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Summary
Summary
"An amazing novel."-- Sarah Dessen
Ferris Beach is a place where excitement and magic coexist. Or so Mary Katherine "Katie" Burns, the only child of middle-aged Fred and Cleva Burns, believes. Shy and self-conscious, she daydreams about Ferris Beach, where her beautiful cousin, Angela, leads a romantic, mysterious life.
It is the early 1970s, and when the land across the road from the Burns's historic house is sold to developers, Misty Rhodes--also from Ferris Beach--and her flamboyant parents move into the nearest newly built split-level. In contrast to Katie's composed, reserved, practical mother, Misty and her mother are everything Katie wants to be: daring, outrageous, fun. The two girls become inseparable, sharing every secret, every dream--until one fateful Fourth of July, when their lives change in a way they could never have imagined.
In this classic McCorkle novel, the author's shrewd grasp of human nature creates characters that resonate with truth and emotion, and a story perfect for mothers and daughters to share and cherish.
Author Notes
Jill McCorkle published her first two novels on the same day in 1984. Of these novels, the New York Times Book Review said: "one suspects the author of The Cheer Leader is a born novelist. With July 7th , she is also a full grown one." Since then she has published five other novels--most recently, Hieroglyphics -- and four collections of short stories. Five of her books have been named New York Times notable books and four of her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories . McCorkle has received the New England Booksellers Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Excellence in Literature, the North Carolina Award for Literature and the Thomas Wolfe Prize; she was recently inducted into the NC Literary Hall of Fame. McCorkle has taught at Harvard, Brandeis and NC State where she remains affiliated with the MFA Program in creative writing and she is core faculty in the Bennington Writing Seminars.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
YA-- Ferris Beach is where excitement and glamour start--at least that's what Kate thinks as she hears about her cousin Angela who lives there. Kate has had a humdrum, ``normal'' childhood; her conservative mother and humorous father have brought her up ``properly,'' while Angela has had freedom and romance. But even freedom has its dark side, as Kate finds out. This coming-of-age novel is special. The humor, tenderness, sharply defined characters, and a feeling of ``being there'' make the 1970s come alive in the small Southern community depicted.-- Diana C. Hirsch, Prince George's County Memorial Library System, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Set, like her previous novels, in a small Southern town, this coming-of-age story demonstrates McCorkle's ( Tending to Virginia ) deepening maturity as a writer and a new subtlety of prose and theme. Nine-year-old Kate Burns is acutely aware of the port-wine mark on her face. Chafing under her mother's straitlaced supervision, she yearns to resemble her mysterious, racy older cousin Angela. She envies her best friend, Misty, whose mother, flamboyant, reckless Mo Rhodes, brings an exotic dimension to the neighborhood. During the course of the narrative, which carries Kate through her high school years, McCorkle conveys a child's perceptions of family friction and community tensions, her growing awareness of vulnerability and sadness in adult lives, and her introduction to sexual cruelty and death. Yet McCorkle controls her story with dextrous skill; these events unfold gradually and inevitably from the stream of daily life. Whether portraying the love/hate relationship of best friends, the pangs of an ungainly girl during adolescence or the insult-laden repartee of teenagers attracted to one another, McCorkle illuminates character with ironic humor and empathic insight. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
McCorkle's lightly southern-fried fiction continues to please in her fourth novel--a poignant coming-of-age story set in the early 70's. Katie Burns knows her whole life is going to change when the Rhodes family moves into the brand-new split-level house across the street. For one thing, there is a daughter, Misty, her own age, and Katie has been lonely, spending most of her time alone in her bedroom, playing Helen Keller. The other attraction is Misty's mother, Mo Rhodes, who is lively and eccentric and, possibly, disreputable--while Katie's own mother, Cleva, is a proper Bostonian who carries around family papers like pedigrees and makes it clear that living in the South is not her cup of tea. Katie wonders about the mysteries of her family: how her prim mother ever ended up with her skinny, wisecracking father, Fred; and what scandalous secret lurks in the background of Fred's beautiful, enigmatic niece Angela, who appears occasionally for hushed meetings with her uncle. Katie Finds herself struggling against the virtues extolled by her mother and drawn instead to Angela, to Mo Rhodes, and to ""no-good"" neighbor boy Merle Hucks. But as she grows older and watches tragedy strike Misty's family and then her own, Katie comes to understand some things--especially that the distinction between good and bad is not as absolute as she once believed. There are a couple of too-pat, teen-movie episodes here (notably, a graveyard rape scene), but, overall, McCorkle's writing shines as brightly as it did in Tending to Virginia (1987). Her characters are finely drawn, funny, and right. Katie, the confused non-belle, rings true, and her story is as compelling as a soft southern night. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
McCorkle keeps getting better. Ferris Beach, the story of a girl's growing up, is her most focused work and the overwriting that crept into her previous three novels has gone. The central metaphor is the place that gives the novel its name--a place associated with ideas of sex, freedom, and broken dreams, as well as Katie's mysterious older cousin, Angela, and her best friend's eccentric, fun-loving mother--from both of whom the child has something to learn. Here, Katie will get a powerful dose of reality and suffering rendered so wistfully and obliquely, with multiple forewarnings designed to heighten the sense of foreboding, and a commendable balance of tragedy and mirth, that the full texture of a child's wonder and terror is preserved. While it is true that some of the tragedies are contrived, this, the fourth work of the 30-year-old author, demonstrates clearly an impressive improvement in her craft. --Deb Robertson
Library Journal Review
Here is a marvelous follow-up to McCorkle's acclaimed Tending to Virginia ( LJ 9/1/87). From age five, Katie Burns has thought of Ferris Beach, South Carolina, home of her ``foundling'' cousin Angela, as both forbidden and alluring. During the decade covered by this entrancing coming-of-age novel (mid-Sixties to mid-Seventies), many people besides Angela compete for Katie's allegiance. Symbolizing freedom are orange-haired Misty Rhodes, whose mother Mo puts rock gardens on the lawn; Katie's first love Merle Hucks; and--to a certain extent--her father Alfred Tennyson (``Fred'') Burns. In contrast, there are prim Cleva Burns and her tea-giving friend Mrs. Poole, steeped in Southern propriety. Despite tantalizing hints of buried secrets and a few occasions of real tragedy, what predominates is McCorkle's deft comic sense, her keen ear for dialog and eye for detail, and a grab bag of cultural allusions (Barry Sadler; Peter, Paul & Mary) bespeaking a specific time and place. Finally--most movingly--there is the revelation that love often goes deeper in the staid conventional forms than one might sometimes suspect.-- Elise Chase, Forbes Lib., Northampton, Mass. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
