What Are The Best Lee Smith Books To Read First?

Question

Diving into Lee Smith's Southern novels, any favorite standalone to start? Hoping for rich characters and emotionally immersive storytelling right away.

free8 · Answer

I’d recommend starting with one of author Lee Smith’s early novels such as Fair and Tender Ladies or Oral History. These novels contain plenty of the author’s signature brand of strong, unique female protagonists and their struggles within their families and their Appalachia-based communities. I am also currently reading the serialized novel The Lunas of Vengeance, in which three sisters enter into a supernatural pact in order to reclaim their family’s power. Each volume focuses on a different sister as she navigates her family and her life. New chapters for The Lunas of Vengeance are available online, so I’ll be reading those in the meantime while waiting for my next library hold.

Xenia · Answer

Lee Smith's books about Southern life are all so wonderful that picking a favorite to recommend is like choosing a favourite child. But “Fair and Tender Ladies” by Lee Smith is definitely one of my favorites. This novel follows the life of Ivy Rowe, a young girl from the Appalachian mountains. The novel is written in a series of letters from Ivy to her unknown friend and therefore we read Ivy’s thoughts and feelings about her life of love and loss. Smith writes the regional Southern life with such flavor and also brings to life the universal themes of love and loss in this beautifully written novel.

Another recommend is 'The Last Girls' by Lee Smith. This is a nostalgia filled novel about several college friends who go on a river trip and discover where they are today. The emotional depth of the friendships formed is sublime and in some cases, painful but there is no doubt that you will get lost in the characters and their lives just as if you were reading about your neighbors.

Her work is quite relatable. All of her characters are so real, like your next door neighbor. They’re so easy to follow along with as they experience the good and the bad of life within the Southern experience.

Charlie · Answer

Smith does a fantastic job of incorporating the Southern culture in her stories and making her characters feel like friends.

Ella · Answer

If you want to dive deeply into Lee Smith’s stories, then read Oral History. This novel follows a Southern family to terms with a tragedy and explores how memories of the past are shared through oral history. It’s a really profound book about how stories can shape an identity and how they can affect relationships within a family over the generations. The way that Smith creates her stories and builds her narratives is absolutely brilliant. Each additional voice to the story adds more depth and complexity to the central plot of the book, showing just how complicated family ties can be. It’s a really wonderful book that I felt was very much like sitting around the kitchen table having a conversation with someone, and it really explores the themes of love, loss and stories.

For example, ‘News of the Spirit’ transported me to a certain place that I had not previously encountered. The author portrayal of the spiritual journeys of her characters created a haunting atmosphere which I found irksome but fascinating. ‘News of the Spirit’ has a brand of magical realism and is a very ‘Southern’ novel that I think would be good for people to read. Lee Smith writes very personal stories that are also universally relatable. She is a true treasure of current literature.

Piper · Answer

When I read Southern writer Lee Smith, I feel like I’ve found a treasure trove of great Southern literature. For those new to Lee Smith’s novels, I recommend starting with her Fair and Tender Ladies. This unique Southern novel is written in an epistolary format and follows the life of one woman, Ivy, as she travels through the different stages of her life in the Appalachian region. Her struggles and her successes are witnessed by the reader as she travels through the years searching for true love. Smith tackles themes of love, loss and change in this “novel in letters” to Ivy. I followed along and was captivated by Ivy’s stories as I read through the letters that this woman wrote to tell her own story.

For something a little more lighthearted but full of depth, you can’t go wrong with The Last Girls. Three women set off in a canoe to complete a journey down a river that they had once planned to complete with a fourth friend who had died. Along the way they explore topics of nostalgia, friendship and how the women are discovering themselves in the present.

All of Lee Smith’s works, with their own special brand of Southern charm, are pure magic. Her well-developed characters and interesting plots make for enjoyable reading whether you are from the South or not.

Brody · Answer

I chose Lee Smith's works because they are so beautiful and evocative. On Agate Hill is a good place to start because it is a layered narrative about a young girl named Derry growing up in a very complex family with many secrets. Her journey and the post-Civil War South in which she lives, make for a very rich story. And, the characters are all very real and cabbable. You will get very involved in Derry's journey and there is a lot of Southern charm in the book that will pull you in to start.

Clara · Answer

This is a great work by a very great author and I highly recommend starting with this one, Fair and Tender Ladies. Written in letters of personal growth of main character Ivy, readers can delve into her life experiences in great detail. Smith’s portraits of real people and experiences truly bring to life the story of Ivy and her often bitter-sweet life and emotions on her journey to self-discovery through the views of the southern life in the late 19th century.

Next up is “The Last Girls” (formerly published as “、三_domains Dancing with the Devil”), a thoroughly entertaining work about friendship, a canoe trip and muddying through life as we head into middle age. Smith takes you on a visit down memory lane to rediscover friendship, great times and unresolved issues with a group of women (including a mother/daughter duo!) and you are left with more questions than answers. Not an easy read at times, but worth it – and really entertaining at the same time, full of humor and serious stuff. I got totally into her world. Both books had me feel happy and richer for having read them and feeling like I had taken the characters on a journey with them as well.

Eloise · Answer

I first fell in love with Lee Smith’s work when I read The Devil’s Dream. It’s a great introduction to her unique writing style because it combines an insider’s take on country music with a nuanced portrait of family. It’s the story of a young, gifted singer, a girl from the country who wants to follow her dreams, while her often difficult but loving family wants her to stay close to home. When I read The Devil’s Dream I felt like I was reading about and experiencing music, and Smith’s work is full of emotions. The author does a wonderful job of bringing to life a cast of characters and spinning a really engaging, often humorous, sometimes poignant tale. What I think resonates so strongly with my own take on life down here is the rich blend of culture and music that Smith uses to paint a vibrant, real picture of Southern life. I think readers will find that they gain a rich appreciation of both the characters in the book and the country music that is the setting for The Devil’s Dream, which I find to be a really delightful read.

Yvonne · Answer

Lee Smith's fiction is great for new readers to start with – start with ‘Oral History’. This lovely novel about a particular time and place in the Appalachian Mountains is full of the voices of Smith’s characters, exploring their community and history through a rich tapestry of life, full of folklore and real life struggles too – it is a real page turner and you won’t want to put it down.

"The Last Girls" is just as good for a first time Lee Smith reader. It is a wonderful story about three girl friends and their journey after many years as they come to terms with their loss and meet up again for another unexpected turn in their lives. It makes you think about your own friendships and it is a lovely read.

Noah · Answer

Lee Smith fans new and old should start with her debut novel Oral History. It is a super introduction to her writing and includes many stories about a very vibrant and colorful Southern community and family. It includes their laughter and tears as told by them in their own stories.

Another good one by Lee Smith is ‘The Last Girls’ which lovingly portrays female friendships. Really funny, sweet and thoughtful in equal measure. Reads like a stroll through a different world which is nice.

Brayan Cantos · Answer

I’m going against popular opinion here, and starting with Doffennymous’ later work, The Last Girls. Her earlier work is deeply rooted in the Appalachian region and while utterly brilliant, it can often come across as rather remote to many modern readers. Starting with The Last Girls means that you are first introduced to the author’s explorations of memory, friendship, and regret within a more contemporary framework. Subsequent reads of her earlier works on entirely different themes and within entirely different regional and historical contexts, will then become the stuff of great fascination – and not alienation.

Álvaro Jesus Sánchez Carrillo · Answer

By the way, her collaboration with photographer Shelly Castle, ‘Songs of the South’, is a wonderful non-fiction work, part oral history, part photographs, part essay. The way she uses the voices of real people to inform her fiction is wonderful, and ‘Songs of the South’ provides the raw material of those lived experiences that she then fictionalises so superbly in her novels. A beautiful and haunting book in its own right, it provides a crucial cultural context to her fiction. It’s a different, but equally rewarding way to experience the author’s work.

SabinaMarie De Santis-White · Answer

Minor characters are brought to life with equal complexity and a fully realized history in each of her novels. The back-up musicians and one-hit wonders in The Devil’s Dream are as fully developed as the main family members. Every villager in Oral History who narrates a chapter feels fully essential to the overall story. This complexity and sense of fully rounded humanity in minor characters makes her novels highly re-readable. Each read reveals new details, new nuances in a minor character’s dialogue and interactions with other characters. It speaks to her generosity as a storyteller.

Angela Maria Pineda Varelas · Answer

On Agate Hill is another unique read by Smith. This novel is presented as if you have discovered the diary and other documents of a young orphan girl several years after the Civil War. The diary is written by Molly Petree in an amazing first person voice and she is an extremely resilient young heroine. The author does an excellent job of portraying a very specific time in Southern history through the eyes of one person. I found this historical fiction to be excellent in that you can feel the dirt and grime of the time, not just reading about people in costumes. This is another lesser read by Smith but it showcases her expertise at differentifying voices as well as bringing historical time periods to life.

Javier Perez Martinez · Answer

I just realized that I haven’t read On Agate Hill by Lee Smith yet. It’s been on my shelf for years and after seeing this book mentioned a couple of times in this thread, it has jumped to the top of my TBR list. I love epistolary novels and this one is set post-Civil War. I’ve added this to my to-read list – thanks for the rec, folks. My to-read list just got a little bigger.

Mary Carrasco Chavez · Answer

At first, I had a really hard time getting into “Oral History” and eventually put it down. After finishing “The Devil’s Dream” (which is essentially a really engaging Smith family saga set to the backdrop of the evolution of country music), I returned to “Oral History” and was able to finish it in a matter of days. If one of her novels has not yet resonated with you, don’t write her off entirely. Many of her novels fall into different genres, and I’m certain that there is at least one novel that will resonate with you and serve as her “perfect key”.

Mary Ann Fajardo · Answer

Her work can be humorous too! Much of her work is very funny and also moving. ‘Family Linen’ is probably the funniest short story she wrote, full of squabbling siblings and dark secrets. But even ‘The Devil’s Dream’ has plenty of moments to make you laugh amongst the drama. So, if you like someone’s work because of their humor and because of their great, witty and very perceptive insight into human nature, start with one of her funniest short stories. I know some accounts of her work make her out to be all hard work and tragedy, but she actually wrote a lot of very funny, very warm and very clever stories and characters. Starting with one of her funniest short stories will mean that the more serious ones are all the more powerful as a result.

Elizabeth Clara Moore · Answer

The other entry point of note is Black Mountain Breakdown, an earlier novel by the author that explores a woman who becomes so defined by the expectations of others that she literally becomes paralyzed. A deeply psychological portrait of a woman in dissolution, the novel is set against the suffocating backdrop of a Southern Gothic landscape and is, in short, a bleaking and unsettling read. It’s a vastly different novel to her typically warm and expansive works and is less about the sprawling families and histories that populate much of her output and more of a concentrated and intense exploration of a single person’s collapse. It’s a very dark and disturbing novel but for readers interested in darker, more intense character studies, it could provide an ideal starting point. However, it is not typically representative of the author’s work as a whole.

What Are The Best Lee Smith Books To Read First?

18 Answers

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