A lyrical and evocative memoir from Frances Mayes, the Bard of
Tuscany, about coming of age in the Deep South and the region's powerful
influence on her life.
The author of three beloved books about her life in Italy, including
Under the Tuscan Sun and Every Day in Tuscany, Frances Mayes
revisits the turning points that defined her early years in Fitzgerald,
Georgia. With her signature style and grace, Mayes explores the power of
landscape, the idea of home, and the lasting force of a chaotic and
loving family.
From her years as a spirited, secretive child, through her university
studies--a period of exquisite freedom that imbued her with a profound
appreciation of friendship and a love of travel--to her escape to a new
life in California, Mayes exuberantly recreates the intense
relationships of her past, recounting the bitter and sweet stories of
her complicated family: her beautiful yet fragile mother, Frankye; her
unpredictable father, Garbert; Daddy Jack, whose life Garbert saved;
grandmother Mother Mayes; and the family maid, Frances's confidant
Willie Bell.
Under Magnolia is a searingly honest, humorous, and moving ode to
family and place, and a thoughtful meditation on the ways they define
us, or cause us to define ourselves. With acute sensory language, Mayes
relishes the sweetness of the South, the smells and tastes at her family
table, the fragrance of her hometown trees, and writes an unforgettable
story of a girl whose perspicacity and dawning self-knowledge lead her
out of the South and into the rest of the world, and then to a profound
return home.
