Swan

Mayes' writing is utterly beautiful. If you love language as only a poet can deliver, well-drawn characters you're unlikely to forget, and a story that pulls you in from the very beginning, don't miss this lovely, haunting novel.

Being a daughter of the South myself, I can honestly say the characters in this book are uniquely southern. I was constantly going, yes, I know that place -- I pass that on my way home -- I have a friend from there, etc. She did a perfect job in her characterization, and her sense of place is phenomenal. The story itself was very easy to read mostly because it pulled you in and made you interested in what became of these people. The plot was interesting and had enough twists to keep you coming back for more. One thing I loved was Mayes' ability to surprise. I would be reading along, engrossed in the story, when suddenly I would have to back up and reread a portion (usually at the end of a chapter) because what I read couldn't possibly be what she wrote. And yet it always was -- interesting bits about the characters that just got slipped in. Altogether, I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting a good read.

I finished Swan yesterday and her characters are with me still- for me a sure sign of a good novel. The Discovery of Poetry by Frances Mayes is one of my very favorite books. I was interested in how her novel would be. The settings are wonderfully described, brought alive and as I have already indicated, the characters appealing and engrossing. Good read !!

In the hands of the gifted Frances Mayes "Swan" is not simply a small town in Georgia, it is a mode of living, a perception of the world. With this, her first work of fiction, Ms. Mayes who has won both critical and popular approbation for "Under The Tuscan Sun," "In Tuscany" and "Bella Tuscany," takes her place among the nobility of storytellers. Long residents of the small Georgia community of Swan, the Masons are a prominent pioneer family, the bulwark of this community. Tragedy struck when Catherine Mason took her own life some years ago, leaving two children, J.J. and Ginger, and a desolate husband, Wills, who is now a resident of The Columns, a nursing home. Living half in the present and half in the past Wills sometimes recognizes family and sometimes he does not. Although both J.J. and Ginger have survived this tragedy they were wounded, and "each of them began to develop the clever barricades against memory that would become their personalities and characters." J.J. has become a reclusive dweller at the family's lakeside cabin, spending his days fishing and keeping logs of his observations and activities. Ginger has sought release as an archaeologist in Italy, where she has found love with Marco. Lily, daughter of the family patriarch who raised the two children, is paying her regular visit to the Mason family plot at Magnolia Cemetery when she is shocked to find that Catherine's grave has been violated and her body unearthed. Thus, J.J. and Ginger are reunited in Swan, forced to face the disheartening news of their mother's exhumation and to relive the dreadful days following her suicide some 19 years earlier. The townspeople are unable to grasp this shocking turn of events and those who have known the Masons well rekindle memories. As a local clergyman defines the community, Swan has "the highest suicide rate in the state, highest incidence of intestinal pinworms, and quite a few plain loonies." Frances Mayes brings not only the community but all of its residents to memorable life in this telling tale of a small Southern town and how the accidents of birth sculpt personalities and people. - Gail Cooke

Swan is truly a wonderful novel. I've been waiting to see what Frances Mayes was going to do with fiction, after the incredible success of her books on Tuscany, of which I'm a big fan. And what's here in Swan is the same incredible writing-that's one of the ingredients, perhaps the main one, that has been the strength of her books for me. Sure, Tuscany is a great place to be, but how she described it and how she described herself changing in relation to what she was doing, that's what has made her books sit among the few I can re-read with great pleasure, almost as if I'm reading them for the first time. Swan is like that too! I just finished it and know I'll be back at it before too long. The story certainly keeps your attention but it's the way the story is told, the language, the writing, that for me was the real pleasure. She has this ability to put the reader right there, as in her Tuscany books. Swan's a truly uplifting novel, a story about coming out of painful discoveries and being changed by them. I'm not from the south, and have only been there briefly, but the characters seemed real to me and the descriptions of the landscape and what they mean to the characters was really well done.