Swan | Frances Mayes | A True Tale from the South

Swan | Frances Mayes | not to be missed

books:

Swan

	Swan Frances Mayes Broadway, 2003 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

By the #1 bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany and In Tuscany, Swan is a haunting novel set in the deep South -- a resonant tale of long-buried family secrets and mysteries brought suddenly to light.

In her celebrated memoirs of life in Tuscany, Frances Mayes writes masterfully about people in a powerful and shaping place. In Swan, her first novel, she has created an equally intimate world, rich with striking characters and intriguing twists of fate, that hearkens back to her southern roots.

The Masons are a prominent but now fragmented family who have lived for generations in Swan, an edenic, hidebound small town in Georgia. As Swan opens, a bizarre crime pulls Ginger Mason home from her life as an archeologist in Italy: The body of her mother, Catherine, a suicide nineteen years before, has been mysteriously exhumed. Reunited on new terms with her troubled, isolated brother J.J., who has never ventured far from Swan, the Mason children grapple with the profound effects of their mother's life and death on their own lives. When a new explanation for Catherine?s death emerges, and other closely guarded family secrets rise to the surface as well, Ginger and J.J. are confronted with startling truths about their family, a particular ordeal in a family and a town that wants to keep the past buried.

Beautifully evoking the rhythms and idiosyncrasies of the deep South while telling an utterly compelling story of the complexity of family ties, Swan marks the remarkable fiction debut of one of America?s best-loved writers.

From the Hardcover edition.

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A True Tale from the South

Being a daughter of the South myself, I can honestly say the characters in this book are uniquely southern. I was constantly going, yes, I know that place -- I pass that on my way home -- I have a friend from there, etc. She did a perfect job in her characterization, and her sense of place is phenomenal. The story itself was very easy to read mostly because it pulled you in and made you interested in what became of these people. The plot was interesting and had enough twists to keep you coming back for more. One thing I loved was Mayes' ability to surprise. I would be reading along, engrossed in the story, when suddenly I would have to back up and reread a portion (usually at the end of a chapter) because what I read couldn't possibly be what she wrote. And yet it always was -- interesting bits about the characters that just got slipped in. Altogether, I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting a good read.

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not to be missed

Mayes' writing is utterly beautiful. If you love language as only a poet can deliver, well-drawn characters you're unlikely to forget, and a story that pulls you in from the very beginning, don't miss this lovely, haunting novel.

Coming home to Swan

This is a book by my favorite author, Francis Mayes. Francis took me back to a fascinating but sad, fictional story about a family that could have been from her own deep Southern roots. Her creativeness came forward as she wove a mysterious multi-generational long held secret into a place where the characters were able to accept the outcome and move on. I loved the descriptive, colorful contrasts between Mayes own life in Italy and her native Georgia. I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

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...adrift in the pond

This book left the reader with too many loose ends. There were many mysteries in the story... and too many left unsolved. Yes, it would make for good discussions, but left the individual reader adrift and without any closure.

sent back

I returned both of my amazon book purchases because they took to long to reach me How do I get my money back since I did not open them?

reviews: page 1, 2

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