Charley Bland Contributor(s): Settle, Mary Lee (Author) |
|
ISBN: 1570031495 ISBN-13: 9781570031496 Publisher: University of South Carolina Press OUR PRICE: $20.89 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: December 1996 Annotation: In this moving and brilliant narrative of doomed love, Mary Lee Settle tells a triangular affair set in the small town of Canona, West Virginia. The novel's narrator, a thirty-five-year-old widow and writer, returns from a self-imposed European exile to find her hometown much as she left it decades ago. One thing does change upon her arrival, however; she takes Charley Bland, Canona's most eligible bachelor and the object of her schoolgirl crush, as her lover. The third person in the profane trinity is Charley's doting mother, a woman who believes no female worthy of her son. Mrs. Bland serves to fuel the creativity of the lovers as they arrange clandestine meetings. With trademark skill and wit, Settle spins a bittersweet story in which she reveals the mores of Canona's closed, upper-class society and of its less prosperous underculture. She artfully employs a mixture of humor, compassion, satire, and irony to perform a dissection of family existence at its most corrosive. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Fiction |
Dewey: FIC |
LCCN: 96034379 |
Physical Information: 0.65" H x 5.54" W x 8.01" (0.69 lbs) 207 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: In this moving and brilliant narrative of doomed love, Mary Lee Settle tells of a triangular affair set in the small town of Canona, West Virginia. The novel's narrator, a thirty-five-year-old widow and writer, returns from a self-imposed European exile to find her hometown much as she left it decades ago. One thing does change upon her arrival, however; she takes Charley Bland, Canona's most eligible bachelor and the object of her schoolgirl crush, as her lover. The third person in the profane trinity is Charley's mother, a woman who believes no female worthy of her son. Mrs. Bland serves to fuel the lovers' creativity as they arrange clandestine meetings. With trademark skill and wit, Settle spins a bittersweet story in which she artfully reveals the mores of Canona's closed, upper-class society and of its less prosperous underculture. |