A Cure for Dreams

by Kaye Gibbons | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 0945575335 Global Overview for this book
Registered by rem_MDM-543626 on 7/5/2005
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This book is in the wild! This Book is Currently in the Wild!
2 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by rem_MDM-543626 on Tuesday, July 5, 2005
FROM THE PUBLISHER
A story that traces the bonds between four generations of resourceful Southern women through stories passed from one generation to another.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Further enchancing her reputation as a chronicler of small-town life in the South, Gibbons ( Ellen Foster ) limns an engaging portrait of a possessive mother and her obedient daughter as the foreground of a larger canvas depicting women's roles in a society bound by tradition, convention and poverty. Deliberately old-fashioned in prose style, down to the chapter headings reminiscent of 19th-century novels, this slim volume is narrated by Betty Randolph, who tells of her domineering mother's life: how she rejected her husband after Betty was born and was relieved to be left a young widow and the ``queen bee'' of the community; how mother and daughter became inseparable, until Betty was in her 20s and suddenly realized she was on her way to spinsterhood. The plot is a series of loosely connected vignettes, enlivened by Betty's tart comments and the pithy aphorisms of plain country folk (of an officious woman, Betty says, ``I`m sure when she died and entered heaven she asked to see the upstairs''). Gibbons conveys the atmosphere of the Depression and World War II with frequent comments about Presidents Hoover and FDR, and such period detail as the birth of the Dionne quintuplets. Though entertaining, the novel is short on suspense, however; one of the few instances of narrative tension turns on the question of why Betty's suitor has blue lips. (Mar.)
Library Journal
This episodic novel, Gibbons's third, is set during the Depression in back-country Virginia and Kentucky. In 19 vignettes, Betty Davies Randolph reveals her childhood and her mother's life along Milk Farm Road. Gibbons, winner of several literary awards for her first novel Ellen Foster ( LJ 4/15/87), has captured magnificently the dailiness and sense of community of rural life--from midwives and WPA ballads to suicides and men gone wild. Southern, and full of the folk wisdom of generations, Gibbons's voice reveals life's truths: ``Listen and hear what men call their wives. . . . It's easier without a mother at a borning. . . . The ears are the most important parts of a baby.'' Times are tough--Betty's father kills himself and is found upside down on his head in the river with ``rocks on either side, like bookends''--but the women are amazingly resilient; they help each other survive. As an old woman, Betty dies in ``her chair talking, chattering like a string-pull doll,'' but the reader is assured that the storytelling will go on through her daughter and ``the sounds of the women talking.'' Recommended.-- Doris Lynch, Oakland P.L . , Cal.

Journal Entry 2 by readalot48 from Omaha, Nebraska USA on Thursday, March 9, 2006
For fiction this seemed as real as it could be. It was written just the the way I like to read!

Journal Entry 3 by readalot48 from Omaha, Nebraska USA on Sunday, March 26, 2006
I believe I caught this book at the January meetup in Bellevue. I have read it already (it is short) and I am ready to let it go again. I just want to get all of Kaye Gibbons books and read them too!

Journal Entry 4 by readalot48 from Omaha, Nebraska USA on Friday, February 9, 2007
I am sending this to my nonbookcrossing sister and brother-in-law. Maybe they will find some way to journal it and release it in Arkansas!

Journal Entry 5 by readalot48 at nonbookcrossing friend in Wickes, Arkansas USA on Saturday, February 10, 2007

Released 17 yrs ago (2/10/2007 UTC) at nonbookcrossing friend in Wickes, Arkansas USA

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Hopefully you will enjoy this as much as I did. Think it would be fun if you joined bookcrossing.com also!

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