Lee told me that the setting for this novel was inspired by her feel for towns like Wytheville and Martinsburg, Virginia. This book is arguably the closest Lee Smith has come to writing a mystery. It also is unique to the extent that it employs multiple narrators. "A lively, warmhearted, wickedly perceptive and extremely funny book.”—Newsday. “Immensely difficult to put down.”—The Village Voice. “With great skill, humor, and understanding, Smith gradually reveals the Hess family linen for all to see.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer. “A childhood memory relived through hypnosis, a funeral that brings about a family reunion, and the evacuation of a swimming pool on the site of an old well uncover a family secret in this darkly humorous novel…In the course of the story all the family’s dirty linen is aired and Smith provides a behind-the-scenes look at life in a small Southern town.”—The Christian Science Monitor. For more on the author, see my write-ups of other Lee Smith Books.
New York, Ballantine Books: A 2003 paperback reprint of a 1985 release. 287 pages with a Reader''s Guide.