I am posting this a day early as I’m about to drive up to Southwest Harbor, Maine to read with with Christina Baker Kline. (See events page on my website) Her novel, Bird in Hand, came out in paperback earlier this summer. Christina is a wonderful writer –more on that next week. Yesterday, was the official birthday of A Slender Thread, my new novel. Today, I want to write about Lee Smith. I’ve loved her work for years and I studied with her at a seminar in Key West, Florida a number of years ago. She’s a great teacher and she has been very helpful to me along the way.
Lee is a master storyteller and I was thrilled to learn that she has this new collection out this summer. Reading these stories is like opening a box of chocolates -those rich chocolate truffles that come from Switzerland, the kind that silence you for a moment when you bite in and the creamy interior melts on your tongue. I finish reading one of Lee Smith’s stories, and like the chcolates, I have to have another! Most of her characters, strong southern women, are survivors. But, they are also richly complex, and like the rest of us, not perfect. My favorite in the collection is called Toastmasters. I first read it in Narrative, an excellent online literary publication. The main character is a young boy who is out to dinner with his mother and one of her friends in Key West, Florida. During this truly “laugh out loud” long, sort of zaney evening, the boy discovers something in himself that will remain with him all his life. This story is one I will read over and over. Lee Smith’s stories are both wonderfully entertaining, and in big moments and small, offer great wisdom.