{"id":4452,"date":"2011-06-06T09:25:09","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T13:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/?p=4452"},"modified":"2011-06-06T10:14:11","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T14:14:11","slug":"triumphs-of-a-good-ol-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2011\/06\/triumphs-of-a-good-ol-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Triumphs of a good ol&#8217; girl"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>by Vicky Dickson<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"reader.100\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4092\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100-80x80.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nSome writers can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell a story. Their prose is beautiful; their characterizations and descriptions, dead on. <!--more-->But the plots they come up with are weak or nonexistent. Some storytellers, meanwhile, focus so much on plot that their characters seem forced, leaving you wondering whether they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d actually ever do the things the story requires them to do.<br \/>\nSo it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a rare treat to come upon an author who excels at every aspect of storytelling, with plots that keep you guessing, descriptions that are unexpected and apt and characters who leave you enthralled \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to come upon a writer like Lee Smith.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4453\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4453\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/LeeSmith.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/LeeSmith.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"LeeSmith\" width=\"250\" height=\"376\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4453\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/LeeSmith.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/LeeSmith-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/LeeSmith-53x80.jpg 53w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4453\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lee Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n<p>Smith grew up in a storytelling family, with a mother she describes as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of those Southern women who can \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and did \u00e2\u20ac\u201c make a story out of thin air,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so perhaps that helps explain her considerable talent. Her natural curiosity about the people around her undoubtedly also played a part: As a child, Smith liked to spend her time watching the shoppers in her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Grundy, Va., dime store through a peephole in the ceiling. Across the street, she had another window into the details of the lives of others from a desk she had in her grandfather\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office, where he served as county treasurer for 55 years. <\/p>\n<p>Smith wrote her first novel at the age of 8 on her mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stationery, and has been writing ever since. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s published 16 books while also raising a family and working as a reporter, a high school teacher and then a professor at N.C. State. She says that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the process of writing itself continues to be essential to me. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how I live my life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Smith prizes the way that writing requires her to notice what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on around her, and the way that writing a sentence creates order out of the chaos that is real life. Not least, she values the way that writing surprises her: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No matter how long you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been writing, you still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gonna pop out.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>For a great overview of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s popped out for Lee Smith over the years, look to <em>Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger<\/em>, an anthology of 14 of the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best stories, that was just released in paperback. The stories focus on people of different ages and walks of life, though they tend to feature women who are struggling, in various ways, to get out of the boxes society wants to put them in. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am drawn to a certain kind of main character,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Smith says, one who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not afraid to claim her own. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gonna find her own voice.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And readers will delight in the various ways she finds it.<\/p>\n<p>Given that the stories were written at different points in Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s career, they provide insight into how the stages in a writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life affect her writing choices. Long-married readers will recognize that one of the collection\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most affecting stories, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stevie and Mama,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d would not have been written by a 30-year-old. (Smith says she wanted \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stevie and Mama\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to be the collection\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s title, but her publicists balked, fearing that, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Anyone who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ever read The New Yorker would never pick up a book called Stevie and Mama\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to imagine any New Yorker reader not loving that story about an aging rock musician and the spunky, smart woman he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s married to). <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153House Tour\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is another story inspired by years of marriage \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and by the time the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153red hat\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ladies unexpectedly descended upon Smith in her Hillsborough home, resulting in a tale that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and poignant. Then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tongues of Fire,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the story of a 13-year-old girl whose struggles with her father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nervous breakdown, her mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sense of propriety and her own sense of self brings readers vividly back to their own adolescent insecurities.<br \/>\nThe collection features 11 more examples of the virtuosity that has earned Lee Smith awards and accolades throughout her career. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll savor every word.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n<p>Hearing them read by the author herself just adds to the pleasure of Lee Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stories, so don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t miss the opportunity to catch Smith at one of her local readings this month. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be at Flyleaf at 7 p.m. on June 8 and McIntyre\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at 2 p.m. on June 11. <\/p>\n<p>Those venues will host another Hillsborough author, Craig Nova, whose acclaimed, newly expanded memoir, <em>Brook Trout and the Writing Life: The Intermingling of Fishing and Writing in a Novelist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Life<\/em>, has just been released. Come see Nova at Flyleaf at 7 p.m. today (June 2) or McIntyre\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at 11 a.m. on June 11.<br \/>\nNova and Smith are both featured in <em>27 Views of Hillsborough<\/em>, along with Allan Gurganus, Randall Kenan, Jill McCorkle, David Payne and other prominent local writers. That book received the Gold IPPY Award for Best Anthology at the Independent Publishers Book Awards ceremony in New York on May 24. Congratulations to the writers and their publisher, Eno Publishers.<br \/>\nFans of young adult author Sarah Dessen have a special treat in store June 20, when Dessen and Dessen Racing both come to Flyleaf. Be there at 7 p.m. to hear the Chapel Hill native read from and sign her new book, What Happened to Goodbye \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and check out the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s racecars!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Vicky Dickson Some writers can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell a story. Their prose is beautiful; their characterizations and descriptions, dead on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4452"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4457,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions\/4457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}