DimestoreDimestore
a Writer's Life
Title rated 3.45 out of 5 stars, based on 49 ratings(49 ratings)
Book, 2016
Current format, Book, 2016, , Available now.Book, 2016
Current format, Book, 2016, , Available now. Offered in 0 more formatsIn her first work of nonfiction, an author recounts her early days in the small coal town of Grundy, Virginia—and beyond.
The novelist traces her early years in the small coal mining town of Grundy, Virginia, in the Appalachian Mountains, where she first learned to tell stories by listening to the customers at her father's dimestore.
Award-winning author Lee Smith's fiction has lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. Now she has written her own story in fifteen essays that are both a moving personal portrait and a testament to embracing one’s heritage.
For the inimitable Lee Smith, place is paramount. For forty-five years, her fiction has lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. But never before has she written her own story.
Set deep in the mountains of Virginia, the Grundy of Lee Smith’s youth was a place of coal miners, tent revivals, mountain music, drive-in theaters, and her daddy’s dimestore. It was in that dimestore--listening to customers and inventing adventures for the store’s dolls--that she became a storyteller. Even when she was sent off to college to earn some “culture,” she understood that perhaps the richest culture she might ever know was the one she was driving away from--and it’s a place that she never left behind.
Dimestore’s fifteen essays are crushingly honest, wise and perceptive, and superbly entertaining. Smith has created both a moving personal portrait and a testament to embracing one’s heritage. It’s also an inspiring story of the birth of a writer and a poignant look at a way of life that has all but vanished.
The novelist traces her early years in the small coal mining town of Grundy, Virginia, in the Appalachian Mountains, where she first learned to tell stories by listening to the customers at her father's dimestore.
Award-winning author Lee Smith's fiction has lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. Now she has written her own story in fifteen essays that are both a moving personal portrait and a testament to embracing one’s heritage.
For the inimitable Lee Smith, place is paramount. For forty-five years, her fiction has lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. But never before has she written her own story.
Set deep in the mountains of Virginia, the Grundy of Lee Smith’s youth was a place of coal miners, tent revivals, mountain music, drive-in theaters, and her daddy’s dimestore. It was in that dimestore--listening to customers and inventing adventures for the store’s dolls--that she became a storyteller. Even when she was sent off to college to earn some “culture,” she understood that perhaps the richest culture she might ever know was the one she was driving away from--and it’s a place that she never left behind.
Dimestore’s fifteen essays are crushingly honest, wise and perceptive, and superbly entertaining. Smith has created both a moving personal portrait and a testament to embracing one’s heritage. It’s also an inspiring story of the birth of a writer and a poignant look at a way of life that has all but vanished.
Title availability
Find this title on
MeLCatAbout
Subject and genre
Details
Publication
- Chapel Hill, North Carolina : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, [2016]
Opinion
More from the community
Community lists featuring this title
There are no community lists featuring this title
Community contributions
There are no quotations from this title
There are no quotations from this title
From the community