Carolina Moon

by Jill McCorkle

Book Overview

In the course of this wide-ranging, richly detailed novel, every kind of human problem finds its way to the doorstep of Quee Purdy, a tireless entrepreneur for whom love and sex are the "hot... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565121368
• ISBN13: 9781565121362
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Bursting with life

The award-winning McCorkle's fifth novel delivers the humor, zest, and thoughtfully engaging characters readers have come to expect from this Southern writer ("Tending to Virginia," "Ferris Beach"). In the North Carolina town of Fulton, 15 miles and a world away from the coast, Quee Purdy, 69, a flamboyant and free-spirited widow, has just opened an unconventional quit-smoking clinic where resident addicts are "pampered right out of the addiction." Quee is at the center of a small circle of younger Fultonites. She holds the key to the mysteries in their lives and explores these secrets aloud in story-telling tours of her gallery of photos - pictures of strangers who have captured her imagination and inspire her to heights of fancy and fact. Her audience, however, seldom gets the point of her veiled parables. Tom Lowe is a favorite of Quee's. A handsome handyman, Tom's life is stalled in brooding over the suicide of a father he scarcely knew, the underwater lot that was his father's only legacy, and the lover he lost to the wider world outside Fulton. Denny Parks, sexy, insecure and adventurous, is the daughter of Quee's oldest friend, who has been invited to the clinic as a therapist, a profession in which she has absolutely no experience. She has, however, had a nervous breakdown and loves to talk, eminent qualifications. Alicia Jameson, another of Quee's assistants, is the abused wife of a loathsome-Lothario local talk show host, Jones Jameson, who has disappeared. The next circle out includes Sarah McAllister, Tom's high-school sweetheart, who returned to Fulton with her husband in tow and fading hopes of a baby, only to end in a coma from an aneurysm. And Wallace Johnson, the old postmaster, who's been reading letters addressed to the Wayward One, a suicide, for 20 years. And Myra Carter, an elderly admirer of Jones Jameson, who hates Quee for suspected adultery with her husband, the late doctor. The lives of all these people are intertwined with Quee's in ways only Quee is cognizant of, a Godlike omniscience that is a driving force in her own life. But one of the book's chief ironies is that the reader comes into possession of a puzzle piece illuminating a misunderstanding that has haunted, romanticized, even directed Quee's life. McCorkle, also an accomplished short story writer, reveals her characters' lives in vignettes that rove among various points of view, exploring interlocking histories that share a peripheral fascination with the missing Jones Jameson and an unknown but crucial connection with Quee. The author forges an intimacy with her readers through lives full of vivid details, memories and actions that make her characters' anxieties, fears and ambitions visceral. While her story includes romance, adultery, even murder, these are only colorful elements in the greater tapestry of the human heart. Her concluding chapter, with its quietly explosive revelations, sends the reader reeling while barely causing a ripple in the

Carolina Moon has great charm and depth

okay, all you people who said you didn't like this book didn't say something about the book. You said something about yourself. In a world of cynical people who expect something bigger out of the story than just pure human emotion do not realize what you're missing. This book is full of beautiful prose that tell you everything about the characters even if a particular chapter is not from their point of view. I had the privelage of seeing her read excerpts from this masterpeice aloud and it was wonderful! She truely is a great storyteller and this book is fabulous!

First time McCorkle

Carolina Moon was my first venture into work by Jill McCorkle, but it certainly won't be my last. I loved the characters in this book: Quee, Denny, Tom. And it's been a long time since I read a book and laughed outloud, not once but often. There's more to it than just laughs,however. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys great characters, intriguing plotting, and mystery. And if you don't think that having great fun with a book automatically means it can't also be great fiction, then this may be the book for you.

Interesting mystery and drama of a small town

Reminiscent of the Tales of the City books by Armistead Maupin this book jumps from character to character, allowing the story to build slowly. From letters written by a jilted lover to her ex who committed suicide, to the tape recorded ramblings of a semi-disturbed psychologist, we learn about the murder of a loud mouthed radio talk show host. The matriarch of the book is a woman who runs a Stop Smoking clinic which utilizes less than conventional tactics to break their client`s addictions. I expected this book with the tacky cover to be quite cheesy. I was pleasantly surprised that I was wrong.