The Land of Mango Sunsets: A Novel - Hardcover

Frank, Dorothea Benton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060892382 ISBN 13: 9780060892388

Publisher: William Morrow, 2007

Synopsis

Miriam Swanson is thoroughly provoked and she doesn't mind letting you know. Twenty years ago her husband Charles, a powerful attorney with one of the last remaining white shoe law firms in New York, dumped her for a younger woman nearly half her age. Obviously it happens all the time and it's not exactly news, but what's fascinating is to watch Miriam evolve from pathetic to spectacular. Perfectly proper Miriam's great metamorphosis results from the arrival of a little red neck school teacher, Liz, from Nowhere, Alabama. Liz is Miriam's tenant along with Kevin, a 50 something gay man who is Miriam's best friend. Liz is everything that Miriam is not: young and thin. They constantly clash. Then finally, she meets a man named Harrison who changes her into a gal named Mellie.

Miriam spins out from the revolving door of her postured life as a Manhattan quasi socialite while she thirsts, no, starves for recognition. How did she become what she hates the most and what does she endure to realize it? And where are the answers? It takes a few spins, dips and one spectacular fall until Miriam gets her head on straight. Then in a whoosh she's off to see her mother in the enchanted and mysterious land of Sullivans Island, deep in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

About this title

About the Author:

New York Times bestseller Dorothea Benton Frank was born and raised on Sullivans Island, South Carolina. Until her passing in 2019, Dorothea and her husband split their time between New Jersey and Sullivans Island, South Carolina.

A contemporary voice of the South, Dorothea Benton Frank has been beloved by fans and friends alike since her debut novel Sullivans Island. Readers from coast to coast have fallen for the quick wit and the signature humor that permeated her many bestselling novels

From Publishers Weekly:

A middle-aged woman's self-discovery is predictable but not pedestrian in Frank's (Full of Grace; Pawleys Island) latest. A divorce has stalled Miriam Swanson's life: her snooty Hermès-swathed Manhattan friends abandoned her after her ex-husband "ran off with his whore"; one of her grown sons keeps her at arm's length, while her other son, a "nice nerd," stays beneath the family radar for months at a time; and the major drawback to her job at a museum is her boss—icy former friend Agnes Willis. In a twist that stretches disbelief, Miriam catches Agnes's husband, Truman, having a noisy rendezvous with Liz, the cute new tenant in Miriam's townhouse. After a brief interlude that sends Miriam to a South Carolina barrier island to visit her former cotillion queen mother—and meet the dreamy local Harrison Ford ("Not that wimpy actor")—Miriam reveals Truman's affair, with consequences that fuel the remainder of the book. Frank's narrative is heavy on healing—physically, mentally—and the importance of family, and though her sometimes delightfully nasty heroine is sympathetic, supporting cast members have one note apiece. This isn't Frank's finest, but it'll sate her fans. (Apr.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0060892382
• ISBN 13: 9780060892388
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352