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Title: Saving Grace by Lee Smith ISBN: 0-345-40333-9 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 23 April, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.94 (16 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Saving Grace from Rigid Fundamentalism
Comment: Rich in character and prose, this is a book to recommend. I felt deeply for the main character, Florida "Grace," as she moved through a troubled childhood of religious fanatacism, to marriage and children, to walking out on the marriage to take up with a stoned painter. It's a book of self-discovery and forgiveness.
Grace grows up in a home of mixed-up worship. Her mother, Fannie, worships her father as her savior. And her father, a serpent-handling evangelist, worships himself. Jesus gets all mixed up in it, leaving Grace to doubt her fundementalist upbringing and subsequent marriage. She turns to a total opposite--a godless self-indulgent handyman. She learns of drugs and alcohol, and of course, that life fails her too.
The ending left some questions. It was very easy to read suicide into the scenerio. Grace was called to join her dead mother. But I believe it was actually a re-birth. She joined her mother in the body of Christ. It was His call she heard and obeyed--a relationship that wouldn't fail her.
Rating: 3
Summary: Well-done, but ...
Comment: This is a very good book, but I did not like the ending, nor do I agree with critics who say it is her best (which is Family Linen or Fancy Strut, perhaps). It's another fine character study thought. I just hoped that Florida Grace Shepherd would grow to find herself in ways different from how she did. I expected more of her I guess, because I liked her so much. But, that is what makes Lee Smith's books so readable for me: I come to care about her characters and what happens to them, especially the ones I like, but I become invested in caring about the fate of even those I cannot stand, like Grace's father, a huckstering, snake-handling, back-woods preacher. I guess I care because Smith creates such plausible personalities on the page. Also, Smith had done her homework well and could show these people, warts and all, without condescending, sentimentalizing, or oversimplifying. The exception, as I see it, is the ending, which I see as more sentimental than psychologically probable.
Rating: 4
Summary: Gimme that old-time religion...
Comment: In this book, Lee Smith handles the potentially tricky topic of religion marvelously. Many authors would be condescending towards fundamentalists, where Smith is relatively sympathetic and takes the approach of "one bad egg...". Everything concerning the worship, the churches, and the styles of Holiness preachers and congregations seemed extremely accurate. This book not only tells a story about a girl named Florida Grace, but it gives readers a glimpse into a little-seen and much-maligned segment of Christianity.
By the way, other reviewers have complained about the ending, wishing that Grace had not returned to her home. In my opinion, she NEEDED to make this return to confront her past, and to be humbled after spending so long hiding from goodness and grace.
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Title: Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith ISBN: 034536208X Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 13 August, 1989 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Family Linen by Lee Smith ISBN: 0345410602 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 27 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Devil's Dream by Lee Smith ISBN: 0345382919 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1993 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Black Mountain Breakdown by Lee Smith ISBN: 0345410319 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 27 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Oral History by Lee Smith ISBN: 0345410289 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 27 August, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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