conversely, there is a bittersweet nostalgia that permeates a life that seems familiar to us all. Joyce Bean does a highly credible job of evoking Southern pluck and sass as she moves easily among characters. Those who enjoy Pat Conroy or Anne Rivers Siddons will not be disappointed. Recommended for all public libraries. —Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll., Kansas City, MO
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. What is the Lowcountry and how important is it to the story of Sullivan's Island?
2. What is the Gullah culture and how did it impact the psyche of Susan Hamilton Hayes and her siblings? And, did Livvie Singleton's legacy have an impact on Susan's daughter, Beth?
3. Would you say that it was better to have come of age in the sixties or the nineties and what are the principal differences in those decades from Susan's point of view. Is she right?
4. Susan makes a claim that the world has been made better and safer by the people of her generation. What do you think?
5. Susan's relationship with Livvie is a powerful one as is her relationship with her own mother. Would you say that her mother's weakness was as valuable to her as Livvie's strength? And, would you describe Livvie and Susan's mother, MC as frustrated by their positions in life?
6. Susan's father, Hank is a complicated man. Would you say that, if he were a young parent today, that he could be convicted of child abuse? And, why didn't Marvin Struthers have him arrested for it in 1963? How have attitudes changed about parent's rights to discipline their children?
7. Susan's grandfather, Tipa is a classic example of a southern gentleman of his day. Was his bigotry understandable for the early 1960's? Discuss how the love Susan felt for Livvie grew against the narrow mindedness of her grandfather. Do you think that she loved her grandfather and indeed, did she love her parents?
8. Should Susan have taken Tom back? How realistic is forgiveness and reconciliation in the face of blatant adultery of Tom's variety? How well did she handle explaining it to Beth and then coping with her relationship with Tom and Beth?
9. Why did Simon Rifkin play such a long lasting role in Susan's life? Was she naïve about him or were they fated to be together? Is there such a thing as fate?
10 Is it dangerous to love someone with limits on the amount of affection and loyalty you intend to allot them? What happens when Susan and Maggie talk about being stingy with affection and commitment?
11. The south is known for its ghost stories and tales of the inexplicable. Do you think that the mirror described in Sullivan's Island was believable? And, if not, who among you has had something happen that defied scientific explanation?
12. How critical is complete truth in a marriage? Is anyone ever completely honest with someone who holds the immediate stability and the near future in their hands? When is lying permissible? And, when a lie is exposed, how forgiving are you?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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