Anne Rivers Siddons and Dorothea Benton Frank

Two women who will be missed.

I don't really remember how I came to hear about a new author by the name of Dorothea Benton Frank.  Probably by browsing through one of our local bookstores when I was living in Atlanta.  

But I surely do remember how pleased and tickled I was to have made the discovery with every word I read in SULLIVAN'S ISLAND, and already, by the end of the book, impatient for her next.

She, with that one book, became one of the authors on my "Auto-Buy List."  And she never left.

I have all of Ms. Frank's books, have re-read several of them, and will do so again (and probably yet again).

Some are in paperback because that's how she was first published, some are in hardback, and some are on my Kindle.  Sadly, only one is autographed.

When I learned Ms. Frank was going to be doing a book signing in Charleston, I asked Donald how he felt about a road trip.  Charleston being one of our favorite places - no problem!

So. we planned a week's trip completely around Dorothea Benton Frank's book signing for PAWLEY'S ISLAND (2005). 

This was very early days in her career and the signing was done in a hotel lobby, at the door of a bookstore. 

There were, maybe, 20 of us in line. 

No seating. 

MUCH different from the more recent signings. 

I don't recall the name of the hotel or the bookstore. But I do remember how excited I was to meet the author who was writing some books I was over the moon about. 

RIP Ms. Frank.  Thank you for your stories.

https://www.postandcourier.com/features/dorothea-benton-frank-beloved-lowcountry-author-dies/article_2edf885a-c28e-11e9-b66b-53e5afc049bc.html?fbclid=IwAR1JeQQbO70ZJZ0mFhGHIdCFYzItyDgVXgakMCZEhXkwLRspcgxJwp_qnPU


In keeping with who she was, a huge personality rejoicing in life and family and friends, there will be a memorial service in celebration of her life.  

All are welcome. 

Sadly, we will not be there, but I have a feeling Ms. Frank will be looking down from heaven and feeling right proud to have a crowd of so many coming to say good-bye.

And then there's Anne Rivers Siddons.

Oh, my.

Anne Rivers Siddons.

There will never be another.

I idolized this woman.

I remember being in a bookstore in downtown Atlanta and being drawn to a display that caught my eye.

How could I pass this up?!

I went home that night and read till the last page.

I do not exaggerate when I say this book found its home in my heart.

It was, and remains, one of the most important books of my life.

Atlanta, back then, was the place I was meant to be.  

It was a life I loved living.  

Like Ms. Siddons, my feelings about Atlanta changed.  And, like Ms. Siddons, I left.


PEACHTREE ROAD was the first I knew of Anne Rivers Siddons.  After reading it I quickly began the hunt for her earlier work, and then, of course, snatched up each new book as quickly as they hit the shelves.


But whenever I want to revisit the real (to me) Atlanta, I pick up PEACHTREE ROAD and DOWNTOWN.

DOWNTOWN is another book that lives in my heart, and could only have been written by Anne Rivers Siddons.

I was lucky enough to say this to her at a book signing.  But, oh my, I had so much else I wish I had been able to say. 

But these were the days before book conventions where you get to meet your favorite authors and might be lucky enough to hang out with them in the bar, and maybe, if you're really lucky, over time, be able to call them "friend."

So, sadly, I can only say I met her once.  Never able to sit down in conversation, never able to say "she was a friend of mine."

But I will always have her words close by.

I have her stories in the books she wrote.

And I have every one.

Many signed first editions.

Some personalized.

All cherished.

Since I love every word she's written, it would be impossible to choose a favorite.

But because  I was living in Atlanta during the time frame of PEACHTREE ROAD and DOWNTOWN, those two books resonated when I read them, and continue to do so with each re-reading.  

They are truly timeless.  

Classics, in my opinion. 

She wrote about the south as only a real southern woman could, with beautiful pacing and phrasing, creating a world we all wanted to inhabit.  

  
RIP Ms. Siddons.  Thank you.

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/charleston/obituary.aspx?n=anne-rivers-siddons&pid=193919654&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=obitshareclassic&utm_content=p193919654&fbclid=IwAR23GTZXZcWeMc6YKV9DqGOE6C_i_SitAxEYGd1GBoJ0jQfke_nuYXUqLn8
https://www.southernliving.com/news/anne-rivers-siddons-death

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/atlanta-novelist-anne-rivers-siddons-dies-age/wSa5rVNJgi9MKxWju9wBUL/?fbclid=IwAR13aC-T3TSlnV7kSoa87at3yBFUJpy8hX24CD1wD_yb0WtEvvDntKLO2-8

https://epaper.ajc.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=3fe90537-f8bb-4034-9481-2810fa8c4bf1&pbid=8e0858ee-1443-484d-9e94-f8b8a1eaaaff&utm_source=app.pagesuite&utm_medium=app-interaction&utm_campaign=pagesuite-epaper-html5_share-article&fbclid=IwAR0iVGzWjOdrOMoU272Dus2N_wdLfsvTaaFpihzqiCQJHtj8syqUoYVFveE
https://www.postandcourier.com/news/obituaries/anne-rivers-siddons-who-helped-redefine-the-southern-novel-dies/article_8400198a-d4bd-11e9-8e0a-435ba0c262a5.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share&fbclid=IwAR0XO7tVv5IvrmGZxpKGe46A2NUfbf1-3RCTC9Y7FmuLkK4FkeJOdVuIg3o

https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/the-lady-of-us-remembering-anne-rivers-siddons/?fbclid=IwAR339ChkBKbuUkX6bpz2MWLSGJg66_v-mjTH4cbtHA4_3C4gyY-62AtDMIc
https://www.ajc.com/entertainment/books--literature/how-author-anne-rivers-siddons-saved/0Vu7coKhjndDUNKwoVmMXI/?fbclid=IwAR3owYsA5Mjik3lPdHnbw-WX_gGrbnKANERNGibwUMXU34ZqCJJlrsm36oU

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/books/anne-rivers-siddons-dead.html?fbclid=IwAR2OVT5oQxuzqdwGACPmKYxknUjSgyq3OVkrSSGa1_biV84vccq_Z0oK9Gw



I'm so, so sad that there will be no more books from these women.

They may have fallen into the category of "Beach Reading," "Women's Fiction," "Southern Lit."  Whatever.

They touched people.

In very different ways, but they did both touch people.

Both these women possessed a keen level of observation into people.


And they generously shared those observations, written in their own inimitable way, with us.


Their writing was very different, but they both were able to share their south, warts and all, in a way that we will remember and cherish.

They did it with honesty and respect.

My world seems smaller knowing they're no longer sharing it.  

But, we'll always have their words.

https://gardenandgun.com/articles/remembering-two-icons-literary-south/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=september2019_facebook&fbclid=IwAR2kgta1Rn22elWSji1sR7JNAprdsPPlEYql0rk17PqevgzWzQhrP3s-QJc

Summer Reading - Part One

Seems it's that time of year when we start seeing Summer Reading Lists all over the place. And - - since I'm one who cannot for the life of me resist a list, I, of course, have my very own summer reading list. ta da!

The one book I'm really impatiently awaiting and tapping my toe for is Pat Conroy's newest. SOUTH OF BROAD. This surprises no one, I'm sure, after the love note to Pat Conroy I left here awhile back. If I were a wealthy woman, I'd buy one of those ARCs available at abebooks.com for somewhere between $50-$75.00. But, big sigh, I'm not. So I'll just continue the toe tapping thing till August 11th when it will finally be released.

This from patconroy.com:

"Against the sumptuous backdrop of Charleston, South Carolina, SOUTH OF BROAD gathers a unique cast of sinners and saints. Leopold Bloom King, our narrator, is the son of an amiable, loving father who teaches science at the local high school. His mother, an ex-nun, is the high school principal and a well-known Joyce scholar. After Leo's older brother commits suicide at the age of thirteen, the family struggles with the shattering effects of his death, and Leo, lonely and isolated, searches for something to sustain him. Eventually, he finds his answer when he becomes part of a tightly knit group of high school seniors that includes friends Sheba and Trevor Poe, glamorous twins with an alcoholic mother and a prison-escapee father; hardscrabble mountain runaways Niles and Starla Whitehead; socialite Molly Huger and her boyfriend, Chadworth Rutledge X; and an ever-widening circle whose liaisons will ripple across two decades-from 1960s counterculture through the dawn of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. The ties among them endure for years, surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating breakdowns, and Charleston's dark legacy of racism and class divisions. But the final test of friendship that brings them to San Francisco is something no one is prepared for South of Broad is Pat Conroy at his finest; a long-awaited work from a great American writer whose passion for life and language knows no bounds."

In the meantime, I have some additional books on my Summer Reading List. These are only some of the novels I'm looking forward to reading - we'll do another list in a week or so. But for today, I'm going to kinda stick with a theme - beach related, and southern. Two of my favorite things, in reading and in life.

Here's another August release. One of my favorite series ever. I look forward to Margaret Maron's newest "Deborah" every August. As soon as I get my hands on one, I race through it to see what Deborah's latest adventure entails, then sit down and read it again savoring each word. I welcome Deborah Knott and her family into my home with open arms and talk about her like she's a real person.

SAND SHARKS takes Deborah to Wrightsville Beach. I'm particularly looking forward to this one. Wrightsville Beach isn't far from Topsail Island, where Donald and Harley and I spent a week in May, and blogged about right here. Twice! I'm still finding myself looking at the pictures we took while there and dreaming about being back. It's a beautiful part of North Carolina, and since no one captures atmosphere, or writes a better sense of place than Ms. Maron, I'm especially excited to see what SAND SHARKS brings us. The series remains at the tippy top of my "auto-buy books."

Speaking of Topsail Island. Diane Chamberlain writes beautifully about this enchanting spot. Her latest, SECRETS SHE LEFT BEHIND, is ABSOLUTELY on my list of Summer Reading.



Surprisingly, I've heard very little chatter about the new Rebecca Wells novel. THE CROWNING GLORY OF CALLA LILLY PONDER will be released in July. I'm thinking perhaps Ms. Wells' last novel, YA-YAs in BLOOM was a bit of a disappointment to some fans of the earlier Ya-Ya novels. I liked it just fine. Mostly, I think I was especially blown away by the fact that Ms. Wells was able to even write that book while she was suffering dreadfully with Lyme's Disease. I'm excited about reading this one. Amazon.com says "The novel is chock-full of Southern charm and sassy wisdom." Sounds good to me. I'm a fan of Southern charm and sassy wisdom, for sure.

Sticking with my whole "wishing I was still at the beach" theme I can't seem to move beyond this year, I'm also looking forward to reading Patti Callahan Henry's DRIFTWOOD SUMMER where three sisters reunite to save the family’s beach-community bookstore.


One of my favorite writers of "All Things Southern" is Dorothea Benton Frank. She has written a sequel to her very first novel, SULLIVAN'S ISLAND. RETURN TO SULLIVAN'S ISLAND promises a return to a breathtakingly beautiful place, with some of the most eccentric, wild and funny characters you'll ever hope to meet. If you're not familiar with Ms. Frank, do check out her webpage and learn how she came to write her first novel. It's quite the story.

Another perennial favorite of mine is Mary Kay Andrews. Her newest, THE FIXER UPPER finds us carrying on with another of her courageous, outrageous southern women characters who is, by God, going to show the world just how strong she really is. And will have everyone falling completely in love with her while doing it.

AND I'm excited about the next Bobbie Faye adventure. Toni McGee Causey's WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON comes out in August. Bobbie Faye is a HOOT and I love her.



You know who is missing from this list? A woman whose writing I love more than I can even say - Anne Rivers Siddons. I haven't seen any mention of anything new from her, but we'll just cross our fingers and hope it'll be soon.

O.K. - that's a partial list of what I plan on reading this summer. Now let's hear what's on your list!