Butterfly Weed

by Donald Harington

Book Overview

The raucous and poignant story of Doc Swain describes how he becomes a physician without attending medical school, his ability to heal patients with the "dream cure," his pursuit by a student and a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156002191
• ISBN13: 9780156002196
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Dream Cure

This was a hoot! My second favorite Stay More book. I still get cracked up thinking about Tenny and her various 'diseases'. It's been years since I read this, but I do remember tearing through it in just a couple of days. It's about time for me to return for a visit to Stay More soon.

Laugh-out-loud funny, extremely well-written

While some readers may find the storyline a little bawdy and maybe even a smidgen on the naughty side, BUTTERFLY WEED is a real literary treat and not to be missed. It is among Harington's best work. Set in the rural Arkansas Ozarks, readers are treated to the adventure-filled life story of Doc Swain, the venerable doctor of Stay More--that sleepy hamlet high in the mountains of Newton County at the center of most Harington novels. Swain's popular medical practice involves, among other oddities, curing patients in his dreams! You'll meet the loves of his life, his family and foster father, his chief competitor, and of course the many other interesting characters of Stay More. His education in medicine and subsequent certification, we learn, are far from conventional. The story is narrated by a real life historical collector of folktales, the late Vance Randolph, which makes for an interesting telling and an authentic dip into local vernacular. Above all, this is a tale full of humor and magic and it will live in your soul for a good spell, long after that last page.

First-time visitor to Stay More

Butterfly Weed was my first foray into the works of Donald Harington and the town of Stay More. I got this book not knowing that it was part of a series of books; when I found out, I was worried that I wouldn't have the necessary background to enjoy the story. My worries were unfounded. The longer I read it, the more I liked it. I finished it wanting to know more about the Stay Morons mentioned in the book and craving more of Harington's folksy humor.

Brilliant

This book is incredible. It's written from the perspective of Vance Randolph, a famous Ozarks folkorist in real life, as he is telling it to Mr. Harington. There's more than a couple humorous references to Randolph's work, notably Pissing in the Snow, which is a collection of Ozark sexual folklore, and it's a pretty damn imaginative premise. Which serves well to describe the book itself. It's set in the unfortunately-fictional town of Stay More, in real, breathtaking Newton County, Arkansas. It is the story of one Doctor Colvin Swain, born and raised in Newton County, culminating in a beautiful romance. Harington never ceases to keep me reading, and beyond being a pleasure to read, it's often painful to pause. It's gripping. The majority of the Doc's story is a hilarious, libidinous, pastoral narrative told in past tense, which switches to the present and then future tense, which Harington does effectively, and with magnanimously powerful, emotionally resonant results. It's one hell of a book. I wouldn't hesitate to rate it up there with the best of anyone from Kesey to Steinbeck to Melville. It's that good.

Unexpectedly great & laugh-out-loud funny!

I simply cannot believe that Harington himself and this book in particular are not more well-known. The strange lives and happenings in the fictional town of Stay More are never anything less than utterly entertaining. Harington's use of Ozarkian dialects really makes the characters pop out--they often say the darnedest things! One of his other books, "The Choiring of the Trees," is also an excellent read. I recommend them both with equal enthusiasm.