Southern Living (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Selby, Georgia: a town with many faces. Here's Margaret, the transplanted New Yorker, who writes a column for the newspaper, the Selby Reflector (how quaint). Here's Donna, the young beauty horribly scarred after an automobile accident, who now works in the produce department at the local supermarket and searches for some meaning in her life (how tragic). And here's Suzanne, the alcoholic wife of a prominent surgeon who is so desperate to make her husband love her that she's planning to fake being pregnant (how pathetic). Singly, the three women are forces to be reckoned with: Margaret, the outspoken; Donna, the desperate; Suzanne, the scheming. Together, they are a hurricane poised to swoop through Selby. With sharply drawn characters and pitch-perfect dialogue, this tragicomic entertainment makes fine reading for the Fannie Flagg crowd. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Praise for Ad Hudler and Househusband

?Winning . . . [A] breezy comic outing.?
?The New York Times

?You?ll think it?s a man?s world until you read Househusband, Ad Hudler?s hilarious debut. It will make you laugh, cry, and eat?move over Martha Stewart: wait until you taste his tortellini!?
?ADRIANA TRIGIANI
Author of Big Stone Gap

?[An] engaging debut . . . With self-deprecating humor and adroit expression, Hudler delves deep into the American psyche of gender roles. . . . The dialogue rings with authenticity.?
?The State (Columbia, SC)

?A funny and insightful book . . . Should be required reading for men who wonder what their wives do all day.?
?LORNA LANDVIK
Author of Patty Jane?s House of Curl


-- Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (August 26, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345451295
• ISBN-13: 978-0345451293
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #233,588 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Funny, Accurate, and Respectful Portrayal of the South, August 25, 2003

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

Being a Yankee forcefully transplanted to Southern soil can be traumatic. I know --- born and bred a New Yorker, I have been uprooted several times to towns deep in the heart of Texas and back in Old Virginny. From the Bible verses on the front page of one local rag to themed Christmas trees to the near-religious fervor accorded high school football games, things Southern seemed as foreign as any overseas exotica from old National Geographic magazines. Meanwhile, Southern mores and manners confounded me. Telling someone "That Mrs. Thingummy is just so smart!" was not, I learned, a compliment but a stinging putdown that meant Mrs. Thingummy had no decorative aspect to speak of and, therefore, all that was left to comment on was her mind.

Yet so many Southern habits, ideas and traditions now crowd my mind and household that I can't imagine not having experienced the place (I still live in Virginia, but Arlington doesn't really count as The South, despite its having brought forth that region's very scion, Robert E. Lee). Ad Hudler, author of the new comic novel SOUTHERN LIVING, has been similarly affected. In one interview, Hudler talks about how often during five years in Georgia he heard women use the term "cute," pronounced as "ke-YOOT," meaning that the thing/person/behavior described had their firm (although not necessarily long-lasting) seal of approval. (I can confirm this, having myself been in tiny towns full of boutiques whose purpose seems otherwise hazy and heard fellow shoppers say things like "Lookit this li'l Beanie Baby --- isn't it ke-YOOT?")

Hudler is also a transplanted Yankee, having grown up in Colorado with a firmly feminist mother. He found his little nuclear family living in Dixie when his journalist wife took a job with the Macon, Georgia newspaper. Hudler, whose previous novel HOUSEHUSBAND detailed his stay-at-home lifestyle, found that he had plenty of time to observe the local customs and local gentry. The result is SOUTHERN LIVING, a book that manages to be laugh-out-loud funny, deadly accurate, and yet still compassionately kind to the American South.

To maintain a balance between humor and candor Hudler uses the chapter-opening excerpts from "Chatter," a call-in line established by the new Northern editor of the Selby, Georgia Reflector. Randy Whitestone believes that "Chatter" will be the kebab rack on which local residents will skewer themselves like so many chicken chunks, talking about quaint Selby traditions and airing dirty laundry. Hudler wisely allows the bits of "Chatter" to stand alone and shows that the only resident on the spit is Whitestone himself (who derides Southern culinary specialties but keeps getting fatter and fatter).

Meanwhile, Margaret Pinaldi, Donna Kabel, and Suzanne Parley are trying to fulfill their wildly different needs. Margaret, a New Yorker and daughter of a famed abortion-rights doctor whose deathbed bequest is her Selby home, edits the "Chatter" column and is trying to understand her gently growing romance with very local yokel DeWayne. Recently disfigured in an automobile accident, Donna has begun a career in the produce department of the Selby Kroger supermarket and is changing lives all over town with her newfound get-up-and-go --- especially her widowed father's. Suzanne, a quiet alcoholic and even quieter criminal, attempts to save face by faking a pregnancy.

All three women will cross paths with each other and with colorful Selby characters, such as bigoted old boy Buckner Meeks, frustrated (but not closeted) designer John David, and haughty Dogwood Festival chair Madeline VanDermeter (who winds up in a most undignified position). During their various comings and goings, Hudler takes no prisoners. He has a wonderful time airing what must have been his many frustrations with "Southern living" while he was there. However, despite his deadly aim at cherished chestnuts like waffle houses and Bible study groups, Hudler understands why those chestnuts grow so beautifully in Georgia clay. His final scene, in which Donna and her father share a life-altering dessert, shows his sympathy for the South and his bittersweet understanding that its unique nature may not last forever.

By the book's end, the three heroines (Harpies? Graces? Muses? Fates?) have found resolution --- and while none of them gets what she expected from life, they are all better off for having had their time in Selby. Kind of like Ad Hudler and I are better off having had our time in the South. Y'all read this book, y'hear? It's ke-YOOT!

--- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars southern living, September 9, 2003

By A Customer

an absolute hoot of a book, very well written! having lived most of my life in atlanta, and have many friends from macon, i could relate.
ijust started househusband today and am already almost finished...can't wait for a new one!!!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars utterly delightful!, February 14, 2004

By A Customer

I began reading this book while stranded in the airport, and it made the time fly by. i thoroughly enjoyed this entertaining commentary on life in the south and highly recommend it.