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South of Reason
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Table of Contents
About The Book
In June 1967 Lou Jean Perry's husband, the first and only person from Rosalita killed in Vietnam, had been dead for more than a year. When thirteen-year-old Kayla first met her, a laughing Lou Jean executed a perfect backbend right there on her sparkling clean kitchen floor. It stood to reason that this bright-spirited woman -- the complete opposite of Kayla's brittle, churchgoing mother, Sarah Jo -- would become Kayla's new best friend.
As the heat and madness of summer intensified, Sarah Jo's motives for moving next to Lou Jean would become clear, but not before a family's foundation cracks and crumbles, a woman is driven to the brink of madness, and a young girl discovers that passion listens not to the mind's reason but to the heart's demands.
Writing about family with a poignant intensity, Cindy Eppes draws on her Southern roots to create a coming-of-age story told by a narrator straight out of Eudora Welty, yet indelibly stamped with a distinctive, contemporary style. Beautifully crafted, South of Reason shows Eppes to be an extraordinary storyteller, weaving a shimmering web shot through with the rainbow colors of life.
Product Details
- Publisher: Atria Books (March 13, 2002)
- Length: 288 pages
- ISBN13: 9780743446129
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Raves and Reviews
Dallas News A charming, beautifully written and altogether atypical first novel....Cindy Eppes writes with the deceptive, gorgeous simplicity of a blossoming Elizabeth Berg or Alice Hoffman.
Richard Russo Author of Nobody's Fool and Empire Falls Cindy Eppes is a born storyteller. South of Reason skillfully renders the violent collision of two worlds: one adolescent, the other adult. In Kayla, she's given us a character both vividly memorable and painfully true.
Publishers Weekly Impressive....Eppes's tale is unassuming and complex in its execution, full of rich, authentic details; colorful and often surprising metaphors; and expertly imagined characters....This finely crafted debut marks Eppes as a writer worth watching.
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