Starred review from October 2, 2000
Reading this posthumous novel is a bittersweet experience. On the one hand, it's wonderful to be back in the Southern town of Pinehill, and to enjoy Adams's inimitable prose and her calm intimacy with the characters introduced in A Southern Exposure. On the other, it's a pity to realize that we'll never know what future lives Adams had planned for these vibrant individuals. WWII is raging as the novel opens in 1944; Yankee transplant Cynthia Baird is now "an actively unfaithful naval wife." Her husband, Harry, is stationed in London, and famed war correspondent Derek McFall is filling his bedDuntil Derek's roving eye takes him to another boudoir. The Bairds' daughter, Abigail, is off to Swarthmore, and her friend Melanctha Byrd will go to Radcliffe. Famous romantic poet Russ Byrd, Melanctha's father and once Cynthia's lover, is now married to luscious Deirdre, who will soon be on the loose to search for another partner. Implacably dignified Odessa, the black housekeeper, is worried about her husband, Horace, on duty in the Pacific. The usual large cast is augmented by the introduction of a New York Jewish couple with Hollywood ties, active members of the Communist Party, and their college-age children. Everybody is still lusting, drinking, filled with inchoate longings and awash with memories of past liaisonsDbut some are becoming aware of new social stresses: changing race relations, a freer sexual climate, the threat of communism. Adams's deep acquaintance with her milieuDSouthern speech, cultural assumptions, casual bigotry and lush landscapeDshines clear in events, dialogue and descriptive passages of almost palpable sensation. Her acuity with period details allows a smooth reference to the atomic bomb and the musical Oklahoma in the same sentence. There are innumerable funny scenes, two deaths, several fraying marriages and a few young romances, one of which culminates in a wedding. Adams knew the hard truths of human life: that people (especially those in the sway of sexual passion) often behave badly, but generally have good intentions; that hardship often prompts compassion in the most unlikely hearts; and that our time on life's stage is brief. Unfortunately, hers was too brief by far. (Sept.) FYI: Adams died in 1997.
October 1, 2000
In her final work, Adams reprises the lovable, imperfect, slightly dazed characters of A Southern Exposure, denizens of 1940s Pinehill, NC. As the Bairds continue to intrigue their neighbors with their Northern ways, Captain Harry returns from London to his "actively unfaithful Navy wife" and confesses his own overseas transgressions. Meanwhile, their sensible daughter Abigail balances med school with the wonders of sex with her Jewish boyfriend and her close friendship with Benny, a smart, handsome chum from Connecticut who just happens to be black. Teenaged Deirdre, impregnated by Russ Byrd, leaves the town to give birth and returns with her "brother" Graham. When Russ's wife, Sallyjane, dies, he marries Deirdre, acknowledges his paternity, impregnates Deirdre again, and names their baby...Sallyjane. And so it goes with Adams's large cast of characters. Racism, communism, homosexuality, infidelity, people living in sin, the end of the war, reconciliation--Adams is a genius at affectionately tweaking the stereotypes of a Southern gentility struggling mightily to understand the ways of the world. Readers will wish the characters well and look forward to more--which, sadly, is not to be, as Adams died last year. Highly recommended.--Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
August 1, 2000
Adams' last novel (she died in 1999), a sequel to her earlier "Southern Exposure" (1995), is set in the final months of World War II and the early cold war years. The location is Pinehill, North Carolina, and the large cast Adams introduced in the previous novel is retained here. She closely weaves more of these people's interrelated and complicated life stories into a copiously but relevantly detailed tapestry of small-town life during a time when the world beyond Pinehurst is changing at a rapid rate--changes that, particularly the social ones, certainly have their local effect. The central character is Cynthia Byrd, who, with her husband, Harry, moved to the South from the Northeast to be near famous poet Russell Byrd. Harry is now overseas involved in the war effort, and their daughter, Abigail, is ready to go off to college, leaving Cynthia too lonesome for her own good. Then Russell Byrd dies under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind a widow and daughter who is also going off to college. The man who was with Russell when he died is black, and racism rears its ugly head in Pinehurst. But the younger generation is looking beyond racism; as they go off to the big city, some are flirting with communism. The reader's primary concern (at least the one most at the forefront of Adams' intricate story) is whether Cynthia's marriage will survive when Harry comes home from the war. ((Reviewed August 2000))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)