Fancy Strut (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Rating:
Summary: Not my favorite...
Review: I had a very hard time getting through this one. I have enjoyed some of Smith's other work, but I had to force myself through this one. The characters were one-dimensional caricatures and the plot seemed contrived and disjointed. This story was certainly not as tightly woven as FAMILY LINEN, which I enjoyed immensely.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite Lee Smith novel..
Review: Smith certainly knows how to interweave characters' plots. This is a delightful book. A bit more obvious than her later books, it is also more humorous, with several laugh-out- loud moments. Mostly, it has a wry sense of irony, as people believably rail against the very vice they are illustrating, for instance. The title is ostensibly about an event in competitive baton twirling (a quintessentially Southern event in 1965, the time of the novel). But, the title is also about the self-congratulatory town celebrating its 150th anniversary, and all of the town's population are represented doing their own version of a "fancy strut." I think my favorite is Manly Neighbors (a too-obvious name, but fun), the owner/editor of the weekly paper, a happily complacent guy who knows he doesn't like to think too much. I also like batty, snobbish old Miss Iona Flowers, a belle left over from a finer era, as she alone sees it.

Rating:
Summary: on the march of progress
Review: Smith certainly knows how to interweave characters' plots. This is a delightful book. A bit more obvious than her later books, it is also more humorous, with several laugh-out- loud moments. Mostly, it has a wry sense of irony, as people believably rail against the very vice they are illustrating, for instance. The title is ostensibly about an event in competitive baton twirling (a quintessentially Southern event in 1965, the time of the novel). But, the title is also about the self-congratulatory town celebrating its 150th anniversary, and all of the town's population are represented doing their own version of a "fancy strut." I think my favorite is Manly Neighbors (a too-obvious name, but fun), the owner/editor of the weekly paper, a happily complacent guy who knows he doesn't like to think too much. I also like batty, snobbish old Miss Iona Flowers, a belle left over from a finer era, as she alone sees it.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite Lee Smith novel..
Review: This book made me laugh so hard, so often, I had to run to the bathroom on more than one occasion to avoid wetting my pants. The characters are all a delight to get to know, even the ones you love to hate, and it made me wish I lived among fun folks like these. What better compliment could a writer get?