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Title: Plantation: A Lowcountry Tale by Dorothea Benton Frank ISBN: 0-515-13108-3 Publisher: Jove Pubns Pub. Date: 03 July, 2001 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.3 (46 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: My favorite Dorothea Benton Frank Book
Comment: PLANTATION by Dorothea Benton Frank
PLANTATION is the second book I've read by the author Dorothea Benton Frank. I was not thrilled with her first book, SULLIVAN'S ISLAND. But I already had PLANTATION in my pile of books to be read, and many have told me that this book was much better than her first. So, I read it.
PLANTATION, like SULLIVAN'S ISLAND, is a story that takes place in the "low country" of South Carolina. This area includes Sullivan's Island (outside of Charleston) as well as the ACE basin, the area where the Ashepoo, Combahee, and the Edisto Rivers join at St Helena's Sound. It's a picturesque area of beauty that only nature could create, and it is near the Edisto River on a plantation called Tall Pines Plantation that the bulk of this story takes place.
Caroline Wimbley Levine's search for happiness is one of the main themes of this book. She's married to a man that was once her professor in college, and while at one time in her life she loved this man with a passion, she is now at a point where she needs her space.
The plot though is not as simple as that. Caroline is fighting demons in her head. She's grown up almost hating her mother for a past that started with her father's death. When her brother Trip asks her to come home to check on their mother's mental stability, Caroline does just that. After being gone for so many years, the memories come flooding back, memories of her father, the only parent she thought she loved, and a mother that abandoned them emotionally after their father had passed on. She becomes reacquainted with her brother and his wife, the lowly Frances Mae, who seems so uncouth that she embarrasses the entire family, including Trip. Through it all, she finds that she can come back home again, finds that she has bonded with her mother again, and returns to New York a much happier person.
However, things in New York have not changed. Upon returning she finds that her husband has been unfaithful to her, and the scene where she confronts the two of them is something I will never forget. Now that her marriage to her husband Richard has failed, her mother's warnings about marrying Richard haunt her. It seems that no matter what she does, her mother never approves. She can never live up to her mother's high expectations. Now, with her husband left behind in New York, Caroline hopes to start a new life in South Carolina. With her son Eric, she moves back to Tall Pines Plantation with her mother.
Another theme of this book is the unforgettable character of Miss Lavinia, Caroline's mother. She is a woman of southern class and is so outgoing and gregarious that she is almost a caricature of a woman of the Deep South. Lavinia is loved by all, and even Caroline cannot help but love her mother, who outside of her faults, is such a likeable person, but a formidable force in the family and amongst those who live their lives around her. As the reader learns about Caroline's past, we also learn about Lavinia's crazy life.
The story is told in the first person, changing narrators between Lavinia and Caroline. Through this narration, we learn why Lavinia behaved the way she did and why she treated her children so horribly after losing her husband. We also learn about Trips internal demons, and how his father's death truly affected his life into adulthood. PLANTATION is not a simple story. It's a complex tale of a family that is falling apart, but through it all Caroline and Lavinia find a way to keep them together, and they both find the peace that they have been looking for all their lives.
Rating: 5
Summary: Loved It!
Comment: This is the first Dorothea Benton Frank book I've read and I must admit, I'm hooked! Her characters are so real and convincing (not to mention hilarious). I'm a native of Charleston, SC and Ms. Benton has amazingly captured the essence and culture of the Lowcountry in this wonderful story. Would I recommend this book to others? You bet!
Rating: 1
Summary: Another saccharin stereotype of Southern life
Comment: Oh if only Dorothea Frank had bothered to check her facts!! This author tried to add a sense of reality by adding so many incorrect 'local' tidbits to this string of incredibly saccharin 10,000 words that it becomes painful. For example, set in present day South Carolina one of the character's relatives goes to jail for writing a bad check for property taxes. Folks, in South Carolina that ain't a crime. Stupid, yes. However, in South Carolina it won't land you in jail (Hmmm...but it probably should). The word "bubba" is bandied around quite a bit. Funny, I've lived here a little over half my life and never heard the word 'bubba' in conversation. The word "beaux", yes. Bubba no. One of the characters worries yet another relative will 'wind up at the bottom of Lake Murray.' If only our author had taken the time to glance at a MAP. A swamp, maybe. Lake Moultrie, or Lake Marion, perhaps. Lake Murray? Kind of a haul from where the story takes place. These people eat GUMBO for cryin' out loud. These South Carolina purebloods are eatin' Cajun? Really? Whatever happened to good ol' shrimp and grits, Beaufort stew or any of the many low country specialties?
Basically, this story plays on every stereotype of the gentility of Southern life while conveniently forgetting all the murkier and darker issues, such as race relations. Just string a few of them together in your mind, throw in a sickly sweet ending, and you've saved yourself an afternoon.
At least Pat Conroy gets his facts straight.
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Title: Sullivan's Island: A Lowcountry Tale by Dorothea Benton Frank ISBN: 0515127221 Publisher: Jove Pubns Pub. Date: February, 2000 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Isle of Palms: A Lowcountry Tale by Dorothea Benton Frank ISBN: 0425191362 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 24 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe ISBN: 1551668998 Publisher: Mira Books Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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Title: The Four Seasons by Mary Alice Monroe ISBN: 1551667894 Publisher: Mira Books Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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Title: Skyward by Mary Alice Monroe, Mary Alice Monroe ISBN: 1551667002 Publisher: Mira Books Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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