In observance of Women’s History Month, and in thematic connection with the upcoming exhibit of prints and sculptural works by PSU art professors Annette Mitchell and Sue Tucker (True G.R.I.T.S. — “Girls Raised in the South”), Lamson Library presents:
A collection of works of women authors representing the rich literary traditions of the southern United States
W.I.T.S. — Women Writing in the South
Selections in Lamson Library
[pageindex]
Authors With Multiple Works
UPPER LEVEL PS3551.N464
UPPER LEVEL PS3552.E84
UPPER LEVEL PS3552.R698
UPPER LEVEL PS3554.O884
UPPER LEVEL PS3513.L34
UPPER LEVEL PS 3513 O5765
UPPER LEVEL PS3557.R283
UPPER LEVEL PS 3515 E343
UPPER LEVEL PS 3558 E4962
UPPER LEVEL PS 3563 A7877
UPPER LEVEL PS3525.A1772
UPPER LEVEL PS 3564 0623
UPPER LEVEL PS3565.C57
UPPER LEVEL PS3531.O752
UPPER LEVEL PS3535.I233
UPPER LEVEL PS 3569 A468
UPPER LEVEL PS3569.I28
UPPER LEVEL PS 3539 O478
UPPER LEVEL PS3570.Y45
UPPER LEVEL PS3573.A425
UPPER LEVEL PS 3545 A517
UPPER LEVEL PS3545.E6
Staff Picks
It wasn’t all dancing, and other stories
Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, c2002.
“All but one of the stories are set in Alabama. They deal with dramatic turning points in the lives of people who happen to be southerners, many juxtaposed between Old South sensibility and manners and New South modernity and expectations. Among these characters is a new widow uncomforted by well-meaning, proselytizing Christians; a middle-aged waitress in love with the town “catch”; a bedridden belle dependent upon her black nurse; a “special” young man in a newspaper shop; a young faculty wife who attempts generosity with a lower-class neighbor; and a lawyer caught in the dilemma of race issues.”– BOOK JACKET.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3552.R6944 I8 2002
Cold Sassy Tree
New York : Dell Pub., 1986, c1984
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3552.U73248 C6
The Blue Yonder Inn
East Lansing : Michigan State University Press, c2002.
“The Blue Yonder Inn is a recasting of the “mother-daughter conflict” story in which Darnelle, a fortyish gun-packing loner is fighting to keep her sullen, teenage niece, Bonnie Blue, out of trouble. Darnelle owns and operates the Blue Yonder Inn, a pay-by-the-hour roadside motel that caters to airmen, prostitutes, and visitors to the state penitentiary. Though the Inn, Darnelle, and Bonnie are scorned by the town, Darnelle, unfazed by the opinions of others, turns her attention to flowers, creating a West Texas Garden of Eden in front of the Inn. The beauty of the garden, however, can do nothing to disguise the difficulties in the relationship between Darnelle and Bonnie, which eventually spawn a rough journey of growth for Bonnie taking her through an abusive marriage, the abandonment of her infant son on Darnelle’s doorstep, and an epic journey to California to refashion her life according to Seventeen magazine. As the story ends, Bonnie and Darnelle come to understand that life doesn’t come from the pages of a magazine, and that family ties are forged by hand, not by blood.”–BOOK JACKET.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3553.A4575 B58 2002
Eating the Cheshire cat : a novel
New York : Scribner, c2000.
“With humor both clever and macabre, Helen Ellis lures us into a world of perfectly planned parties and steep social ladders. Soon, traditional rites of passage take unpredictable and horrifying turns as three girls and their overbearing mothers collide.” “Sarina Summer’s mother believes that physical perfection is worth suffering for – a lesson she faithfully teaches her daughter in the astonishing opening scene. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, beauty is as beauty does, with axes and knives and in-your-face back-stabbing. Ruthless and vindictive, Sarina will stop at nothing to have it all.” “Lurking in Sarina’s shadow is Nicole Hicks, Sarina’s devoted friend with only a fragile grasp on reality, whose repeated blunders undermine Mrs. Hick’s ambitious goals. As Nicole’s self-destructive obsession with Sarina worsens, Bitty Jack Carlson is caught in the crossfire. A nice girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Bitty Jack fights to prove that she can succeed outside the confines of this outrageous yet eerily familiar Southern community.” “From summer camp to the University of Alabama’s race for the homecoming queen’s throne, Southern stereotypes are challenged and wrestled to the ground.”–BOOK JACKET.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3555.L5965 E28 2000
Fried green tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
New York : McGraw-Hill, 1988, c1987.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3556.L26 F7
In the land of dreamy dreams : short fiction
Boston : Little, Brown, c1981.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3557.I34258 I5
The mammoth cheese : a novel
New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, c2003.
“The world has come to Three Chimneys, Virginia. This tiny, rural town is home to Manda and Jake Frank, who overnight have become international celebrities as the parents of eleven tiny infants, born through fertility treatments. Their pastor and spokesperson, the Reverend Leland Vaughn, tries to shield them from the media frenzy, but even his head is turned when presidential hopeful Adams Brooke pays the family a visit.” “But there is one woman in town for whom Brooke’s visit means so much more. Artisanal cheesemaker Margaret Prickett is struggling to save her centuries-old family farm. Suffering through a messy divorce and trying to raise her rebellious thirteen-year-old daughter, Polly, Margaret pins her farm’s salvation on the sweeping amnesty Brooke promises America’s independent farmers. With the help of her farmhand (and Thomas Jefferson impersonator) August Vaughn, Margaret works single-mindedly to get Brooke elected. In his honor, the two decide to re-create the Mammoth Cheese, a 1,235 pound wheel of Cheshire made by Thomas Jefferson’s supporters and transported to Washington in 1801. As winter progresses, and the town’s excitement over the “Frank Eleven” begins to wither, Three Chimneys turns its attention to Margaret’s hopeful gift. But as the cheese makes its way to the nation’s capital, and Polly slips deeper into a dangerous relationship with her radical history teacher, Margaret soon finds that trying to preserve what she has may very well cost her all she holds dear.”–BOOK JACKET.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3558.O35596 M36
Their eyes were watching God : a novel / Zora Neale Hurston ; with a new foreword by Mary Helen Washington.
New York : Perennial Library, 1990.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3515.U789 T639 1990 NEW BOOK(MAIN)
“Every Good and Perfect Gift is set in a small town in North Carolina, a place that is comfortable with tradition, including the traditional image of God. On a sultry Sunday morning when ten-year-old Maggie Davidson swoons from the heat and sees God – and God is a woman – people are quick to ascribe her vision to the fantasies of an overheated girl. But when Maggie begins to demonstrate a gift of healing, people’s attitudes change.” “This is a story of a family of three strong women – grandmother, mother, and daughter – who live by the laws of love, loss, and pride. It is also the story of a community of good people gone wrong and bad people who find good in themselves. It is a knowingly detailed account of a particular part of America – and of the wide landscape of human hearts and souls.”–BOOK JACKET.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3560.E69 E84 2001
The secret life of bees
New York : Viking, 2002.
“Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her harsh, unyielding father, Lily Owens has shaped her entire life around one devastating, blurred memory – the afternoon her mother was killed, when Lily was four. Since then, her only real companion has been the fierce-hearted, and sometimes just fierce, black woman Rosaleen, who acts as her “stand-in mother.”" “When Rosaleen insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily knows it’s time to spring them both free. They take off in the only direction Lily can think of, toward a town called Tiburon, South Carolina – a name she found on the back of a picture amid the few possessions left by her mother.” “There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters named May, June, and August. Lily thinks of them as the calendar sisters and enters their mesmerizing secret world of bees and honey, and of the Black Madonna who presides over this household of strong, wise women. Maternal loss and betrayal, guilt and forgiveness entwine in a story that leads Lily to the single thing her heart longs for most.”–BOOK JACKET.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3611.I44 S38 2002
As hot as it was you ought to thank me : a novel
New York : Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Co., 2005.
BROWSING (MAIN) PS3561.I4253 A8
Some days there’s pie
New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2002.
“Ruth Ritchie elopes with Chuck, a stereo salesman, thinking that she has found her ticket out of Summerville, Tennessee, where her future means selling pies at Durwood’s Hardware. But Chuck “gets religion,” and Ruth, who cherishes her freedom more than safety, buys a used car and heads north.” “When Ruth faints from hunger at a North Carolina five-and-dime, Rose, a feisty elderly reporter, rescues her. A friendship stronger than family ties blossoms. For all her bravado, unsentimental Ruth can never quite disguise her need for a mother’s love. In Ruth, Rose finds someone who refuses to see old age as a handicap and gives her life new purpose.”–BOOK JACKET.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3612.A548 S66 2002
To kill a mockingbird
New York : HarperCollinsPublishers, 1995.
“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” A lawyer’s advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee’s classic novel – a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man’s struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3562.E353 T6 1995
Swan : a novel
New York : Broadway Books, 2002.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3563.A956 S93
Gone with the wind
New York : Scribner, c1964.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3525.I972 G6
Cross Creek
New York, C. Scribner’s sons, 1942.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3535.A845
The yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings; with pictures by N. C. Wyeth.
New York, C. Scribner’s sons, 1939.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3535.A845 Y4
Mermaids on the moon : a novel
New York : Doubleday, 2002.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3569.T832 M47 2002
Big Cherry Holler : a Big Stone Gap novel
New York : Random House, c2001.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3570.R459 B53
Milk glass moon : a Big Stone Gap novel
New York : Random House, c2002.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS3570.R459 M55 2002
Reference Works
Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, 1990.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS261 .S58 1990
Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., c1995.
REFERENCE (MAIN) PS261 .S68
criticism / edited by Robert L. McDonald and Linda Rohrer Paige.
Tuscaloosa, Ala. : University of Alabama Press, c2002.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS261 .S57
Prenshaw.
Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, c1984.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS261 .W65
Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1993.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS261 .F46
Athens : University of Georgia Press, c1994.
DESCRIPT x, 243 p. ; 23 cm.
(UPPER LEVEL) PS261 .T3 1994
Compiled by Alice Staples, March 2005.
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