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"With a piquant blend of magical realism and down-home pragmatism, Friddle’s beguiling second novel is a poignant and reassuring tale of regret and redemption." "With fluid prose and telling details, Friddle deftly captures the downward pull of the past and the Southern penchant for mythmaking; transcending the easy stereotypes of Southern dysfunctional family sagas, Friddle's clan is a genuinely quirky lot with its own unlikely ideas of happiness." "Friddle returns to Palmetto for the story of three generations of the Hanley family, set against their larger place in the history of this sleepy South Carolina town that looks a lot like home, with its Springforth Cemetery and Crossroads evangelical church/shopping center, its quainter, quirkier features under threat from encroaching suburban sprawl. But what makes Secret Keepers truly great is Friddle’s understanding that this kind of familiarity can quickly make way for a deeper relationship. She leads us through great swaths of time in a matter of a few pages, with elegance and a sly sense of the irony of history...Secret Keepers is very much a novel about the failure of our best-laid plans, and the surprising hardiness of what hope rises next... As the long buried past comes to light, the Hanleys all must reap what they have sown, and the novel that results just blossoms." "The beguiling cover of SECRET KEEPERS, with its boots/planters, bring to mind many of the characters in Friddle’s novel–worn out and damaged, but still functional and capable of letting beauty shine through...SECRET KEEPERS is a beautifully written novel of love and loss and renewal. Friddle’s warm and engaging novel of life in a decaying southern town sparkles with memorable characters and a story that will linger long after turning the last page." "On the surface, SECRET KEEPERS seems like the zillionth southern dynasty saga, but is actually much more as Mindy Friddle looks at how the present turns the past into a family mythos in which facts are irrelevant... Filled with pathos and eccentricity, readers will enjoy the misadventures of the SECRET KEEPERS." "As the layers of sediment that have settled over these characters are dug back, unsettling secrets are unearthed... those allow many of the characters to flower as they had once hoped. Friddle...could ascend to the summit of literary accomplishment and recognition. She has a marvelous sense of place and ample skills at characterization, along with a fine sense of pacing..."
"A comic delight...Winning characters and piquant wit, with an underpinning of graciousness: a standout." ---Kirkus Reviews (starred review). See Kirkus Reviews online "...This debut novel is atmospheric in the way of Southern fiction, but it's also brand new. With casual skill, Friddle makes the case that who we like in life may be as critical as who we love." "Friddle also has a way with the comic yet apt image: 'I knew I had to stuff my feelings back down deep inside or they might pop out all at once, sticky and soft, like canned biscuits.' It's lines like these that represent Friddle at her best: funny, down-to-earth and steeped in a sense of place." "A beguiling debut novel. Friddle... handles the juxtaposition of two highly eccentric cultures -- small-town Southern society and small-college English department -- with a light, quirky touch that keeps the story moving along and steadily entertaining." ---Atlanta Journal-Constitution "[The] writing is as beautiful as a stained glass window...Like Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty, Friddle reveres the majesty of Southern homes and Southern women, zany or not." ---The [Greensboro] News & Record "Friddle had a great flair for comic relief, and in a novel filled with tragedy...there is also much laughter." ---Oxford Town, Oxford, Mississippi "Bursting with local color and Southern warmth, the story...reflects a need a need to remember our history in the modern south." ---Ya'll Magazine "The southern novel is still alive and kicking, thank heavens, and Mindy Friddle (an ideal name for a southern writer) gives the genre its due in her debut novel, THE GARDEN ANGEL. Friddle writes with comic grace. ... In the tradition of FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE WHISTLESTOP CAFE, Friddle's novel celebrates the power of women's friendship. The story is soulful and satisfying, as southern as a slice of watermelon on a hot summer day." ---The Charlotte Observer "A whimsical tale about the transformative power of an unlikely friendship. Friddle's lyrical novel is beautifully written in language both earthy and poetic. It is also extremely funny." "The hidden charm of this book is the eccentric minor players that move effectively throughout the story. Every one is believable, if not a bit cliched...THE GARDEN ANGEL continues in the tradition of other great Southern novelists with wit, charm and an abundance of humanity." "Add Mindy Friddle to the list of contemporary Southern writers able to bring a town to life with her words....a confident debut from a Southern writer to watch." "Mindy Friddle has a great comic touch, and her novel is a touching, heartfelt debut." " Mindy Friddle's first novel is the literary equivalent of Grace Kelly--smart and stylish, elegant and timeless, destined to become a classic." From Our Editors Descendants of southerner Henry Haynes Harris, the founder of the now defunct Sans Souci Mill, Cutter's family once lived on a grand estate. Now reduced to a dilapidated house and an overgrown family plot, the forlorn remains of the Harris homestead have been left to Cutter and her two siblings, who plan to cash out. But Cutter, unhappy with their decision, decides to sabotage the sale with the aid of two very unlikely assistants. The glory of a past that may never be reclaimed is the theme of this unique and satisfying novel. This theme is invoked in the clothes Cutter rescues from her grandmother's old closet, in the chipped crystal and dishes she hides from her siblings, and in the "garden angel" that lies broken in the graveyard. At times wonderfully comic and sad enough to provoke tears, The Garden Angel is an addictive read, and an enthralling story filled with both loss and hope. (Fall 2004 Selection) "THE GARDEN ANGEL takes on the shifting alliances defined by family, love, and friendship with quirky grace and raucous wit. Mindy Friddle's details are shocking and flawless. I'm thankful for her reminder that our frail souls can be ultimately triumphant." Here is a wonderful debut, a novel full of laugh-out-loud humor but also heartbreak as Friddle’s women struggle to honor the past while accommodating the present. Cutter Johanson is a heroine Eudora Welty would be proud to claim and one few readers will forget. THE GARDEN ANGEL is a book I did not want to end. "Agoraphobes and adulterers, lovers of history and advocates for the future, the mentally ill and the putatively sane all line up to do battle in THE GARDEN ANGEL, a warm-hearted, funny novel about the vagaries of small-town life and the encroachments of the big, bad world." "THE GARDEN ANGEL is smart, soulful, sensual and hysterically funny. Mindy Friddle's writing is as quirky and original as the South itself." Salvation can come from the most unexpected places, and an unlikely friendship between two women--one strong and determined, the other scared and uncertain-- provides the solutions to challenging problems confronting both. Faced with losing her family's home, a rundown mansion in a once elegant part of town, Cutter will do anything to protect her ancestral birthright. Faced with losing her husband to another woman, Elizabeth isn't sure what she can do to reclaim Daniel's love. And when the other woman is none other than Cutter's sister, the likelihood of finding the help she needs from Cutter seems even more improbable. As Cutter runs out of options for halting the sale of her grandmother's house and Elizabeth runs out of time to save her marriage, their unorthodox friendship ends up being the one thing they both can count on. Relegating stereotypically eccentric southern characters to minor roles, Friddle concentrates her considerable talents on developing fully realized protagonists who earn and deserve the reader's respect. ---Booklist Reviews From the publisher: Cutter Johanson is plucky and eccentric, nostalgic about her family's once glorious past. In her spare time, she gardens in the family cemetery and knits hair doilies. While writing obits for San Souci Citizen and waiting tables at the Pancake Palace, she is desperate to ward off potential buyers for her dilapidated family homestead -- and goes to extreme and often hilarious lengths to succeed. Elizabeth Byers, stricken with panic attacks, rarely ventures outside the house she shares with her husband, a professor at the local university. Agoraphobic, trapped in suburbia, even her tentative trips to the supermarket turn frightening and grotesque. Cutter is losing her house, and Elizabeth is losing her husband. Surrounded by offbeat characters, the two women pull together to seek sanctuary, only to plunge into a string of misadventures that will irreparably disrupt their lives -- and the lives of others. In the tradition of richly comic Southern writing, this quirky debut novel captures life in a down-at-the-heels small town and celebrates women's friendships. ---St. Martin's Press (U.S. Publisher) THE GARDEN ANGEL |
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