Bound South

Southern fiction is always high on my list of appealing reads. I love the eccentric characters, the enticing settings, and that indefinable something that marks them undeniably as southern. Combined with the cheery and colorful cover, this guaranteed that I would be buying this book for myself. And I am pleased to say that I was not disappointed in it.

Mostly told in the three alternating voices of Louise, her daughter Caroline, and her maid's daughter Missy, this enchanting novel details three very different examples of Southern womanhood.

Louise is a wife and mother struggling with her relationship with her difficult daughter. She is creative and has quite an eye but no outlet for that creativity. She takes on the problems of all of show more those around her, cantankerous mother-in-law, divorcing friend, and gay son. Over the course of the ten years of the narrative, she learns her own worth and how to best be there for others while still being true to herself.

Caroline is not the typical southern deb in waiting. She is an actress, one who disdains the others at her high school, one who wants to make a difference, one who cannot relate to the mother she finds overly conventional. Like her mother, Caroline learns much about herself throughout the novel, even if she runs away from the south and all that it represents in order to discover it.

Missy is a born again evengelical Christian whose father ran out on her mother and her when she was small. Waiting for him to come back for her and dissatisfied with her life as it is, she looks for her own good works to do. She decides that helping Charles, Louise's son, overcome his homosexuality will be the thing that changes her life. And it is, but not because she succeeds and certainly not in the ways that she expects.

The three main characters will draw the reader in and keep them reading along. The humor made me chuckle repeatedly. And yet White doesn't shy away from controversial topics, treating them fairly and sometimes slyly satirically. This is well written and entertaining and while the ending just tapers off, it is overall a fun slice of southern reading. show less

I initially rated this book four stars, then went back and gave it one more for the conclusion of the first chapter alone. Hysterical.

Being a southerner, I'm always on the lookout for good Southern fiction, and I found it with this book. Told from the perspective of three women, it showcases brilliantly the intersection of Old and New South, their morals, practices and outlooks.

Louise is almost a throwforward (the opposite of throwback) in how she thinks, worships and parents. It's refreshing to see a character who can admit to herself, and to her child, that the child is workin' her last nerve, and she's done. We also see her admit that one child is easier than the other, usually taboo with "good" parents.

Caroline, in defying every show more institution her mother adores, ends up circling around and very nearly becoming her mother all over again.

Missy, the young daughter of Louise's housekeeper, is fiercely loyal to her beliefs, including the one that says if she could just find her runaway father and remind him that he has a daughter, everything would be just fine. It certainly doesn't happen that way, and Missy ends up with more than disappointment out of the deal.

In the end - which does come rather abruptly - we see how the lives of these women change as they experience the twists and turns their lives take. The takeaway message for me was that nature, nurture and what we live through makes up the whole of who we are.

I can't wait for the next one! show less

I’ve just finished Bound South and feel slightly lonely—the sign of a good book. I love Southern fiction and this book delivered. The story is told in three voices, that of Louise Parker, a middle-aged married lady born and raised in Atlanta, Caroline, her “wild child’, and Missy, the daughter of Louise’s cleaning lady. Each voice is true to their standing in the story. The author has created a story that is at once laugh out loud funny—the first chapter had me laughing so hard I had to stop reading and explain what was going on to my spouse—and in another three pages had me reaching for the Kleenex. These characters seem like real people, and I miss them already.

Louise has her hands full. Her teenaged daughter has run amok, her son is retreating into teenaged angst, her maid's problems are her problems and her best friend is getting divorced. But these are Southern women, smack in the heart of Atlanta, and they deal with problems using two failproof weapons: humor and alcohol.

This debut novel by Susan Rebecca White is a pleasant addition to the growing Southern Lit genre. Told from multiple (female) viewpoints, White is at the top of her game in the snarky department and apparently no topic is off limits. Religion, adultry, student/teacher affairs, homosexuality and race relations in the south are all treated with equal honesty and wit.

Louise's relationship with her wild-child daughter is show more particularly refreshing and while sharp humor is the order of the day, White doesn't use it to sweep issues under the rug. Rather, humor is used for perspective, something most mothers need on a daily basis.

Louise and her husband, John Henry, are not perfect parents by any means. A product of their generation, they enable their children's dysfunctions at every turn, although you can hardly hold it against them.

If there is any quibble to be had, it would be with the end of the novel, which had little (if any) conclusion. It was as if she just stopped writing. You turn the page, but that's it. One page the characters are at dinner and the next.....poof. The end.

Of course, not every novel needs a perfect, tightly-wrapped conclusion. Perhaps it's an artsy thing I'm missing.

If you're a fan of southern lit or just appreciate the humor inherent in parenting, this is a fun book and certainly a worthwhile read. Enjoy the perspective this one offers! show less

I would say that Bound South is a group of connected short stories. There's not really one plot that connects the chapters. Instead, I would say that the author uses these stories, told from the points of view of three different Southern ladies, to explore issues they each face and how hard it can be to move past them, even when they try.

I thought the author did a fantastic job giving each character her own voice. With each story being written in first person, it was very important that she get this right and she did. Louise, the upper-class society matron who holds some surprising views; Caroline, her teenage daughter who is constantly seeking; and Missy, their housekeeper's daughter who tries to hold tight to religion in an show more increasingly sinful world. Each told her own story in her own way and had something to contribute to the story.

At times funny, sometimes sad, and always thought-provoking, some of the issues the women face are the obvious, such as race, sexual orientation/identity, poverty, religion, and a middle-aged woman's constantly shifting role in her children's lives. Some of the others are not so obvious, such as the surprising directions exploitation can come from, stupid choices that can affect your whole life, how sometimes you're not the only one who carries the weight of your sins, and how hard it is to watch your children make mistakes. But these women face each challenge as it comes, do the best they can, and try to learn from it.

I loved this passage, as Louise is thinking about her daughter:

"How do I tell her that what I want is to know her, to know the woman who made these birds, to see what she might become if she is allowed to spread out, to expand. How do I say, Darling, please. Don't shrink yourself so soon." (Emphasis is the author's)

But I like to feel a connection to the characters I'm reading about and that never happened for me in this book. I loved that I was forced to think about my own beliefs and values, but I did miss that connection. That's why I only gave it three stars. But readers who don't mind that and who want to see what a Southern woman has to say about some current issues, should pick this up. show less

Picking up this book for a dollar at the local library book sale, I thought, 'great, this looks like just the light read I need right now'. And thankfully, not to disappoint, it was. But yet it did have points to that caused me to pause and ponder. Mixing the unlikely pairing of stories about three women: mother, daughter and the housekeeper's daughter, each chapter focused on a snippet of time of that individual and how eventually they entwined. What emerged were issues of family, wealth, religion, race and ultimately just life. While some portions were a bit cliche and caused me at times to think to myself, 'really?', I would turn the to the next page and a conversation, like one between mother and daughter, would make me laugh and show more think, 'oh, how true!' As I finished this enjoyable book, I began wonder if that wasn't the author's clever intent all along. Recommended. show less

There are two things I love. Reading new authors and southern fiction. . I stumbled across this book online a couple months ago and was intrigued by its premise.

Louise is the mother of two children, living a cushy life in Atlanta with her lawyer husband and two children. Caroline is Louise's teenage daughter with a mind of her own. Missy is the young daughter of Louise's housekeeper who has her own ideas of how one should live their life. It's interesting to follow the lives of these three southern women through what becomes eight very important years in each of their lives.

As Louise's children are growing up, she realizes that her life is also changing. She begins to look back on the choices she has made, sometimes feeling regret. At show more the same time we learn a lot about her childhood and how she became the woman she is today. We meet Caroline when she is seventeen years old, very headstrong, thinking she has the world figured out. As the story unfolds we see her grow into a responsible adult and in her relationships even seemingly moving backward towards some of the patterns she used to criticize her mother for. Missy was very young when her father walked out on her and her mother without ever looking back. She always had the idea that one day he would come back and the bond between them would never again be broken. Missy's quest to find her dad is enlightening for her.

This is a book I enjoyed very much. Each cleverly titled chapter is written in the first person alternating between each of our three protagonists. This gives you a sense of who will be telling that part of the story. The year is also given to indicate how much time has passed since we last heard from them. This enables the story to move through time smoothly and without slow parts. This technique works wonderfully for this book. The story begins in 1999 and ends in 2008.

One of the things I liked about this book was the beautiful cover. It's vibrant colors and the femininity of the barefoot woman in a sundress carrying her high heel is appealing. They used the technique of the 'headless' girl, which is very popular with publishers these days. It gives an anonymity to the character, allowing the reader to form their own images in their minds eye.

I also liked the characters, but my favorite is Louise. I liked the way she dealt with the changes in her life as her children grew up and she realizes that there's more to her than being a mother and a wife. She's not afraid of new challenges. My favorite thing about this story is the bond that forms between Caroline and her mother. Louise wants Caroline to be true to herself and not sacrifice her dreams for someone else. She and Caroline also discover qualities in each other that were always there, but were skewed by normal parent/child conflicts.

This is a great book for anyone who loves southern fiction with equal parts of drama and humor. It's a quick read that I really enjoyed, mainly because I liked the characters. I wanted to keep reading to see what happened to them. I also liked the ending. I could picture it in my mind and I felt happily content upon finishing the book. This is Susan Rebecca White's first novel and I think it is very good. I will not hesitate to pick up her next book. She will always have a spot on my bookshelf. show less