Fair and Tender Ladies

In reflection, I appreciate being reminded of the life circumstances in Appalachia throughout the first 70 years of the 1900s, and how the passage of a full lifetime changes both a person and a place. I was captivated by Ivy’s thoughts throughout her life recognizing similar dreams and desires within myself.In the beginning, as Ivy writes her letters it seems as though the good times and the hardships continue on forever. As Ivy reveals her passionate, curious nature as her life progresses, Ivy shows us over and over again how life does not remain the same but is ever changing. Ivy does embrace her present, however she also clings to and reminisces in her past. The fair and tender parts of her,!hidden underneath Ivy’s tough and headstrong exterior, is not much different in the hearts of our today as it was then, the dreams, desires, passions, and life’s truths. As are the characteristics of personality that effect the choices one makes.We readers, in our busy, harried lives too soon forget the hardships and reality of those that have come before us. Their story is part of our collective past and good to be remembered, if for nothing more than to reflect upon our own lives- how very different in which our circumstances.Through Ivy’s letters, Lee Smith, shows us a slice of time so different from our own. Some may long for the lifestyle of Ivy’s time;while many of us may be grateful we were born in this generation of time. Ivy’s story speaks to both of us.

Set in the mountains of Virginia, this sweeping novel tells the story of Ivy Rowe beginning in 1914 when she was a young teenager living on a farm way up on the mountain with her sisters and brothers and her father is lying in front of the fire slowly dying. When he does die her mother does what she can to keep the farm going because the farm had been in the family for generations and she wanted to keep it up for her eldest Victor, who has left to go work in a lumber mill. Her next oldest brother, Clarence Wayne, or Babe, who is half of the twins with the other half being Silvaney, is evil, while Silvaney suffered brain damage after a childhood illness is quite simple and loves to traipse about in the forest. Her older sister Beulah dreams of something better, while Ethel is a born talker and saleswoman. Garnie her younger brother is known as the preacher due to his obsession with revivals. Her mother came from a well off family and married for love and was cut off from that family when she did so. Red hair and tempers run in the family.Beulah becomes pregnant with the town boy Curtis Bostick's child, but whose mother won't let him have anything to do with her. So Beulah has the child and names it John Arthur after their father who was being buried the day the child was born. The description of the funeral and burial rites for a mountain person at this time are very interesting. For example, you are buried in your burial quilt with coins on your eyes.When Ivy's mother cannot keep the farm going they pack up and move into a bed and breakfast run by Geneva. At this time it's only Ivy and Garnie, because circumstance has led the others in different directions. Garnie come under the influence of a corrupt revival preacher and Ivy at the age of fourteen becomes pregnant, just as she is offered the opportunity to further her education at a nice school in Boston. Now she has to drop out of school to raise her child. When her mother dies, Ivy and Rose go to live with Beulah and it is there that she meets up again with Oakley Fox the first boy she kissed back on Star Mountain. But there's a much more interesting man who has her eye now.This book is told through a series of letters written to various people in Ivy's life. The unusual thing about this book is that there are no response letters. You are dependent on what Ivy says in her letters to figure out what has happened or is being said by the other person. Also, the language of the book is quite written quite backwoods at the beginning but it improves as her education improves across the novel. It is quite creatively done. Ivy is quite the firecracker and grabs life by the horns and does not let go. She makes mistakes but she does not necessarily regret them. I fell in love with this spirited character who reaches out to the reader connects with you in a very basic way. She will steal your heart away and take it back up into the mountains where she can only live.QuotesA body can get used to anything except hanging.-Lee Smith (Fair and Tender Ladies p 227)And I will tell you the truth—may be it’s best to be the lover, some ways. Because even if you don’t work out, you are glad. You are glad you done it. You are glad you got to be there, anyway, however long it lasted, whatever it cost you—which is always plenty, I reckon.-Lee Smith (Fair and Tender Ladies p 272)I used to be a scandal myself. Now I’m an institution.-Lee Smith (Fair and Tender Ladies p 281)

Such a beautifully written story. Ivy Rowe, grows up in Appalachia poor but with a passion for reading, language and the beauty of nature. Beginning in the early 1900's, she tells her story through a series of heartfelt letters to various acquaintances and her long-dead sister.Through grinding poverty, heartbreak, death of loved ones, and, most of all; passionate love for her husband as well as other men, but mostly for her children, Ivy will grow in your heart and mind.I loved this book so much. This wild and intelligent, passionate and curious girl grows into a strong and woman, sometimes passive, mostly feisty.Please read it! This is one of my all time most unforgettable literary characters.

Where has Lee Smith been all my life. She is a national treasure and so is her character Ivy Rowe. Ms. Smith has fleshed out Ivy in her actions and speech until I feel that I know her personally. Through Ivy's written letters at the beginning and through the speeding years to the very last one I became attached to the lovely mountain girl Ivy Rowe. In fact I became quite fond of her. Beautiful book and characters, beautiful language, poetically longing without being overly sentimental. Marshall L Dell

Great condition very pleased