City Lights Country Candles

Rating:
Summary: Weak, with unbelieveable plot
Review: City Lights, Country Candles is Penny Hayes 7th novel. For some unknown reason she falls down badly on this one.

This novel is one of those stories within a story, that rarely work well.


In this case we begin with Laurie who lives with herboyfriend, Joe.

The year is 1960.

Laurie goes on a vacation without Joe. She goes to visit her long time, best friend, Eveleen, who lives on a ranch.


Once there, Laurie is coerced into sitting up until the wee hours of the morning listening to stories of several women that Eveleen's Great, Great Grandmother is determined to tell Laurie about.


Great, Great Grandmother is 102 years old, and time is running out for her.

Grandma's voice as narrator is dropped, thankfully, as each of these women's stories is told.
The stories are all quite similiar--each woman "gets caught" by some unreasonable man: a brother, husband or father who is displeased with the woman's non-traditional thoughts and actions, and sees to it that she is carted off to a mental institution.

As we progress thru these women's stories, each story becomes less detailed, and less shown.

By the time we get to the last character, Sadie, the story becomes so lacking in detail, one can only wonder what led the character into her concluding situation.

When Laurie begins hearing the voices of these women from the past--the story really gets goofy.


The only part of this book I liked was that the women in Grandma's stories were all from the eighteen hundreds.

Rating:
Summary: Not Great Literature But Important Theme Nonetheless
Review: This novel tells of an important historical fact, one rarely written about. Well into the 20th century, women could be locked up for their entire lives in mental asylums for their sexual orientation or just about any reason their male family members wanted. The stories of these incarcerations are fascinating. However, what those stories have to do with the romance between the main characters is not readily apparent. As a lesbian romance, this book doesn't do well. That part of the book is a little silly. Very much in the "NO! No. no...yesssss" vein. Yet, though the book is uneven, it is worth reading for its historical perspective.