Verbena: 6

What Bobbie Ann Mason has done for Kentucky and Lee Smith for Virginia, Nanci Kincaid does for Alabama. In VERBENA she has written a novel that illuminates that part of the South with a gaggle of characters as real as the waitress at your favorite meat-and-three restaurant. Verbena is the lovable central character, the mother of five children and the wife of two husbands, a middle school teacher and a Baptist-- she would almost have to be. She of course has a good dose of Baptist guilt and cannot handle too much happiness for long periods of time. She ruminates that loving Lucky (her second husband and most decent of men) was "just too wonderful. . . to be anything Christian." Verbena's (she is called "Bena" for short) life often is a mess. Her children are a mess-- one daughter marries a no-good who leaves her right after she gets pregnant, another runs away with an aspiring musician whom she takes away from her mother's boy friend's soon-to-be ex-wife, a son falls in love with the sister of the woman who had an affair with his now dead father-- and her house is messy too, the kind that visitors charitably say looks lived in. It has brown and rust carpet, "not because she liked it but because it wouldn't show dirt." She records her children's growth with pencil marks on the wall. She describes her first husband Bobby as a casserole man as opposed to a meat-and-potatoes type of guy. "He liked all things mixed together from the beginning." But for all of Bena's craziness-- she cries way too much in church-- she is wonderfully resilient, capable of much love and like Faulkner's Dilsey, she endures. Even though Ms. Kincaid can be a tad wordy-- she is a Southern writer after all-- she often writes insightful prose about people in general and women in particular. Example: Ms. Kincaid on a mother's awful knowledge that one of her children is destined for sorrow: "It's something that cannot be explained, how a mother senses the sort of heartache that lies ahead for a certain child, how she can glimpse it and try to prepare for it--but cannot prevent it no matter how hard she tries." (p. 140.)Then there is the best discription I've ever read of Baptists and guilt, what Lucky calls "Baptist math." He's an authority on the subject because his "mama" practiced it. "'It's based on the belief that there are never enough blessings to go around, never enough happiness for everybody. Like each family is allotted just a little bit and you got to be careful not to use it up too fast, you know.'" Finally Lucky-- clearly the best thing that ever happened to Bena-- reminds her that "life has got a mind of its own." Said another way, life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. Ms. Kincaid may be a little easy on both race and relationships as black people and white people and Mexicans get along together as do practically everybody's exes at family get-togethers. Nevertheless she has written a great story with characters whom you will remember long af

Nanci Kincaid has the South pegged all right. And her expertise of blending a seemingly straight-path family into the throes of dysfunction is right on. A very Southern comfort type of read, there is plenty to ponder in this tale of Bena Eckerd, the widow of faithless Bobby, who raises her five children while teaching sixth grade at the local elementary school. She is a truly modern Alabama woman, one who must win the bread and yet live with the pity of her community. And amazingly, she survives it all, and engages in a new life, delightful romance with the postman, Lucky, formerly the small town football hero. She gets lucky, or does she? Told in three books, there is plenty of struggle for this family of five children on the brink of adulthood,that is steadily falling away into the real world of living apart. Bena's ability to accept almost anything is almost unbelievable until she encounters one straw that breaks her camel back, her eldest son Joe's choice of a sweetheart. There are laugh out loud sequences in Kincaid's characters'statements about life, with a clear philosophy on the importance of family, extended beyond any traditional conventions. The importance of characters like Sue Cox and Mayfred and Juanita gives the reader a feeling like that found in "The Secret Life of Bees", with strong women who unite and draw their men along with them. There is the humor of a Fannie Flagg, and the blending of races and cultures of "Welcome to Higby" or "Crazy Ladies". And most special is the Epilogue in the voice of Joe, Verbena's second son, and finally the author's acknowledgments, which include "children who challenge us to learn to love the people they love", "anyone who has ever been--or tried to be--a good hearted ex", "whoever said that forgiveness is not a feeling but a decision", and "families who blend, merge, and blur the boundaries in an effort to make room for everybody." That truly sums it up!I like Nanci Kincaid's "Verbena" enough to buy her other titles and pass them on.

Verbena is my favorite book, and has maintained that position ever since I read it for the first time. I continue to re-read it every few months, and it's definetly one of those novels that you wouldn't be able to forget if you tried to. I would recommend it to anybody who has not yet read it and experienced the incredibly moving story of Bena and Lucky, and of all the other delightful characters in this novel. I envy anybody who is about to read Nanci Kinkaid's exquisite novel for the first time.

This is an incredible book that gets inside the heart and mind of a strong southern woman. Nanci Kincaid took this character and made her real. I've never cried while reading a book, but this one had me choking back the tears. I was lucky enough to hear Nanci Kincaid read from the book and discuss it with an intimate group at Auburn University... and I left uplifted and inspired. This book should put Nanci Kincaid over the top.

Amazing! I couldn't put it down. Nanci Kincaid's language is rich and her characters are unforgetable. What a sad, humorous, insightful, wonderful story.