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Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | FICTION OLI | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A beautifully narrated novel of time and place, "Goodbye to the Buttermilk Sky" re-creates a southern summer when the depression and the boll weevil turned hopes to dust. With the extraordinary talent to make the reader see the Ball canning jars on the kitchen table, hear the clicks on the party line, and feel the bittersweet moments of 20-year-old Callie Tatum's first experiences with adult desire, Oliver portrays a young wife's increasingly dangerous infidelity with cinematic precision and palpable suspense.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In her first novel, Oliver's graceful writing and unerring social observations transform a soap-operatic plot into a quietly compelling story of a young woman's awakening. Along the Alabama Black Belt of 1938, the twin plagues of the Depression and the boll weevil are ravaging cotton farms and undermining age-old boundaries of class, race and sex. Oliver (the short-story collection Seventeen Times as High as the Moon) encapsulates a world of social upheaval in the story of 20-year-old Callie Tatum, whose husband, Russell, has been forced to leave the cotton fields his family has farmed ``since the Indians'' to work in a textile mill. Alone on the large farm with her baby and disabled father-in-law, the lonely, vaguely unhappy Callie begins an affair with Clifton Wade, a Birmingham insurance man. The affair, which brings tragedy into the lives of both Callie and Clifton, is not well developed, however. Oliver's interest and strength clearly lie not in plot mechanics but in her knowledge of Callie's world and her ability to depict the evolution of characters within a highly constricted social milieu. The result is a richly detailed story short on suspense but full of subtle surprises. QPB alternate; paperback to Dutton/Plume. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A Bridges of Madison Countylike affair gone awry during the late Depression years. Oliver (Seventeen Times As High As the Moon, not reviewed) takes as her heroine 20-year-old Alabama housewife Callie Tatum--ripe for the picking, although not by her redneck husband, Russell, with whom she ``does it'' every night without satisfaction. When dapper Birminghamite Clifton Wade appears in his expensive car, Callie is sexually aroused and soon fulfilled. Although she talks about the deep understanding she has with Clifton, as far as the reader can tell it's just sex--against a wall, in a cheap motel, but mostly in the little house Russell built for her when they were first married. Callie feels no guilt or shame until events occur that suggest divine retribution: She miscarries Clifton's child, and his wife commits suicide. Callie ends the relationship, but the damage is done. Her ruined reputation leads to attempted rape, actual rape, and finally murder. The town proves itself to be parochial and mean-minded during a trial in which Callie is judged as harshly as the murderer. Even Callie's mother fails her when she advises Callie to continue her life after the trial as much as possible the way it was before. Callie's silent, unemotional father, however, surprises her by encouraging her to attempt more--which she does. This feminist twist gives little punch to a book in which punches are scarce, despite its racy and gruesome themes. Mixing matter-of-fact with overwrought, the tone certainly doesn't help: ``The train rumbled along as confidently as a marching hymn. The familiar countryside...flew by like pieces of dreams.'' Heavy on simile, light on substance, and ultimately forgettable. (Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection; paperback rights to Plume)
Library Journal Review
Despite rather stiff early scenes and occasional lapses in its determinedly folkloric style, this first novel engages the reader as it gains momentum and refreshes a time-worn plot: city man seduces country girl. At 20, Callie Tatum is the wife of well-meaning but crude Russell, mother of an adored baby daughter, chief caretaker of her disabled father-in-law, and sincere practitioner of her husband's Baptist faith. An affair with a traveling insurance salesman, which generates both passion and deep guilt, is but the first of many staggering experiences that necessitate a wholesale redefinition of Callie's life and attitudes. Oliver's most successful passages achieve characterization through well-observed, detailed descriptions of rural life in Alabama during the Depression. Recommended for popular collections.-Jane S. Bakerman, Indiana State Univ., Terre Haute (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.