Holly [Paperback]

Albert French (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1996

A mesmerizing tale of passion, race and tragedy in a small mid-century Southern town by the acclaimed author of Billy. In Suppy, North Carolina, Holly is a young white girl from the wrong side of the tracks whose lonely, listless world is transformed when she falls in love with a black soldier. The town's savage response to their romance forces the lovers to attempt an escape and leaves no doubt as to the consequences of crossing prescribed boundaries.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in the South at the end of WWII, French's novel chronicles a small town's brutal reaction to the relationship between a young white girl and a black soldier.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Set in the final year of World War II, in a small southern town called Supply, this beautifully written second novel by the author of the acclaimed Billy (LJ 10/1/93) tells of a 20-year-old white woman, Holly. Holly is struggling to come to a decision about her engagement to Billy, a local boy serving in the Pacific. She and her friend Elsie continue to play the local field, and eventually Holly decides to break off with Billy. Meanwhile, her brother Bobby returns from battle with a head wound and is much changed. When Billy is killed, Holly goes through intense psychological change as well: the effect of the distant war is very much felt at home. Supply's black population is relegated to a tract of land called the Back Land, where Holly gets to know a recently discharged amputee. The book really takes off when their relationship begins to deepen, gathering irresistible momentum. Recommended for all fiction collections.?David Dodd, Univ. of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (May 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014024025X
• ISBN-13: 978-0140240252
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,325,239 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars poetry in prose, May 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Holly (Hardcover)

The beginning and the end of this book are brilliant. The beginning evokes time and place in a manner not unlike A Thousand Acres or a Faulkner novel: you can feel the dust, the heat, the hatred. No one is doing anything wrong, but goddamn no one is doing anything right either. And even though you know the end, you dread it while rushing to get to it. I would like to have known more about Elias, the black soldier who captures Holly's heart. I would like to have known more about the Hill family's reaction after the lovers' attempted escape. (I would liked to have known less about Holly's angst after Billy's death -- we got the point, let's meet Elias.) The issue which Mr. French tackles -- race relations between the sexes -- is so very sensitive, and yet Mr. French does not flinch . But I don't want to dwell so much on the plot, for as in most tragedies, it is predictable. Instead, savor the language and the poetry of the prose, for it is as lovely as the red flower Elias paints on Holly's turtle rock.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not very credible, February 22, 2007

By 

Schmerguls "schmerguls" (Sioux City, Ia USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Holly (Paperback)

I am not saying this novel is without merit, but I was struck by what I thought was the unlikelihood of an educated articulate man like Elias falling in love with a birdbrain like Holly. The book has pages and pages of utterly vacuous conversation between Holly and her equally mentally challenged fried Elsie which adds nothing the the book except to make it have more pages. Nor was I entranced by the omission of the final g on words ending in g except when some smart person was talking or thinking, nor the use of Um for I'm and similar devices intended to convey speech by North Carolinians, but which I thought merely interfered with readability. There is a town called Supply in North Carolina, but the novel indicates there is a courthouse in Supply--but Supply is not the county seat of the county in which it is located. I have never been to Supply but I wonder if someone could tell us whether there are places in and about Supply which correspond with the novel's description. I presume there are, but it would be interesting to know more about the relationship between the real town of Supply and the fictional town so called in this book.

3.0 out of 5 stars French Got Me Again, December 19, 2008

By 

Ms. 90 (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holly (Paperback)

I found myself nearly in tears at the ending of this one, just like I was at the ending of "Billy." While reading, I was put off with the "tas," "yas," and "Ahs" throughout the book, but I found the story pretty interesting, and the pacing, while a little slow in the beginning, at warp speed in the last half of the book.

I did not like Holly. The spunk she possesses in the first half of the book, she immediately loses when she meets and falls in love with Elias. And Elias, I could not wrap my mind or heart around a male character who falls in love so quickly with someone who indirectly calls him a racial slur. Sure the war left him with scars, but this little backwoods girl calls you a name you profess your undying love for her? Elsie, well, I knew what she was going to do and what was going to happen when she did it. There could have been no other real action for her to take. The words French created for Elias' mother, Marcel and father, Alex in the closing chapters are what turned on the waterworks.

Not better than "Billy," but much, much better than "I Can't Wait On God." Worth checking out of the library.