Southern Exposure: A Novel - Softcover

Rice, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0595215505 ISBN 13: 9780595215508

Publisher: iUniverse, 2002

Synopsis

A lyrical new voice from the South weaves a searing psychological drama around a small town shocked by violence, a compelling portrait of human lives caught in the crucible of change.

About this title

About the Author:

Linda Lightsey Rice has taught creative writing at the University of Tennessee, Lenoir Rhyne College, and the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. She has been awarded fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Wurlitzer Foundation, the South Carolina Humanities Council, and the Hawthornden Foundation in Scotland.

From Publishers Weekly:

In her first novel Rice presents a cast of passionate, colorful characters in a sultry, lush, Southern-gothic setting. Most of the residents of small, quiet Essex, S.C., know each other. Neighbors tend their gardens and leave the doors to their homes unlocked. City-dwellers like 30-ish engineer Stoney McFarland and his photographer wife Anna move to Essex to enjoy a simpler way of life--that is until Sarah Roth, a town matriarch, is found brutally murdered. Maum Chrish, a black woman who practices voodoo in the swamps, quickly becomes a suspect although there is no evidence to prove her guilt. Stoney has his own ideas about who murdered Sarah and he becomes obsessed with solving the crime. During one of South Carolina's worst heat waves, Stoney's suspicions draw the entire community, now paranoid with fear, into a dangerous investigation. Rice maintains a level of creepy suspense despite some awkward, overlong passages about sex and voodoo that sometimes lack credibility. Though the mystery is central to the plot, the identity and motive of the killer are not proven. But Rice's psychologically adept portrayal of a community suddenly forced to acknowledge evil, and her evocative use of atmospheric detail, make this an auspicious debut.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0595215505
• ISBN 13: 9780595215508
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356