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Summary: Ice tea, mint juleps, and southern sass
Review: With her second book about the Lowcountry of South Carolina, Dorothea Benton Frank showcases her flair for describing Southern styles, recipes and family traditions. Whether fact or stereotype, her depictions of Lowcountry life teem with hilarity and exquisite scenes from nature. The river Edisto comes to life in all her majesty under DBF's pen. Her characters are well-formed, truly interesting and captivate the reader from page one. I didn't think she could outdo Sullivan's Island, but apparently DBF proved this reader wrong.'Plantation' revolves around the Wimbley family of Tall Pines Plantation and its mistress, Miss Lavinia. When her daughter Caroline moves home to Tall Pines after leaving her husband, Miss Lavinia is thrilled. Caroline must readjust to Lowcountry life after living the last fifteen years in New York and urge her son, Eric, to get to know the family. Interesting is an understatement when it comes to this family! From Caroline's hard-drinking, fishing-crazed brother, Trip, to Millie, the pseudo estate manager and resident hocus-pocus expert, DBF is an unending well of characters full of vitality and Southern sass. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys witty prose, and especially anyone who grew up with a southern mother. Keep 'em coming, Dorothea, yanh?
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Summary: Plantation
Review: Great summer read, yanh! If you are looking for a great summer beach book, try Plantation by Dorothea Benton Frank. Even better than Sullivan's Island, it is such great fun reading this lowcountry tale. The family is dysfunctional enough to be Southern, eccentric enough to make you laugh out loud, and human enough to make you cry. The matriarch, Miss Lavinia, is a hoot! I was torn between cringing at her antics and yet wanting to be like her in my old age. The battles between Miss Lavinia's daughter, Mrs. Caroline Wimbley Levine, and her perpetually pregnant low-life sister-in-law rage on while the crown prince son drinks on amidst gambling, infidelity, and a cast of zany supporting characters. All of the ordinary story elements are here -wealth, marriages in crisis, parenting, the struggle to be independent balanced against the need to go home. However, Dorothea Benton Frank has made the characters come alive in such a delightful way that Thomas Wolfe is proved wrong - you can go home again! After weeks of searching for the perfect summer read, I finally found it! Any book with a chapter titled, "Miss Lavinia Would Like to Have a Word with You", just has to be read!
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Summary: Carolina Girls, You are missing out if you haven't read this
Review: I LOVED this book! Please refer to my review on Frank's other book Sullivan's Island if you want to hear more of what I have to say about her writing. I liked this book better than "Sullivan's Island" but I loved both. This story is amazing. Could NOT put this down and man is hard to get things done with your head stuck in a book but it flew by! I was sooo sad when the book ended because I wanted to read more! The characters are awesome and the images correctly portray the beautiful lands in SC! I totally can relate to traveling to another big city further north, but how those roots in the South and with the family and old friends just keep dragging you back towards home! And Frank, thank you for putting the piece at the end about how to contribute to preserving the ACE Basin! As a young person, I know that eventually I will want to pick out a few charities that I want to give to in my life, but I really wanted to pick something that I'm passionate about...this is definitely one!
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Summary: Comfort Book
Review: Having recently read Sullivan's Island, I was in the mood for another low country heartwarming story. Filled with likeable characters and interesting story lines, Plantation lived up to my expectations. This story begins with Caroline Wimbly, a woman raised in South Carolina who ran away as early as she could to New York city. She thought she was better off for leaving her roots behind, but a call from her brother leads her back to Tall Pines, where she grew up. Her brother and his low life wife want to place their wealthy mom into a home so that they can take over her Plantation. Caroline discovers her mother better than she ever remembered her, and soon she finds her old life might suit her better than the one she's created. Caroline goes home to New York, only to face the truth about her deeply disatisfying marriage. She returns with her son "home" to South Carolina to live in her childhood home. The bond developed between Caroline and her mother is heartwarming and strong, as is that with her brother. The family pulls together to pull him out of his bind. Although this story has its share of sadness and unfortunate events, the family's ability to pull together and come through makes it more uplifting than depressing. Miss Lavinia, Caroline's mother, is a particularly spirited and enjoyable character. Her friends and helpers -- especially her estate manager Millie, a woman who claims special powers -- are also pertinant and effective people in the story. All of the characters are well developed, and help make this story one you will crawl right into.
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Summary: Carolina Girls, You are missing out if you haven't read this
Review: I LOVED this book! Please refer to my review on Frank's other book Sullivan's Island if you want to hear more of what I have to say about her writing. I liked this book better than "Sullivan's Island" but I loved both. This story is amazing. Could NOT put this down and man is hard to get things done with your head stuck in a book but it flew by! I was sooo sad when the book ended because I wanted to read more! The characters are awesome and the images correctly portray the beautiful lands in SC! I totally can relate to traveling to another big city further north, but how those roots in the South and with the family and old friends just keep dragging you back towards home! And Frank, thank you for putting the piece at the end about how to contribute to preserving the ACE Basin! As a young person, I know that eventually I will want to pick out a few charities that I want to give to in my life, but I really wanted to pick something that I'm passionate about...this is definitely one!
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Summary: EDITOR!
Review: This book first of all needs an editor to cut about 1/3 of the maundering. But the low stars goes for the mean spiritedness in this family. The low rent sister-in-law maybe a greedy gold digger but please--who said the children should pay for the mother's sins. The scathing treatment of the children is horrible. They are treated like her low rent offspring when they are also half the so called upper crust brother's. The upper crust brother who drinks, gambles and won't even buy a proper home to house his ever increasing clan. Even a new born baby is condemned as a devil's minion--no wonder they turn out 'witchy' when their own daddy showers more attention on the nephew and they get treated like dirt from the get-go. Grandmother has no trouble handing over $50,000 to her spoiled son w/o question but thinks Frances Mae is greedy for wanting more room for her children. I want to get to know these people. Not.
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Summary: Her second excellent book!
Review: I loved it! I couldn't put it down but I was sorry when it ended. If she'd had more books out at the time, I would have gone right out and bought them all. Her characters are so easy to get involved in. If you like to laugh and cry over a book, she's your author.
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Summary: My favorite Dorothea Benton Frank Book
Review: PLANTATION by Dorothea Benton Frank PLANTATION is the second book I've read by the author Dorothea Benton Frank. I was not thrilled with her first book, SULLIVAN'S ISLAND. But I already had PLANTATION in my pile of books to be read, and many have told me that this book was much better than her first. So, I read it. PLANTATION, like SULLIVAN'S ISLAND, is a story that takes place in the "low country" of South Carolina. This area includes Sullivan's Island (outside of Charleston) as well as the ACE basin, the area where the Ashepoo, Combahee, and the Edisto Rivers join at St Helena's Sound. It's a picturesque area of beauty that only nature could create, and it is near the Edisto River on a plantation called Tall Pines Plantation that the bulk of this story takes place. Caroline Wimbley Levine's search for happiness is one of the main themes of this book. She's married to a man that was once her professor in college, and while at one time in her life she loved this man with a passion, she is now at a point where she needs her space. The plot though is not as simple as that. Caroline is fighting demons in her head. She's grown up almost hating her mother for a past that started with her father's death. When her brother Trip asks her to come home to check on their mother's mental stability, Caroline does just that. After being gone for so many years, the memories come flooding back, memories of her father, the only parent she thought she loved, and a mother that abandoned them emotionally after their father had passed on. She becomes reacquainted with her brother and his wife, the lowly Frances Mae, who seems so uncouth that she embarrasses the entire family, including Trip. Through it all, she finds that she can come back home again, finds that she has bonded with her mother again, and returns to New York a much happier person. However, things in New York have not changed. Upon returning she finds that her husband has been unfaithful to her, and the scene where she confronts the two of them is something I will never forget. Now that her marriage to her husband Richard has failed, her mother's warnings about marrying Richard haunt her. It seems that no matter what she does, her mother never approves. She can never live up to her mother's high expectations. Now, with her husband left behind in New York, Caroline hopes to start a new life in South Carolina. With her son Eric, she moves back to Tall Pines Plantation with her mother. Another theme of this book is the unforgettable character of Miss Lavinia, Caroline's mother. She is a woman of southern class and is so outgoing and gregarious that she is almost a caricature of a woman of the Deep South. Lavinia is loved by all, and even Caroline cannot help but love her mother, who outside of her faults, is such a likeable person, but a formidable force in the family and amongst those who live their lives around her. As the reader learns about Caroline's past, we also learn about Lavinia's crazy life. The story is told in the first person, changing narrators between Lavinia and Caroline. Through this narration, we learn why Lavinia behaved the way she did and why she treated her children so horribly after losing her husband. We also learn about Trips internal demons, and how his father's death truly affected his life into adulthood. PLANTATION is not a simple story. It's a complex tale of a family that is falling apart, but through it all Caroline and Lavinia find a way to keep them together, and they both find the peace that they have been looking for all their lives.
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Summary: Loved It!
Review: This is the first Dorothea Benton Frank book I've read and I must admit, I'm hooked! Her characters are so real and convincing (not to mention hilarious). I'm a native of Charleston, SC and Ms. Benton has amazingly captured the essence and culture of the Lowcountry in this wonderful story. Would I recommend this book to others? You bet!
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Summary: Another saccharin stereotype of Southern life
Review: Oh if only Dorothea Frank had bothered to check her facts!! This author tried to add a sense of reality by adding so many incorrect 'local' tidbits to this string of incredibly saccharin 10,000 words that it becomes painful. For example, set in present day South Carolina one of the character's relatives goes to jail for writing a bad check for property taxes. Folks, in South Carolina that ain't a crime. Stupid, yes. However, in South Carolina it won't land you in jail (Hmmm...but it probably should). The word "bubba" is bandied around quite a bit. Funny, I've lived here a little over half my life and never heard the word 'bubba' in conversation. The word "beaux", yes. Bubba no. One of the characters worries yet another relative will 'wind up at the bottom of Lake Murray.' If only our author had taken the time to glance at a MAP. A swamp, maybe. Lake Moultrie, or Lake Marion, perhaps. Lake Murray? Kind of a haul from where the story takes place. These people eat GUMBO for cryin' out loud. These South Carolina purebloods are eatin' Cajun? Really? Whatever happened to good ol' shrimp and grits, Beaufort stew or any of the many low country specialties? Basically, this story plays on every stereotype of the gentility of Southern life while conveniently forgetting all the murkier and darker issues, such as race relations. Just string a few of them together in your mind, throw in a sickly sweet ending, and you've saved yourself an afternoon. At least Pat Conroy gets his facts straight.
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