Lee Marshall Smith has enjoyed a prolific career as a reporter, film critic, newspaper editor, educator, and an award-winning novelist. Among her many published novels and short stories are The Last Day the Dogbushes
Bloomed (1968), Oral History (1983), Me and My Baby View
the Eclipse (1990),
Fair and Tender Ladies (1988),
The Devil's Dream (1992), and The Christmas Letters (1996).
Smith earned a B.A. in English from Hollins College in 1967. While there,
Smith wrote her first novel, The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed,
which won a Book Club Award. As a student, she interned at the Richmond
News Leader and immediately after graduation she worked as a reporter
for the Tuscaloosa News.
Always versatile, Smith taught English at the Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1971 to 1975 and at the Carolina Friends School in North Carolina from 1975 to 1977. She went to Duke University in 1977 and to UNC-Chapel Hill from 1978 to 1981 to teach creative writing. From 1979 to 1980, she directed a summer writing
workshop for the University of Virginia. In 1981 she came to NC State
University as an assistant professor of English and later became the director
of NC State's Creative Writing Program. Smith, professor emerita of English
and writer-in-residence at NC State, retired from her position as director
of the Creative Writing Program in May 2000. Her significance in contemporary
American literature is nationally recognized and honored through numerous
writing awards and glowing reviews.
1968:
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The
Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed,
1968. Smith's first novel grew from a short story titled "Little
Arthur," published shortly after she graduated from college. The
book received excellent reviews in papers across the United States.
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Gene Shalit reviewed The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed in the Los Angeles Times.
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James
J. Kilpatrick reviewed The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed
in his syndicated column shown here in the Washington Star.
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Review
of The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed by Fanny Butcher in
the Chicago Tribune.
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1969:
Smith
worked as a reporter, film critic, and editor for the Tuscaloosa
News.
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1976:
Lee Smith was writer-in-residence at Hollins College.
1981:
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Cakewalk
is published.
Two stories
from Cakewalk (1981) received O. Henry Awards. Reviewers
praised the collection of short stories.
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Read
two reviews of Cakewalk from 1981:
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Published
in Roanoke Times & World-News, Sunday, December 6, 1981.
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Published
in The Charlotte Observer, Sunday, October 4, 1981.
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1983:
Oral
History is published.
Letter
written by Lee Smith to Faith Sale concerning story ideas for Oral
History.
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Deft
and assured . . . Smith's seemingly effortless work is a considerable
feat . . . She is nothing less than masterly as she starts us out
with ghosts and bawdry, then finishes with wild song." — The
New York Times Book Review
Oral
History tells the story of the Cantrell family through multiple
voices. It is a complex work which features Jennifer, a relative
of the Cantrells, arriving at the old family homestead to conduct
an oral history project of her relatives in Hoot Owl Holler. Jennifer's
class assignment provides Smith with a vehicle to weave ghost stories
and family tales into a coherent narrative spanning the better part
of a century.
In reference
to Oral History, a reviewer for the Village Voice
wrote that "you could make comparisons to Faulkner and Carson McCullers,
to The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Wuthering
Heights."
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Lee
Smith's drawings and notes for Oral History.
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1988:
Copy
of Fair & Tender Ladies published in Danish. |
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Copy
of Fair & Tender Ladies published in Swedish. |
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Fair
and Tender Ladies is
published, 1988.
"[Smith's]
work has a mixture of lyricism and sexual boldness. . . Like
Sissy Spacek and Loretta Lynn, Smith can make a performance
in a popular medium seem like a complete declaration of feeling.
. . . Fair and Tender Ladies might have been sung into
being." —Newsweek
In
Fair and Tender Ladies, Smith uses letters to tell
the story of Ivy Rowe, a formidable and spirited mountain
woman beloved by readers of this book. Ivy's tale is unforgettable
and moving. Her letters bring the magic, history, and pragmatism
of the Appalachian region alive. As a review in Publisher's
Weekly states, "Readers will be thoroughly captivated
by Ivy Rowe, the narrator of this epistolary novel, and will
come to the end of her story with a pang of regret."
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New
York Times Book Review
September 16, 1988
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USA
Today
Friday, October, 28, 1988
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Many
plays have been adapted from Smith's novels and short stories, but
perhaps the most popular one is Fair and Tender Ladies. The
successful one-woman show "I Remane, Forever, Ivy Rowe" featured actress
Barbara Smith. |
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1990:
Publication
of Me and My Baby View the Eclipse.
"Extremely
powerful . . . Me and My Baby View the Eclipse is about the
striving and the secret nobility of people who live in a small-town American South. In these stories — thank heaven — not everything
fits: they are loose, they are sometimes
awkward, but just about every one shines with revelation and awe
in the face of momentary greatness and tragedy. . . . Nearly every
one of the stories could move a reader to tears, for in almost every
one of them there is a moment of vision or love, or unclothed wonder
that transforms something plain into something transcendent." —The
New York Times Book Review.
"Sparkles
like diamonds. . . . ‘Tongues of Fire' is, quite simply, one of
the best short stories I've ever read." —Chicago Tribune.
Me
and My Baby View the Eclipse (1990) proved Smith to be a versatile
writer, equally gifted in writing novels and short stories. Barbara
Kingsolver, in a Los Angeles Times book review dated February
18, 1990, said, "From its wonderful title to its final sentence,
this book brims with the poetry of the South, a language whose forte
is the understated value judgment."
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Philadelphia
Inquirer,
February 11, 1990
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New
York Magazine,
February 12, 1990
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1992:
The
Devil's Dream is published, 1992.
"Simply
marvelous. . . . As much spirit as an old-time camp meeting, as
close a power of observation as a ginseng
hunter's, and all the affection for
its subject matter that a fond maiden
aunt has for a brand-new nephew.
. . . A classic, one that's fun to read." —News and Observer
(Raleigh).
In
1990 Lee Smith won the Lyndhurst Prize to study country music. Her
research resulted in The Devil's Dream (1992), yet another
multi-generational family saga. The story of the musical Bailey
family (loosely based on the legendary Carter family) plumbs nearly
a century's worth of history to tell the story of the family's most
successful descendant, Katie Cocker, whose career flourishes once
she hits Nashville.
But The
Devil's Dream is really concerned with the problem of success,
which, for Katie—as well as for other country musicians and perhaps
for all of us—carries within it the genesis of failure. "What you
want, of course, is to be successful," Smith says. "You're always
singing of home, but you're never home. And there's something about
that—I think I feel like that about a lot of things, this intense
ambivalence."
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Camera
ready art for the publication of The Devil's Dream. |
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Smith's
notes for Devil's Dream |
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The
first page of The Devil's Dream, typescript.
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The
first page of The Devil's Dream, ready to go to press.
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1996:
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Publication
of The Christmas Letters: A Novella, 1996.
"Bless
Lee Smith's heart! Once again, the novelist from Chapel Hill, NC,
has proved that nobody knows Southern women better. Once again,
her prose is apparently effortless—a deft trick for any writer.
Once again, she has crafted a sparkling little gem of a story brimming
with wit, charm, heartbreak and even, this time, recipes." — Chicago
Tribune.
The
pages below are from the draft (typescript with corrections)
of The Christmas Letters
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Send
questions or comments to: special_collections@ncsu.edu
Today's
Date:Tuesday, 19-Mar-2024 05:55:20 UTC
Last Modified:Tuesday, 31-Aug-2010 14:10:58 UTC
URL:
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu
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