Tending to Virginia: A Novel

By Jill McCorkle

Book Overview

"A profound picture of the legacies of families, one that will stay in the reader's mind." --The Memphis Commercial Appeal Virginia Suzanne Ballard is going home to Saxapaw, North Carolina, to sort things out--and to have the people she loves best help her through a difficult pregnancy. The reunion is bittersweet. For as three generations of marvelous women tend to Virginia, long-held secrets are revealed, half-hidden truths confessed, and precious wisdom gained--of letting go and moving on. . . . "Celebrates human connection, not the sort of passionate and exotic connection that all these women imagine, fear and desire, so much as the steady comfort of the familiar, the known, the reliable, which is perhaps synonymous with family." --Atlanta Journal & Constitution

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0912697652
• ISBN13: 9780912697659
• Release Date: September 1987
• Publisher: A Shannon Ravenel Book
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

moving atmosphere of feelings & memories of 3 generations

I first started this book several years ago and couldn't get interested in this pregnant woman's problems. However, this time I was glad I perservered, as that is really barely the topic of the book at all. This book explores the emotions, secrets, and memories of a group of related women whose ages span nearly 70 years. The style, which is often memories described in an almost stream of consciousness style that moves freely through time, depicts what happens to thoughts in people who are simply re-exploring their past, are victims of Alzheimers or of physical illnesses. I enjoyed the mood created by their thoughts and memories and the way the author gradually revealed more and more bits of difficult events in these women's pasts. In summary I rank this a good book, but not quite memorable enough to deserve 5 stars.

Read This Book!

This book brought me in touch with the generations of women in my own family...those I adored but took for granted. Recommended to anyone who is looking for a connection to themselves and those they love.