Anybody here ever read Gwen Bristow's Plantation Trilogy?

[raccoon]

The books take place in Louisiana. The first one, DEEP SUMMER, takes place in 1700 and something. THE HANDSOME ROAD comes next and takes place during the Civil War. THIS SIDE OF GLORY takes place around the time of World War I.

THE HANDSOME ROAD is my favorite. I think it always appealed to me due to the heroine's consciousness of the gross inequalities in the social system of that time and place.

THIS SIDE OF GLORY is a bit of a letdown but at least the Spanish flu is discussed in the book. The heroine gets it and survives.

[ananda]

1. Sorry, but..

.. they sound awful.

[raccoon]

2. Different strokes. nt

[KoKo]

3. I did.....but not recently.

Loved the books. She gave such a good perspective on the South of that time and did seem way ahead of her time on weaving "social issues," into her books.

Is the trilogy still in libraries or in print?

[raccoon]

4. I doubt if they're still in print. Libraries around here still have

the books. This is in the South, though. I don't know if they would still have them in libraries in other parts of the US.

[KoKo]

5. Thanks for posting...I would probably enjoy reading them once again..

and maybe there are some old copies available from Amazon or Powells.

[raccoon]

6. Or you could request them on interlibrary loan.

I read THE HANDSOME ROAD over and over as an adolescent.

Remember how Ann Sheramy couldn't stand her mother-in-law? Not until I was an adult did I realize that in the course of the book, Ann became just like her mother-in-law!

[yellowdogintexas]

7. I really enjoyed these books. I read them probably 20 years

ago or more.

Gwen Bristow is a good read..not meant to be a Literary Work of Fiction, just a good story well told.

[KoKo]

9. I wonder how she stands the test of time. They were books I read

with flashlight under covers...because they were so good...I just couldn't turn off the light.

Yet I've read many "recommended by NYT's BEACH READS..since I became an adult and working and all that ...that I felt were totally "lacking."

I'm not sure how Gwen Bristow would hold up today...but when she wrote it wasn't for "Immediate Profit" where the NYT's and CNN/MSNBC/FOX would annoint a book as the "Beach Read for the coming Summer."

I might be wrong but think that Bristow imparted lots of knowledge with her "GOOD READ" that wouldn't leave you "forgetting when the autumn leaves start to fall..why you read that book that faded from your memory..so soon."

Just my quick take. And having not read her since I was in my "formative years" maybe I would see her differently these days. But "darn it" she had much to say about "Social Issues" during the Civil War that only Martin Luther King got around to addressing in the early 60's. :shrug:

She wrote her stuff as a "forerunner."

[KoKo]

8. I have to give a Kick to Bristow...she was so ahead of her time...and

when folks talk about "Mass Media Marketed Beach Reads" ...Let me tell you ..don't read the Mass Marketed TRASH...go and check out Bristow's Trilogy.

She would be a DELIGHT...for MOST DU'ers! She's the Beach Read you would want to look for and not what "CNN's Soledad" or the rest are pumping for their corporate commercial enterprises. Bristow wrote before all that Crap started..and she wrote because she had "something to say" and wasn't looking for a "movie deal" out of it or to appear on Larry King to tout her book.

If you can find her books take them to the BEACH...She was a forerunner for the ideals and principles that you might find "some DU'ers" here today working for.

:shrug:

[raccoon]

10. I hadn't thought about that, but she was so ahead of her time

in the way she depicted the social system of the antebellum South. A far cry from "Gone With the Wind," which a person could come away from thinking that all whites in the South were either rich planters or dirt poor just because they were lazy, and that most slaves were happy, or at least contented.

[KoKo]

11. I'll give a Kick because instead of Whore Publishing Beach Reads...maybe

"some" DU'ers will ask their libraries for Gwen Bristow Books.

One could learn alot...and they are filled with SEX and GREAT PLOT...but in a way that doesn't "demean" the reader or the characters.

I have to give a :thumbsup: to DU "lurkers" to search out her books in your "Used Book Stores," Libraries or whathever resources you can find.

It would be a good read to understand what we are faced with here in America with the RISE OF THE SOUTH...with sex and plot and angst and just good writing.