The long-vanished world of the Old South--from 1842 to 1900--comes alive in the story of Emma Garnet, as she moves from pampered plantation owner's daughter, through her discovery of the evils of slavery and work in military hospitals during the Civil War, to her final reconciliation with her feelings about the South. 100,000 first printing.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Everyone who read Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain should consider reading Kaye Gibbons's On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, the poetically charged fictional reminiscences of Emma Garnet Tate Lowell, child of Virginia's Seven Oaks plantation, from 1842-1900. For one thing, it was Frazier's already-published friend Gibbons who, with his wife's connivance, pried Cold Mountain from his grip and got it into publishers' hands.
But beyond their Civil War settings--a first for Gibbons, who's noted for 20th-century tales--the two books share resonant Southern literary accents, characters with similarly obstinate responses to enormous grief, and a shivery sense of history's stark shadow falling across everyday events. Oprah Winfrey twice recommended Gibbons's fiction (Ellen Foster and A Virtuous Woman), and Walker Percy compared her to Faulkner. Probably Oprah liked Gibbons's heroines for their plucky refusal to buckle under oppression--a trait shared by Gibbons herself, who triumphed over the manic-depression that drove her mother to suicide.
Our heroine, Emma, quakes under the tyranny of her plantation daddy, Samuel P. Tate, who slits the throat of a slave who talks back to him and just might do the same to his half-dozen children. There is no enormity of which he is incapable, this bellowing Simon Legree with an autodidact's education and a self-made man's bottomless urge to rise above his raising. He is, as he might have thunderingly put it, "a pluperfect son of Satan." Only Clarice, the matriarchal slave and true ruler of the household, can fight Samuel Tate to a verbal draw and prevent slave uprisings on the eve of war. Clarice helps save Emma, as does her impeccable swain Dr. Quincy Lowell, who sweeps in like a cool Boston breeze to dispel the dismal tidewater miasma.
The war, alas, brings a tsunami of blood, forcing Dr. Lowell to make Emma a de facto battlefield surgeon--an occasion he recognizes by fashioning a bit of commemorative jewelry for her from a dead man's silver filling and inscribing the date with a finger-amputation tool. One aspect of Gibbons's Frazieresque orgy of historical research is an authentic feel for the grotesqueries of the period. She can be amusing, too: the "aggressively plain in the face" Miss McKimmon--a fanged Raleigh socialite who's mean to Emma--is said to have arrived at a party and "effused through the front door and into the arms of everyone simultaneously." On the audiocassette version of On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, you can hear the proper way to pronounce "effused" for maximum satirical violence.
One craves for Emma's hubby and daddy to swap five percent of each others' respectively perfect and perfectly awful souls--the book is not big on startling character revelations. What makes it work, despite its lack of moral shading and narrative guile, is the grace and rumbling life of the narrator's language. On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, which has its sometimes anachronistically enlightened head in the New South and its feet firmly planted in the past, deserves a place next to Russell Banks's John Brown novel Cloudsplitter. At points, it reads like a smarter, nonracist Gone with the Wind, only less windy. --Tim Appelo
In this superb new novel from the acclaimed, bestselling author of Ellen Foster, Sights Unseen, and Charms for the Easy Life, an extraordinary woman recalls a nation's bloodiest epoch and a magnificent life forged in its fires.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Seller: SecondSale, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00052859489
Quantity: 3 available
Seller: SecondSale, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Acceptable. Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00044331064
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Orion Tech, Kingwood, TX, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Fair. Seller Inventory # 0399142991-4-22950896
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Orion Tech, Kingwood, TX, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Good. Seller Inventory # 0399142991-3-22956713
Quantity: 3 available
Seller: Your Online Bookstore, Houston, TX, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Good. Seller Inventory # 0399142991-3-22852005
Quantity: 2 available
Seller: BookHolders, Towson, MD, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. [ No Hassle 30 Day Returns ][ Ships Daily ] [ Underlining/Highlighting: NONE ] [ Writing: NONE ] [ Edition: Reprint ] Publisher: Putnam Pub Date: 6/1/1998 Binding: Hardcover Pages: 273 Reprint edition. Seller Inventory # 6013204
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: More Than Words, Waltham, MA, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. 9781626726314. . All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofi9780393706468 t job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business. Seller Inventory # BOS-X-14a-00944
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Once Upon A Time Books, Siloam Springs, AR, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Good. This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear . Seller Inventory # mon0000416879
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Wonder Book, Frederick, MD, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Very Good dust jacket. A copy that may have a few cosmetic defects. May also contain a few markings such as an owner's name, short gifter's inscription or light stamp. Seller Inventory # V11L-00099
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Wonder Book, Frederick, MD, U.S.A.
Condition: As New. Like New condition. Very Good dust jacket. A near perfect copy that may have very minor cosmetic defects. Seller Inventory # Y12A-03168
Quantity: 3 available