352 pages, 7.93 × 5.14 × 0.92 in
March 31, 2015
The following ISBNs are associated with this title:
ISBN - 10: 0307885925
ISBN - 13: 9780307885920
Read from the Book
A SILVER GLOBE IN THE GARDEN As I open a book that I once pulled from the ashes of my grandparents’ house, the dusty, mildewed scent catapults me to their back hallway. Through the double door, made of tiny mullioned panes, I see the entrance hall waver, a quivering of claret and sunlight from the front door. Wafting from the kitchen, the smell of chicken smothered in cream and pepper until it’s falling off the bone. I’m playing an ancient wind-up record left over from when my father was a boy; “K-K-K-Katy” crackles in my ear. Through my grandmother’s open bedroom door, I glimpse chintz dust ruffles, hatboxes, the slender oval mirror over the dressing table, where she leans, and I see her dab the fluffy puff between her legs. That’s it: brief cloud of bath powder, grinding consonant K-K-K-Katy (I’ ll be waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door), warped light throwing rainbows back through the door. And I wonder, always, why do such fragments remain forever engraved, when, surely, significant ones are lost? The kitchen fragrance, no mystery. For who, ever, could forget Fanny’s smothered chicken? An early memory of my father: He opens his buff hunting coat, and in all the small interior pockets, doves’ heads droop. He and his friends Bascom and Royce break out the bourbon. From my room in the back of the house, right off the kitchen, I see through the keyhole (keyholes are a large part of childhood) the doves he’s killed piled on the counter, and someone’s hand cleaning a shotgun barr
From the Publisher
A lyrical and evocative memoir from Frances Mayes, the Bard of Tuscany, about coming of age in the Deep South and the region’s powerful influence on her life.From the Hardcover edition.
The author of three beloved books about her life in Italy, including Under the Tuscan Sun and Every Day in Tuscany, Frances Mayes revisits the turning points that defined her early years in Fitzgerald, Georgia. With her signature style and grace, Mayes explores the power of landscape, the idea of home, and the lasting force of a chaotic and loving family.
From her years as a spirited, secretive child, through her university studies—a period of exquisite freedom that imbued her with a profound appreciation of friendship and a love of travel—to her escape to a new life in California, Mayes exuberantly recreates the intense relationships of her past, recounting the bitter and sweet stories of her complicated family: her beautiful yet fragile mother, Frankye; her unpredictable father, Garbert; Daddy Jack, whose life Garbert saved; grandmother Mother Mayes; and the family maid, Frances’s confidant Willie Bell.
Under Magnolia is a searingly honest, humorous, and moving ode to family and place, and a thoughtful meditation on the ways they define us, or cause us to define ourselves. With acute sensory language, Mayes relishes the sweetness of the South, the smells and tastes at her family table, the fragrance of her hometown trees, and writes an unforgettable story of a girl whose perspicacity and dawning self-knowledge lead her out of the South and into the rest of the world, and then to a profound return home.
About the Author
In addition to her worldwide bestselling Tuscany memoirs Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany, and Every Day in Tuscany, FRANCES MAYES is the author of the travel memoir, A Year in the World, illustrated books In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany Home (with Edward Mayes), and The Tuscan Sun Cookbook (also with Edward Mayes). She has published a novel, Swan, set in the South, The Discovery of Poetry: A Guide for Readers and Writers, and five books of poetry. Her books have been translated into more than fifty languages. She divides her time between Tuscany and North Carolina. Visit her at www.francesmayesbooks.com.
A BookPage Best Book of the YearSouthern Independent Booksellers Association Spring 2014 Okra Pick“The strength of Under Magnolia lies in the very claustrophobia Mayes aches to flee as a child…In certain heightened moments of this memoir, Mayes breathes the same air as [Carson] McCullers.” –New York Times Book Review“As gothic as anything Faulkner could have dreamed up, populated by characters straight out of a Flannery O’Connor story…a thorny memoir that strips away the polite Southern masks, sweet magnolias be damned. Unforgettable.” – Atlanta Journal Constitution“With perfect-pitch language, Mayes unblinkingly describes her growing-up years… One can almost taste the mushiness of ‘a pot of once-green beans falling apart in salt pork’; one can almost smell the cloying scent of honeysuckle, gardenias and overripe peaches that infuse the always-too-humid air.”– USAToday.com“Just the right balance of humor, irony and tragedy. And no tourist guide or coffee table book will offer a more sensually pleasing portrait of the culture, food, language, and landscape of the place she now calls home.” –Roanoke Times“Under Magnolia is a vibrant example of Mayes’ literary artistry. Her memoir teems with beautiful, pellucid vignettes, described with a painter’s eye for detail, [about a young girl maturing to adulthood amidst domestic tumult].” –Arts Atlanta“You better believe we devoured every page of this delicious read.” –SouthernLiving.com“A memoir of luminous language and sensory memory