Saving Grace [Paperback]

Lee Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 23, 1996

"LUCID IN EXECUTION, BREATHTAKING IN SCOPE AND HEART-RENDING IN EFFECT--A REDEMPTIVE WORK OF ART. . . . Lee Smith has done more than write another novel about the South. She has broken through the grotesque surface to the underground spring, the music of Scrabble Creek, and the effect is stunning--a beguiling, gentle prose formed by an honesty so severe we are brought to our knees. . . . This novel has a grand and singular purpose, to clothe the spirit with flesh. In this, Lee Smith succeeds."
--The Washington Post Book World
"A compelling journey into all matters southern and spiritual . . . . Set in North Carolina and Tennessee, we follow young Grace Shepherd from a cabin in the bucolic poverty of Scrabble Creek to independence as a single woman. Stops along the way include seduction by a half-brother, a failed marriage, motherhood, the loss of her son, residence in the aptly-named Creekside apartments in Knoxville and a job waitressing. . . . While Grace's path may be a journey many of us would not choose to undertake, we have to raise a small fist of jubilance to Grace for having survived."
--The Boston Sunday Globe
"Ms. Smith possesses a fine talent for creating narrative voices, whether the ungrammatical eloquence of a hill-country healer or the educated affectations of a Richmond gentleman."
--The New York Times Book Review
"Lee Smith patiently woos us into double vision. . . . As her fans know, [she] has one of the truest ears for the speech in her part of the world."
--Los Angeles Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Florida Grace Shepherd is another of Smith's spirited Southern women of humble background (Fair and Tender Ladies, etc.) who are destined to endure difficult and often tragic times. Instantly appealing by virtue of her distinctive narrative voice, which is iconoclastic and free from self-pity, Grace is the daughter of Virgil Shepherd, a self-styled minister who spreads the gospel in revival meetings by means of serpent handling and personal charisma. Even as a child, "Gracie" hates her father's insistence on constant prayer, poverty and the need to see God's benevolent "testing" in every hardship to which he subjects his family. As she matures, she realizes that her father is a compulsive womanizer who excuses his frequent lapses by claiming that God forgives him whenever he "backslides." Though his behavior eventually drives her mother to suicide, it takes longer for Grace herself to escape her father's psychic clutches. She is seduced by a half-brother at 14 and at 17 marries a melancholy 42-year-old preacher; she has two children and succumbs to an adulterous affair. Smith has great empathy for the poor, uneducated country people who yearn for a transcendent message to infuse their lives with spiritual meaning, and she demonstrates clearly how an aberrant individual like Virgil can attract fervent followers. She is less successful than usual in winning sympathy for her flawed heroine, however. Although she makes understandable the reasons for Grace's shallow personality and shows how a lifetime of sexual repression can trigger infidelity, Grace's abandonment of her children seems implausible, and her suffering never achieves a convincing poignancy. Literary Guild selection.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA?Florida Grace Shepard, named for the state in which she was born and for the grace of God, is the daughter of a charismatic serpent-handling preacher. She is content with her early life in Scrabble Creek, North Carolina?no easy task when her family moves whenever her father is arrested for conducting services with live snakes?and she even finds a friend. With Southern style, Smith takes Grace from a young girl struggling with her own identity, though marriage, motherhood, and an adulterous affair that changes her very way of life. Readers go along on a journey of wonders, miracles, and tragedy with all the people Grace meets. This is not a tale of adventure but rather of Southern life and spiritual searching.?Katherine Fitch, Lake Braddock Middle School, Burke, VA
Copyright 1996 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: 273 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1ST edition (April 23, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345403339
• ISBN-13: 978-0345403339
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #539,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riviting tale about a bizarre Southern subculture., June 12, 2006

By 

David J. Gannon (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saving Grace (Paperback)

Saving Grace by Lee Smith is the tale of Grace Shepherd, a woman whose life is largely defined by two Southern primitive Christian ministers--Virgil Shepherd, her egomaniacal, sociopath philandering father and Travis Word, her pious, inflexible, straight-laced, repressed husband.

Brought up in abject poverty by her neglectful father Grace has no life outside her immediate family and the charismatic, serpent handling congregation of her fathers in rural North Carolina. Her life is her father and his religion--though Grace does not truly or successfully fit into either world. As her life's journey her fathers abuse and negligence will cause most of her siblings to abandon the family and her beloved mother to commit suicide. Eventually her father will totally abandon her and she will turn to--and marry--her rescuer, Travis Word. A noble man in many ways, Travi's considerable advantage in years and near total sexual repression will lead Grace to stray--to disastrous effect.

In spite of all this, Grace manages to find some bearings, raise two successful daughters and develop enough courage to go back "home" and confront her roots and personal demons.

This is a riveting book in many ways. Grace's personal story is as captivating as it is unsettling. The insights into the strange Southern primitive Christian world are mesmerizing. The cast of characters--and it is quite a cast of characters--that populate the novel are enormously engaging. The writing is exquisite.

Some of the other reviews alluded to this being among Lee's less successful novels. If this is here bad stuff--an assessment I find ludicrous--I can hardly wait to get to the good stuff.

A really great novel on many levels.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Well Written, July 21, 2004

By 

Grozarks "grmissouri" (St. Louis, Missouri United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saving Grace (Paperback)

This story is not for everyone, but the book is well written and admirable. If you have a taste for southern literature then you must spend some time with Lee Smith and I cant think of a better place to start. Read the first two pages and if you are not pulled in by the fine writing then this probably isn't for you. If you're uncomfortable with poor rural snake handling "Christians" then you might pass on this as well.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Saving Grace from Rigid Fundamentalism, October 15, 2000

By 

"noznabuk" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saving Grace (Paperback)

Rich in character and prose, this is a book to recommend. I felt deeply for the main character, Florida "Grace," as she moved through a troubled childhood of religious fanatacism, to marriage and children, to walking out on the marriage to take up with a stoned painter. It's a book of self-discovery and forgiveness.

Grace grows up in a home of mixed-up worship. Her mother, Fannie, worships her father as her savior. And her father, a serpent-handling evangelist, worships himself. Jesus gets all mixed up in it, leaving Grace to doubt her fundementalist upbringing and subsequent marriage. She turns to a total opposite--a godless self-indulgent handyman. She learns of drugs and alcohol, and of course, that life fails her too.

The ending left some questions. It was very easy to read suicide into the scenerio. Grace was called to join her dead mother. But I believe it was actually a re-birth. She joined her mother in the body of Christ. It was His call she heard and obeyed--a relationship that wouldn't fail her.