Family Linen

by Lee Smith

Book Overview

"Brilliant, haunting, dark, joyous, remarkably compelling...immensely difficult to put down...a master storyteller." THE VILLAGE VOICE A childhood memory re-experienced, a funeral that brings about a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345410602
• ISBN13: 9780345410603
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

LEE SMITH IS SOLID GOLD

This book revolves around a Southern family that has their share of secrets. This book is not only a WHO-DUN-IT? but also very, very funny. The characters are all related somehow and are all very comical. The writing flows and you will immediately be caught up in the great story and plot. We first meet Sybill, one of the family, who finally seeks help from a hypnotist for her dreadful recurring headaches. The hypnotist puts her under and BAM! Sybill flashes back to her childhood and remembers witnessing a horrible, awful, dreadful murder that involves her sweet, kind, proper, mother, Miss Elizabeth. Sybill returns at once to her hometown of Booker Creek for answers. Unfotunatley, Miss Elizabeth is unconscious in the hospital and cannot answer any of her questions. But the story does not end there!!!! Now we meet all of Sybill's family -- her sister Myrtle who has it all -- money, THE house, a doctor hubby, looks great, is the perfect hostess, has the perfect life or does she? Myrtle's husband, Dr. Don, who runs the entire show and loves his wife's family, perhaps a little too much -- and a cast of other brothers/sisters/nieces/nephews/cousins -- they are all unique and wonderful and FUN. This is a book that I highly recommend. Lee Smith has the absolute best writing ability to weave, weave, weave, the story, the characters, the plot, and all the FUN into a great big satisfying book that is full of insights into life, laughs, and surprises. Read this book. You won't be disappointed. Ms. Smith is one of THE BEST AUTHORS around these days! You can't go wrong!!!!! Thanks -- Pam

Fabulous Book!!!

I truely enjoyed this book and I don't know why some of the reviewsers were offended. This is the second review I wrote, I don't know what happened to the first one. There are family secrets that come out because of hypnotism and the family being brought together by illness and a funeral. Really this story is about some very serious matters but Lee Smith wrote from a lighthearted angle which makes th reader laugh at a lot of the situations. I wouldn't call this book "dark" at all even though it could've very easily been written that way. I liked this book a lot and to think I almost didn't read it because of some of descriptions in some of the negative reviews. Read this book, it's very good. It's about real life and sometimes real life isn't very pretty. There are many people that are raised by their parents and then find out in their adult life that these wonderful people that raised them aren't actually their parents. Their "sister" or "Aunt So-and-so" is their real mother. This is really a good book and it's written from the perfect perspective, with a touch of humor.

Five Stars? Lee Smith is a One-Woman Galaxy!

What some "reviewers" - including those who cannot spell - seem to miss, is the whole point of Lee Smith. In the "Literary Wrold", there are storytellers, there are wordsmiths and there are artists. Lee Smith is an artist of the first order and arguably one of the most important voices in American fiction writing today. While I run like a mad woman to buy her work every time a new title of hers appears, I read her stories for pleasure but also for an education. She is a risk taker and in this world of bottom line guarantees to stock holders, it is imperative to support those who take those risks. Read Lee Smith with both eyes, your heat and your mind wide open. Look behind her words, plots, and characters. She isn't to be taken lightly, but to be regarded with great respect. Not only is her work marvelous, she is a marvel. I say, Bravo! Ms. Smith, don't let any of these ignoramouses give you a moment's pause - you just keep up your excellent work!

Modern Faulkner

If you liked Faulkner's *As I Lay Dying* and even if you didn't, you will enjoy this one from Lee Smith. I loved the knotted up lives of the family memebers, interwoven with insanity, incest and murder and all centered around the gathering of the children at the death of their mother. Though there are no journeys with smelly coffins falling into the river, each family member takes her/his own personal journey and becomes a different person for the knowledge he gains from the others. Definitely a Faulknerian type family with characters just as southern and mixed up. It is definitely worht the time and comparison.