Helpful Score: 3
Insightful and interesting. Smith blurs the line between fact and fiction. While real patients and staff at the famous Highland Hospital in North Carolina are portrayed throughout the book and the hospital's tragic history, the character of Evalina is a fictional young girl who is a victim of both tragic circumstances and decisions made by others in her presumed best interest, that bring her to live and even thrive in this environment. It is frightening and fascinating, with a realistic view into the times.
Helpful Score: 1
Guests on Earth, Lee Smith
I received this book from Librarything.com to provide a review and I couldnt have been happier with the experience. It doesnt take but a few pages to fall in love with this tale of loss, mental illness, community and acceptance. Bringing one to the question of who is really crazy and why. The voice of Evalina rises slowly from her earliest memories to the life she is afforded and her road to hope and recovery. A road Im not altogether sure she found but I found intriguing, consternating and ultimately fascinating. This was a new point of view for me and I thoroughly enjoyed every odd choice and happenstance. So much is enlightening, stupefying and entertaining and days later, Im still wondering on the ultimate ending.
I received this book from Librarything.com to provide a review and I couldnt have been happier with the experience. It doesnt take but a few pages to fall in love with this tale of loss, mental illness, community and acceptance. Bringing one to the question of who is really crazy and why. The voice of Evalina rises slowly from her earliest memories to the life she is afforded and her road to hope and recovery. A road Im not altogether sure she found but I found intriguing, consternating and ultimately fascinating. This was a new point of view for me and I thoroughly enjoyed every odd choice and happenstance. So much is enlightening, stupefying and entertaining and days later, Im still wondering on the ultimate ending.
Helpful Score: 1
Zelda Fitzgerald is only one part of this book. But it might be helpful to know her story. Her life alone, makes this sad, and while this is fiction, this is how mentally ill people were treated, literally, treated. Shock therapy. Scary. This book does tend to wander a bit, and several years go by, instead of chapters, just short letters. All in all, while it's a sad story, it is an interesting one.
Helpful Score: 1
There are few characters in life or literature as fascinating as Zelda Fitzgerald. I assumed from the description of this book that she would figure largely in the story; however, she was a peripheral character who appeared periodically. I never engaged with Evalina, whose fragile physical and mental condition should have elicited compassion and understanding. I thought the writing and time lines were disjointed. Additionally, the detail of small things grew tedious while the noteworthy events were minimally described. For me, this was a disappointing read from an accomplished southern author.
Wonderfully detailed and beautifully evocative portrait of mental illness in a very particular time and environment. No one tells a story quite like Lee Smith. My beef with this book is that Evalina's story seemed to be missing something. I wanted to know more about her mother and about her own sickness. I suppose though that with all of the other story lines that one was the least relevant. I also highly recommend reading On Agate Hill.. It's Ms. Smith at her finest.
