Amazon Editorial Review:
"At thirty-five, Mary Frazier Armstrong, called "Frazier" by friends and enemies alike, is a sophisticated woman with a thriving art gallery, a healthy bank balance, and an enviable social position. In fact, she has everything to live for, but she's lying in a hospital bed with a morphine drip in her arm and a life expectancy measured in hours. "Don't die a stranger," her assistant says on her last hospital visit. "Tell the people you love who you are." And so, as her last act on earth, Frazier writes letters to her closest family and friends, telling them exactly what she thinks of them and, since she will be dead by the time they receive the letters, the truth about herself: she's gay.

The letters are sent. Then the manure hits the fan in Charlottesville, Virginia, because the funny thing is, Frazier Armstrong isn't going to die after all."

This book had a reasonable premise and a pretty good start and could have been so much more. Unfortunately the rest of this book let it down. It's humourous enough in parts but contains too many cliches and platitudes for me, and much of the dialogue sounds like the author using the characters as mouthpieces to vent some of her hobbyhorse issues. I realise that the plot line and characters are meant to be larger than life; but where the important philosophical and humanistic issues are concerned there was no subtlety whatsoever and way too much "telling".

I will say though that if her descriptions of characters and the lifestyle in 'polite' Virginian society have even an inkling of accuracy then I am incredibly thankful not to have been born into that snake pit!

Rita Mae Brown is known after-all as "the queen of southern sexual farce", and if read on that level then some of it works OK, but great gods (pun intended) the ending is a total mess.
What on earth was she on . . . . ?? - - Definitely NOT one of her better books.

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Now it's off to kzel as part of the "Make Me Read It - Australia Only" relay.
Thanks for your patience.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Posting off to kzel today (Tuesday 28th) as part of the "Make Me Read It - Australia Only" relay.

Arrived safely - sorry for the delay in journalling!

Taking along to the meet up today