Customer Reviews

Girl from the South

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Henry loves Tilly. What's not to love? She's beautiful, elegant, does everything to perfection. Henry has lived with her for the past 10 years. But he won't commit. And Tilly is getting desperate.

Into this picture comes Gillon, a geeky American girl interning in London. Tilly meets her at a party, spills a drink on her and takes her out to dinner by way of compensation. Little does Tilly know this friendless, floundering girl from Charleston, South Carolina, will steal her boyfriend. To find out how this contemporary love triangle pans out, you'll have to read Girl from the South, Joanna Trollope's latest novel.

Girl from the South is a departure for Trollope, a quintessentially British tale bearer whose work falls nicely onto the same subtle shelf as Barbara Pym's and Mary Wesley's. In her latest venture, Trollope takes the action over the Atlantic to Charleston. Trollope's Charleston is a world richer in ritual and convention than England ever thought of being. And Gillon comes from one of the city's most elegant families. Yet the Southern girl fails to drop neatly into the puzzle. At 30, she is still unmarried, childless, not even on the fast track to a high-powered career. Determined to search for her own unique destiny, she seems to have fallen far behind her popular, married sister in the game of life.

However, things are never exactly what they seem on the surface in this intriguing Trollope novel. People who follow all the rules often have their own regrets. Like Tilly, Gillon's sister and grandmother are trapped in a regimen that defines who they are and how they will behave.

To her conventional family, Gillon is a disappointment, but to Henry, she is everything Tilly is not. Where Tilly is brittle and demanding, Gillon is tentative, searching and formidably honest. She may never get her act together, she warns Henry.

"It might take my whole life. I might drive you nuts while I keep thinking just this or just that will do the trick," she says. In exploring the differences between Tilly, Gillon and conventional Southern women, Trollope captures the choice that all modern women make-whether to take the easy path of fulfilling other people's expectations or the harder, more poorly marked trail of deciding what you expect of yourself.

I'm a girl from the South and I miss Ms. Trollope's Merrie Olde. I'm wondering if her editor insisted she set a novel in the states to attract more American readers. This novel isn't as deliciously, cleverly complicated as her previous ones, with much less of the intricacies of plot and character than she usually displays with such talent in her domestic reality genre. I'm a great advertiser of Joanna Trollope, and will return to her, but if you're a first time reader, try Marrying The Mistress or Other People's Children. No one does the small details of children, marriage, and flawed characters better.

Although thoroughly British writer Joanna Trollope has on occasion ventured into other venues (Italy and Spain), she has never set most of a novel in the United States. As one who has read all of her books, I admit I had a bit of apprehension about the change of locale...I expected a false American accent, if you will.

To my surprise and delight, "Girl from the South" proved to be one of Trollope's best works to date. In a story that switches from London to Charleston, South Carolina, and back again, the author introduces us to a number of disaffected people in their 30s--none of whom seem to be able to make a commitment. It is only Tilly, the beautiful but conventional Londoner, who seeks a settled way of life. But her boyfriend, Henry, cannot buy into her view of domesticity, despite years of living together. Tilly and Henry's roommate, attractive and feckless William, is even worse--he has a blonde bombshell girlfriend, Susie, with whom he shares a bed and a quasi relationship, but his true feelings are elsewhere.

Into this interesting mix comes Gillon, the "girl from the South." Stifled by the demands of her very proper southern family, bohemian Gillon, an art historian, flees to London to seek some sense of self. She provides the unwitting catalyst for a whole series of profound life changes among her newfound friends--and yet, seems powerless to make any changes herself.

The story's denoument is at once a disappointment and a revelation, as the main characters find fulfillment in the most unexpected of ways. As always, Trollope remains true to her characters and her story. This is no happily-ever-after romance, as none of her novels are--but it is life-affirming and positive, nevertheless. Highly recommended!

Joanna Trollope's newest novel, GIRL FROM THE SOUTH, has a few surprises in it for those who are expecting some of the same. I've always enjoyed the way she creates relationships in her books, whether it's platonic, romantic, or even the "old married couple." She does it well and continues to do it well here.

This is not a romance novel. It's not a novel that takes you where you think it will, with two people utterly and totally in love with one another and giving up everything they love to be together. How refreshing! Henry and Gillon have their own interests, their own lives. They have found a passion in their lives and it isn't based on another person. I found this to be inspiring. And a good lesson for those who think you can only find happiness when you find the right person.

This is different because it takes place in South Carolina (one of my favorite states) and England. An interesting change and even though there were times when the southerners spoke like they'd been raised in London, it wasn't something that detracted from the novel's plot or point.

I found GIRL FROM THE SOUTH to have a more modern attitude of relationships. She introduced us to individuals who were still searching but learning their way through life with intelligence and adventure.

I liked it. No disappointments for me at all.

A real disappointment -- I enjoy Joanna Trollope's books for their contemporary British setting but she should stick to writing about England, not attempt to explore the gracious southern lifestyle in the US which is admittedly foreign even to us Yankees in the north. Note to author: a modern southern woman would probably not say "I shan't..." In the US, those little rubber things on the ends of baby bottles are called "nipples" not "teats." A woman suffers from post-partum depression,not "post-natal depression." Aside from the cross-cultural gaffes, this book bounced all over from character to (barely tangential) character like silly putty. A sad attempt.

I love British novels, I love Southern novels, and normally I love Joanna Trollope. She's on my top 10 list. But with this novel, she flops.

A ruthless American editor could have saved it, but clearly it didn't have one. It's obviously written by a British novelist who has visited Charleston, but not for long enough to get the hang of how Americans really talk. At one point a blue-blooded young Charlestonian man says, at a moment of great emotion, "Yo, *man*!" Yo, please!!!

Joanna Trollope clearly saw Charleston in terms of its inhabitants' English roots--the furniture, the holiday celebrations, etc. That's all fine--*but they don't see themselves that way.* No Americans do, not even Anglophiles. I can imagine polite Southerners pointing out similarities to an English guest. Apparently she fell for it.

What also might have saved this novel is if it had a British narrator, and if most of its characters were transplanted Brits. As it is, the continual intrusion of British English, coupled with rarely-on-target American English, is incredibly annoying, and detracts completely from the novel's good points. Rosamunde Pilcher is largely successful with her Americans, primarily because she gets them onto her turf. Unfortunately, Trollope bit off far more than she could chew.

Spare yourself the grief and read one of Trollope's many excellent novels, such as The Rector's Wife or A Spanish Lover.

I have loved all of Joanna Trollope's previous books, but this one was disappointing. She was trying to change writing styles in each section of the book; "southern" when in Charleston, SC, and then back to "British" when in London. She should stick to what she does so well, that is, writing good, thoughful women's novels based in her own UK. She did not ring true in the American parts of the book, and sounded almost chiche'd at times. Her other books are so much better than this latest.

While the book was well-written, I found myself interested in the stories that were largely untold. Henry was a jerk and Gillon too self-absorbed and shallow. What about Ashley's story? What about Grandma Sarah's story? There was much more to tell that we were given a glimpse of before Trollope jutted off into the main plot line (that I wasn't much interested in, anyway).

I enjoyed her style of writing. The dialogue was great. Just felt it could have been a better book. I am definitely going to try some of Trollope's other books before "writing" her off!

The premise and setting of this book had so much potential that the characters did not live up to. Once the storyline moved back to the U.S., the story died. There was dialogue between characters that was hard to follow because it assumed we knew so much more about the characters' psyche than we actually did. I felt like NOTHING happened in the latter half of the book.

This is the first 3-star review I've ever given. Usually I either really like a book or really dislike it, but I'm still not sure (a week after finishing it) how I feel about Girl From the South. I liked the first half, the intro to Henry, Tilly and William in England and Gillon's time there. But once the story shifts to jumping back and forth between Charleston and London it lost its charm. The author gave me no reason why Henry fell out of love with Tilly. No reason why Gillon and Henry like each other. No reason for Tilly to use William. Bottom line, the relationships don't make sense. Odd story, and I doubt I'll read more of hers.