The Three Miss Margarets: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) [Paperback]

Louise Shaffer (Author)

Book Description

Series: Ballantine Reader's Circle | Publication Date: August 3, 2004

Miss Peggy, Dr. Maggie, and Miss Li’l Bit, friends and confidantes for nearly a lifetime, find it funny and bewildering that they have become icons in Charles Valley, Georgia. Little does the rest of the town know that beneath the irreproachable façades of its three doyennes lies an explosive decades-old secret that is about to be revealed.

Thirty-odd years ago the three Miss Margarets did something extraordinary, clandestine, and very illegal. Although their lives are haunted by the night that changed their lives, they believe that their crime was simply a matter of righting an egregious wrong. But when a stranger’s arrival in town and a tragic death open the floodgate of memory, their loyalty, friendship, and honor are tested in ways they could never have imagined.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Three elderly white Georgia women, all named Margaret, share a deep friendship and a dark secret in this winning debut by actress and television writer Shaffer. For reasons not entirely clear even to her, Laurel Selene McCready has inherited her mother's grudge against "the three Miss Margarets," upstanding icons in rural Charles Valley. Returning home drunk late one night, she spies the three ladies congregating unaccountably in a deserted cabin. The body of Vashti Johnson, a renowned African-American geneticist who had returned to Charles Valley to visit her mother, is soon discovered in the cabin, prompting an investigation by the police, as well as by Laurel Selene and her new boyfriend Josh, a journalist who's writing a book about Vashti. As the three Miss Margarets struggle with how much to reveal about Vashti's life and death, they also reflect on their own longtime intimacy and on the race hatred in their community that led, decades ago, to a series of ghastly crimes. Shaffer's achievement is making each Miss Margaret a complex character with a fiercely guarded interior life. She doesn't belabor the social forces that defined the lives of these doyennes; instead, she gradually reveals Dr. Maggie Harris's lesbian love life, Margaret (Li'l Bit) Hanning's decadelong affair with a redneck gardener and Peggy Garrison's embattled domestic arrangement. Sometimes Shaffer leans too much on heavy-handed foreshadowing, and the secondary characters are thin, especially Laurel Selene and Josh. Yet the three Miss Margarets are wholly imagined, rich creations whose reticence speaks volumes about their time and place.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Thirty years ago, the leading ladies of Charles Valley, GA, did something terribly wrong for a very good reason. Now their secret is about to pop out.
Copyright 2002 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: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (August 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375760881
• ISBN-13: 978-0375760884
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #525,031 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Louise is a believer in there's always a second chance. An actress since she was fifteen, she found herself unemployed when she was in her mid-forties. The reason was; well, she was in her mid-forties. Not a good thing if you' an actress - aging and eating are taboo. Louise has done both. Also, she was pretty clear about the fact that she was never going to have "knee surgery." That's what happens when an actress of a certain age drops out of sight for six weeks and her publicist announces that she's having an old knee injury repaired. Then the actress emerges with her eyebrows hiked up kind of high on her forehead and all those nasty little lines around her mouth seem to have vanished, and oh yeah, and her knee is working fine too.

The un-surgically enhanced Louise spent two years auditioning for commercials touting high fiber cereals and denture glue, she figured there had to be something better, and she decided to try writing scripts for soap operas. Writing had actually been her first love when she was a kid. She worked as a soap writer off and off; mostly off for the next few years. The trouble was, she got fired a lot. Because what she wanted to do was tell her own stories. Finally she fought off the devil voices; those voices inside your head that tell you you're an idiot for dumping a paying job to follow a dream, and wrote The Three Miss Margarets. It found a home at Random House and was published. It was followed by The Ladies of Garrison Gardens, Family Acts, and Serendipity.

Louise's latest novel, Looking For A Love Story, is about a recently divorced novelist facing a tough bout of writer's block who takes a job ghostwriting someone elses story.

Today a very happy Louise lives in the lower Hudson Valley with her husband of twenty eight years, her eight cats and two rescue dogs ; the regal Joshua, and Charlie. Who is not regal. Just ask the neighbors.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three Cheers for the Three Miss Margarets, April 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Three Miss Margarets: A Novel (Hardcover)

I started this book on the recommendation of a friend and couldn't put it down once I started. The titular Three Miss Margarets are fascinating women, described in beautiful detail by Louise Shaffer. There is a good old-fashioned mystery behind the secret the three women share, but I read the book not just to find out what they were hiding but to get to know them better. And I did. Some moments in their lives broke my heart, some ticked me off. But I always felt. It's a wonderful writer who can not just pique your curiosity but move you emotionally, and Louise Shaffer does just that. I've passed this book along to a number of friends and family members who have all shared the same opinion.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Outstanding, April 13, 2003

By 

"spiderspun" (Roswell, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Three Miss Margarets: A Novel (Hardcover)

Not often am I moved to write a review of a book, even though I read constantly, but there was no question I had to write in for "The Three Miss Margarets." This book is outstanding in every way: the quality of writing, the story, the characters. Never has a story so well portrayed the strength and character of the women of the south. They have to make this into a movie, it is THAT good.

I certainly hope that Ms. Shaffer writes more like this one!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a great read, September 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Three Miss Margarets: A Novel (Hardcover)

The Three Miss Margarets is an outstanding novel that keeps the reader turning pages into the night. While it could be called Southern gothic, it has a different plot twist that is totally unexpected. The characters are marvelous--surely they live just down the street; we know them all. The writing is crisp and clear, the dialogue and settings realistic, and the cliff hangers at the end of each chapter make it difficult to put the book down. I enjoyed this novel more than any I have read all summer--and I read a lot. Great job. I hope we hear more from Louise Shaffer.