I Always Judge Books by Their Covers

With a sniff and a sigh, I just finished "On Agate Hill" by Lee Smith. I've been away from novels for several years, but I've always loved Lee Smith and when I saw the book in trade paper, it all but jumped off the shelf into my hands. This was in Nashville at Davis-Kidd Booksellers, so my girls played contentedly with the Thomas the Tank Engine train table while I read the back of the book. Curled up in a mission-style rocker, which I coveted, I read the author's notes in which Smith describes the death of her adult son and her difficulty returning to writing while still grieving. I was wiping tears from my eyes when I put "Agate Hill" on my stack of "must buys."

Molly Petree is the heroine of "Agate Hill," and the story traces her life as an orphan in North Carolina following the Civil War clear through her adult life at the turn of the century. Molly is familiar in that she's the spitfire Southern girl I've always wanted either to be or have as my best friend. She reminds me very much of Cean in Caroline Miller's "Lamb in His Bosom" or any of the spunky heroines of Edna Ferber, or even Catherine Marshall's "Christy." The rural, pre-industrial North Carolina setting and characters spark to life like flint to steel.

Years ago, I attended a luncheon at which Lee Smith spoke. She told her albino squirrel story, which I would repeat, but I'm afraid I wouldn't get the details right. The story has to do with an albino squirrel that she wrote about on her very first day as a reporter for a small town newspaper. I laughed as tears of familiarity ran down my face. If you've answered phones at a small town newspaper, and interviewed the local citizens, the somewhat normal and the flat-out crazy, you'd know why I laughed.

Words I Wish I Had Written

"A perception exists among many young women (like me) that motherhood is a vocation reserved for certain types of people. The words organized, nurturing, crafty, and patient come to mind. But the mystery of parenthood is far deeper than our trifling categories.

Disorganized, anxious women who get lost on their daily commute, drink too much coffee, and stay up too late make terrific moms. I know from experience.

The unexpected transformation that takes place in a woman when she carries a child in her womb and gives birth is an act of both life and death.

Something in us dies - a certain sureness and aloofness, confidence that comes from taking care of only ourselves. In its place real love is born - naked, weak and true."

From In Touch magazine, May 2008, an article written by Tonya Stoneman.