25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Love in a Dry Season", August 10, 2000
This review is from: Love in a Dry Season (Paperback)
This book is hard to put down. Foote's characters are so detailed and fascinting that I found my self totally drawn into the story --even though some of the characters are completely unlikeable and almost pathetic in their selfishness. Foote tells the story of two families affected by the same man (a virtual con-man, who sees himself only as ambitious -- and justified in everything he does). The book was written almost 50 years ago, but it still reads like a modern character study. I'll admit that some of the historical references where too obscure for me, but the characterizations are timeless.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
About as Dry as it Gets, October 25, 2006
This review is from: Love in a Dry Season (Paperback)
This is a fascinating examination of the courtship of a well heeled spinster in a small Mississippi town. Young Shelby Foote turned down his flame a little for this one, having just been stung when told by his moonshine hunting pal and idol, William Faulkner, that he should "try to do better" next time after finishing Follow Me Down. Following the lurid and colorful courtroom drama of that first mature work, the prose of "Dry Season" is indeed about as dry as it gets. Those few pithy words from a master are paid up fully here, as a plot virtually without significant action proceeds with extraordinary tension, as the reader almost literally waits for the next pin to drop.
The male lead is a classic American archetype, the confidence man, already explored by luminaries such as Faulkner himself, Melville and Twain. The reader is in little doubt about the character, although Foote's direct statements about the fellow are few. Nor is it an absolute matter; he is gainfully employed and there is room for him to grow or change. So all the drama is on the level of deeper morality and character. The social fabric is what is being explored here, finally, the delicate surface tension of the remnant of Southern aristocracy persisting into century 20 and holding things together in straightened circumstances.
This is classic fiction, perhaps as old fashioned in theme as Thackery and Austen, but fully informed stylistically by Foote's incredible melding of the best of two modern masters, Hemingway and Faulkner. It is finally an odd book, no doubt -- one of a kind but unforgettable.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Faulkner or Fitzgerald?, August 5, 2005
This review is from: Love in a Dry Season (Paperback)
Good feeling for the South and good expression of that frenetic and searching period of our history, this is the first novel of Shelby Foote's that I have read. I found it a very "good read" sort of novel and look forward to the next one - comng soon in the mail.
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