In The Tennessee Country [Hardcover]

Peter Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 16, 1994

Despite the derision of his son, a middle-aged man becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about a mysterious cousin, Aubrey, who first appeared on the funeral journey of his senator grandfather from Washington to Knoxville, and then disappeared. 15,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The voice of Pulitzer Prize winner Peter Taylor ( A Summons to Memphis ) is a quiet one, telling tales in which much of the drama lies not in plot but rather in his watchfully observed Southern characters. The narrator of his new novel, which is scaled like an extended novella, is an elderly and successful art historian, Nathan Longforth, who recalls incidents from his Tennessee childhood and how they influenced his later life. He tells of a distant cousin, the illegitimate Aubrey Tucker Bradshaw, who had once briefly courted his mother and then disappeared (as did many ill-fitting men of that time and place), only to reappear mysteriously from time to time at family funerals. Nathan, who sometimes despairs at his lack of creativity and rejoices in signs of it in his artist son, becomes obsessed with Aubrey's memory and tries to find him. How he does so, and what the discovery reveals to him, is the essence of the novel. Taylor writes in a graciously old-fashioned manner, and the regional family intertwinings of the early years of the century are convincingly set forth. But his book, apart from occasional poignant moments like the death of Nathan's mother, is an oddly bloodless and meandering affair, with little of the life of its award-winning forebear.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Here is another smooth, sylish Southern story from Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor. Much of the novel reads like a memoir, telling of a man's lifelong search for a relative who disappeared from the family when the narrator, Nathan Longfort, was a boy. Cousin Aubrey, the natural child of Nathan's senator grandfather's brother, dropped from view after the old man's funeral. Ever since, Nathan has wondered what became of him, occasionally believing that he has glimpsed him at family funerals. Finally, retired and with grown children, he has a chance to reconnect. Nathan's search for his cousin and for the measure of his own life becomes an introspective novel that should please Taylor's many admirers.
--Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 225 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (August 16, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039456264X
• ISBN-13: 978-0394562643
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,104,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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