Scan barcode
expendablemudge's review
4.0
The Book Report: The life and times of a matriarchal clan made up of a mixture of lesbians, hell-raisers, and goody-two-shoeses in the fictional town of Runnymede that sits smack on the Mason-Dixon line. From 1909 to 1980, Cora Hunsenmeir and her daughters Julia Ellen and Louise live, love, fight, make up, and generally enjoy themselves hugely, often to the detriment of though never at the expense of their fellow-travelers and employers Celeste Chalfonte, Ramelle Bowman, and Fannie Jump Creighton, that horny old dipsomaniacal hussy. (She's my hero.)
My Review: There is a lot of pleasure to be had in re-reading books that once made an impact on you. If, of course, they hold up well. This novel holds up well. It's not perfect, it's got small inconsistencies and this 1984 printing wasn't ever corrected for some minor textual flubs, but even the Pieta has chisel marks.
The women in this story are heroes and role models for me. I wish with all my might that they were my sisters, mothers, the crones who ruled my town. CERTAINLY not my wife, not a one of 'em, who needs the tsurres? I'll take a nice, easy man any day. (Which I now have the *legal* option to do!) But damn, is it fun to watch Julia Ellen get revenge on Louise for stealing her birthday hair ribbon on her fourth birthday in 1909...revenge served up in 1980! Had this been my own sisters, the revenge would've been a knife in the ribs, or a tchotchke smashed on the head...real hatred and sibling rivalry taken to a toxic extreme. Which is why, when I discovered this book in 1978, I loved it so immoderately.
I yearned to be witty, worldly Celeste Chalfonte, and also wise, simple Cora Hunsenmeir...but suspected deep down that I was already fated to be alcoholic sex addict Fannie Jump. (Which bit of self-knowledge changed nothing, thank GOD.) I was sure I would find redemption in these characters. (Redemption, like happiness, can't be pursued. It's not a grouse. {That's a quote.}) It was clear to me that this was a road map, a way to live my life, if I could just...Well, I never could, darn it, but the book lost none of its impact for all that. It's a real pleasure to come home to Runnymede and sit on Cora's porch listening to crickets and Idabelle's accordion from the porch of her own house at the bottom of Bumblebee Hill. Then wander over to Celeste and Ramelle's back porch to have magnolia droppings (aka gin, in discreet frosted glasses) with the ladies. Join in the tutting as Minta Mae Dexter assaults good taste with her brigade of soiled doves, the Sisters of Gettysburg. Rejoice heartily when Brutus Rife, the town's robber-baron industrialist, is ushered off this mortal coil in one of my very favorite literary homicides.
The magic of the book for me is that I can and do...these pleasures haven't faded for being re-experienced. I still sob at the loss of sweet gentle souls whose lives are lived in honest labor, and the inevitable passing of the ladies grand and common of the early generation in their various ways. Characters like this are a real pleasure to discover. This level of investment in the fictional lives of fictional people indicates a very high level of writerly ability is at work. The plot, the execution of the life-patterns of the women, is in a way secondary. The events chosen by the author to illuminate the spirits of the characters are the important criteria...though there are a lot of wonderful lines and zingers in here, make no mistake: "Who cares who you fuck in Pittsburgh?" demanded of a rigidly conventional sourpuss by a hearty old bawd is a favorite; but of them all, the reason I truly treasure this novel is the sad, sad glory of Cora Hunsenmeir's final moments: As she knows she is dying, she, this unlettered laboring daughter of a working man with no pretensions to status or learning, reaches up for the sun one last time and says, "Thank you, God, for all of it."
I hope that, when my time comes as it surely must, I can say that line with as much gratitude and sincerity as Cora did. I will live my life so as to make that a reality.
My Review: There is a lot of pleasure to be had in re-reading books that once made an impact on you. If, of course, they hold up well. This novel holds up well. It's not perfect, it's got small inconsistencies and this 1984 printing wasn't ever corrected for some minor textual flubs, but even the Pieta has chisel marks.
The women in this story are heroes and role models for me. I wish with all my might that they were my sisters, mothers, the crones who ruled my town. CERTAINLY not my wife, not a one of 'em, who needs the tsurres? I'll take a nice, easy man any day. (Which I now have the *legal* option to do!) But damn, is it fun to watch Julia Ellen get revenge on Louise for stealing her birthday hair ribbon on her fourth birthday in 1909...revenge served up in 1980! Had this been my own sisters, the revenge would've been a knife in the ribs, or a tchotchke smashed on the head...real hatred and sibling rivalry taken to a toxic extreme. Which is why, when I discovered this book in 1978, I loved it so immoderately.
I yearned to be witty, worldly Celeste Chalfonte, and also wise, simple Cora Hunsenmeir...but suspected deep down that I was already fated to be alcoholic sex addict Fannie Jump. (Which bit of self-knowledge changed nothing, thank GOD.) I was sure I would find redemption in these characters. (Redemption, like happiness, can't be pursued. It's not a grouse. {That's a quote.}) It was clear to me that this was a road map, a way to live my life, if I could just...Well, I never could, darn it, but the book lost none of its impact for all that. It's a real pleasure to come home to Runnymede and sit on Cora's porch listening to crickets and Idabelle's accordion from the porch of her own house at the bottom of Bumblebee Hill. Then wander over to Celeste and Ramelle's back porch to have magnolia droppings (aka gin, in discreet frosted glasses) with the ladies. Join in the tutting as Minta Mae Dexter assaults good taste with her brigade of soiled doves, the Sisters of Gettysburg. Rejoice heartily when Brutus Rife, the town's robber-baron industrialist, is ushered off this mortal coil in one of my very favorite literary homicides.
The magic of the book for me is that I can and do...these pleasures haven't faded for being re-experienced. I still sob at the loss of sweet gentle souls whose lives are lived in honest labor, and the inevitable passing of the ladies grand and common of the early generation in their various ways. Characters like this are a real pleasure to discover. This level of investment in the fictional lives of fictional people indicates a very high level of writerly ability is at work. The plot, the execution of the life-patterns of the women, is in a way secondary. The events chosen by the author to illuminate the spirits of the characters are the important criteria...though there are a lot of wonderful lines and zingers in here, make no mistake: "Who cares who you fuck in Pittsburgh?" demanded of a rigidly conventional sourpuss by a hearty old bawd is a favorite; but of them all, the reason I truly treasure this novel is the sad, sad glory of Cora Hunsenmeir's final moments: As she knows she is dying, she, this unlettered laboring daughter of a working man with no pretensions to status or learning, reaches up for the sun one last time and says, "Thank you, God, for all of it."
I hope that, when my time comes as it surely must, I can say that line with as much gratitude and sincerity as Cora did. I will live my life so as to make that a reality.
More...