A Cure for Dreams
A Novel
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Generations of Southern women deal with hard times and heartless men in this "joyous" novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Ellen Foster (The Washington Post Book World).
In "a witty and explosive story about men and women, bad girls and good girls, love and laundry," Kaye Gibbons paints a portrait of shrewd, resourceful women prevailing through hardships and finding unexpected pleasures along the way: gossip, gambling, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing more than they're supposed to (The Houston Post). In A Cure for Dreams, the acclaimed author "once again demonstrates her extraordinary talent . . . Utterly engaging and convincing" (The Boston Globe).
"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, 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." —Library Journal
"Years from now, [these] women's clear, strong words will still be resonating in my mind." —Anne Tyler, Chicago Tribune
"What a good ear Kaye Gibbons has, and what a good heart. A Cure for Dreams takes the reader down the back roads, and then points out what incredible lives are lived in those ordinary places." —The Washington Post Book World
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.
