A Southern Exposure

by Alice Adams

"A work that will be for many readers as memorable as the last decade's Superior Women, and her exquisite novel from the 1970s, Listening to Billie."
--San Francisco Chronicle
It is 1939, a brief, hopeful moment between the Depression and war. The Baird family--Harry, Cynthia, and their precocious daughter Abby--have escaped the burdens of their Connecticut life to salvage themselves in the sleepy southern town of Pinehill, North Carolina. But the Bairds soon discover that their new home is not quite as idyllic as it seemed up north. And while the family's fondest desire is to be enveloped by the timeless town and its eccentric characters, clouds of war loom darkly, suggesting the possibility of change. But who among them will change, and in what startling ways, remains to be seen. . . .
"What a terrific book. I loved its rich, recognizable characters, the intricacies and excitement of the plot, the beauty of the writing. I laughed out loud a number of times, growled with jealousy at Alice's skills, and stayed up all night to finish it."
--Annie Lamott
"Deliciously readable, evocative, sensuous, and intoxicating as a gossip with an old, smart friend."
--Mary Gordon
"A seductive panorama of a small southern town in the late 30s . . . With great truth and clarity, this novel captures it all."
--The Boston Globe
"Adams is a modern-day Jane Austen. . . . A Southern Exposure is a timeless comedy of manners."
--The Dallas Morning News

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Southern, Contemporary, Novels

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Alice Adams was an American novelist, short story writer, academic and university professor.

She was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia and attended Radcliffe College, graduating in 1946. She married, and had a child, but her marriage broke up, and she spent several years as a single mother, working as a secretary. Her psychiatrist told her to give up writing and get remarried; instead she published her first novel, Careless Love (1966), and a few years later she published her first short story in The New Yorker. She wrote many novels but she's best known for her short stories, in collections such as After You've Gone (1989) and The Last Lovely City (1999).

She won numerous awards including the O. Henry Award, and Best American Short Stories Award.

Reviews

[Elizabeth Hook · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book,full of characters in a setting of the "new" south, ie: pre WW2,in a very socially active small University Town. The gist of the story line is a couple moving from Connecticut, drawn for various reasons to live in a smaller southern town. Both husband and wife are escaping to a more affordable, what they assume colorful place. The wife escaping a bill she cannot pay from Lord and Taylors in NYC, the man helping to settle in a less rat race town where he may have a higher social standing without the pocket book necessary in New York. Their 11 year old daughter hates it at first, and is the first to detest the segregation, and what she feels is stupidity. It is a gossipy book, the protagonist constantly remarking on "Southern" attitudes, social mores, and of course, the segregation. The characters kept the book interesting enough, the plot reminded me of a Housewives of New Jersey sort of thing, but in the south, before the war. What surprised me the most, was the constant extra marital activity that spun through the social settings, me, being a child of the late 50's and 60's, had no idea that sort of thing went on. Descriptions of the fragrant and rich landscape were breif, but adequate. Adams is comfortable with both male and female characters, and described them well. She exposes the shallowness of their socail climbing while maintaining a warm humanity. She carefully and artfully avoids rhetoric, and at the same time describes the plight of women, and, merely touches on the racism.Which would ring true, of course, the absence of african american characters was a very real thing in those times at that place. She does not examine this much at all, but through the eyes of the "Yankee" woman, a discomfort becomes apparent, slowly for the mother, not for the daughter. In some ways, it reminded me of Updikes's writing of a certain class of people, educated but done with learning,only to fall victim to base yearnings and entanglements. Updike, but better.

[A.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Southern Exposure is a perfect read for the summer, because the story just rolls along without too much fanfare or over-the-top drama, much like an errant breeze on a hot, humid July afternoon.

Oh, there is a cast of flawed characters, many of them misbehaving, but nothing really shocking or depressing. In spite of their oft lack of judgment and sense, both the people of Pinehill and would-be Southerner Baird family were rather likeable.

This is my first Alice Adams book, and I enjoyed it enough to explore more of her work.

[Norma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in rural southern US in the years leading up to WWII. A revelation as to how Southerners behave or don't behave, think or don't think. How things are made right by just not talking about them.

[karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a real bummer of a book for me. I was intrigued with the premise of the story: well-off society New Yorker family on the run from messed up past, set in immediate pre-WWll era, settle up in a small southern town for a new start. Unfortunately, not one single element of the writing lived up to what could have been an interesting read. I was initially slightly amused with the flippant style the author used to introduce the ridiculous Baird family, but the lack of substance in this style of writing just got old quickly and struck me as vapid and juvenile. Subsequent characters and sub-plots were introduced with no additional depth, rendering this book just plain silly. I made it through halfway before I decided there was no redemption to be found between the covers of this tome.

[Marilyn Lagier · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK--here's a conundrum...why can I not finish A TALE of TWO CITIES, which I know is a classic and a good story, yet, I actually finished this particular novel--which sounded much better on the back than it turned out. Yes, I finished it up last night--just so I could put it in the Friends of the Library box and get rid of it. Rather stupid characters, some very true-to-form racism of the 1940s, lots of people having affiars with others. What was the point? And the main female character gets admitted to law school and it's like 1943. Yes, I know there were women admitted to the bar back then, but really, it was so rare, it's almost cliched that she goes back to school, gets her degree, and gets into law school. Blah blah...glad it's done--now let me find something else that will pique my interest.

[Sarah V · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could tell I wouldn’t love this book from the start but I finished it anyway; too many characters who are all selfish and manipulative. It doesn’t read like it took place in the 30’s whatsoever. Not much depth and I hate that I had to read the word, “member” (yes, that kind) several times. On that same note, I think the very brief descriptions of sex should be removed, they were awkward and unnecessary. I also found it very unrealistic for every single character to be as observant and clever as they were.

[H.L. Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoy my full review at www.hlgibsonauthor.com

[Susan Freeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

In many ways this is a sad book. The characters seem to live such misdirected lives. That being said, I did get caught up in those lives and the dialogue.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not live up to it's potential,

[larry l. jerke · Rating 1 out of 5]

I need to stay w historical novels.

[Susannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic southern Gothic but with a central thread of awareness of racism and social history among everyday early-mid 20th century southern society. Finely drawn characters with lively inner and outer lives pepper the pine woods and boxwood gardens as they move through a tableau of authentic situations - parties, love affairs, afternoon walks, rainy afternoons - marked with the seriousness of life and death.

[Marti]

Zeta Reads for February 2018. My choice by this author.

I truly enjoyed this sweet book about a northern family moving to a small southern town & embracing it.

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice Adams was one of the great storytellers of the late 20th century, best known for her short stories, but I’ve always loved her novels. And she was one of the great delineators of character, too, painting deft portraits of urbane but conflicted Northern women and smart but constricted Southerners. And she could set them in their milieu and tell you all the important things to know about them in just a few sentences. The setting this time is the small college town of Pinehill (North Carolina, probably, though it’s never specified) and the time is 1938, with the Depression having made a lasting mark especially on communities that were never that well off to begin with. And most people are aware by now that another war is coming, though few will say so and most don’t want to think about it. Cynthia and Harry Baird and their 12-year-old daughter, Abigail, have fled Connecticut (each for their own reasons) for a place where they hope they can regain their self-respect and their financial equilibrium. Harry had a job he hated. Abby’s school was full of rich girls she didn’t like; her only real friend was the son of the school’s black janitor. Cynthia had unpaid bills at Lord & Taylors, but she also has a crush (without having ever met him) on James Russell Lowell Byrd, a regionally famous poet living in Pinehill. The point of view switches between the two women and Russ Byrd himself (Harry mostly just provides background for his wife and daughter) as they sort out the complications in their lives which, as you knew they would, begin to intertwine about each other. Cynthia and Abby also have a great deal of adjusting to do (or not) when it comes to Southern susceptibilities regarding race and gender. And then there’s young Deirdre Yates, astonishingly beautiful and with her own secrets and pressures, and there’s Jimmy Hightower, who deliberately built his big new house just down the road from Russ Byrd’s, hoping some of his idol’s writing talent would rub off. And there’s Jimmy’s wife, Esther, an Oklahoma Jew, who lives in terror of what Hitler might do. All of these people exist in four or five dimensions and their individual stories -- which Adams lets the reader in on a little at a time, like real life -- will keep you reading steadily until you finish the book. And you will wish there was more.

Adams tosses out little observations that make you pause and think: Yes. Like, two people approaching middle age, on a stroll across a small college campus, who stop and sit on the steps in front of the library among a group of students, because it makes them “feel young by contagion.” Or, at a party, Cynthia observes, “Have you noticed how Southerners get more and more Southern as they drink? So interesting.” Wow. That’s a great ear. There’s also the nighttime torchlight parade through Pinehill that precedes the college’s upcoming game against Duke, which frightens Abby and she doesn’t know why. But the reader can imagine similar parades featuring swastikas taking place at that very moment -- and perhaps similarly sinister torchlight gatherings not so many years earlier in the South that ended with lynchings. None of this is made explicit but if you pay attention, it’s there.

[Mary Lou · Rating 2 out of 5]

Never really went anywhere; unsatisfying.

[Evanston Public Library]

When the Baird family--Harry, Cynthia, and 10-year old daughter Abigail--late of Connecticut relocate to sleepy Pinehill, South Carolina in 1939, they are seeking a fresh start at the tail end of the Depression and the eve of World War II. They hope to leave behind a slightly unsatisfactory life. Their marriage was entering a luke warm phase, their associations back home did quite not offer a society wherein they shone, and that $300+ Lord & Taylor bill was bound to create embarassment. Harry and Cynthia wished to cultivate a new circle of friends who would be duly impressed with their east coast sophistication, and they hoped the small town economies would improve their financial picture.

Barb L.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This had the potential to be a good book - however I feel it was very poorly written. There was just so many "little" stories going on at once and it was all over the place. There was no character development therefore I really didn't care what happened to anyone. It would have been much better had the author picked one or two of stories and developed them more along the characters. I kept waiting for it get better but never did - this one of those times that Im sorry I made myself finish it - a big waste of my time.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, but just could not. The premise was good - the Depression wreaked havoc on the inherited wealth; the precocious daughter, the parents willing to make changes in their lives - but the story just never took flight. Many of the characters were just the same when the story ended (after several years) as when it started.

I enjoy Southern literature, however this one was colorless and bland.

[Susie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I devoured this on vacation. I love reading Southern family stories. This had humor, lust, redemption, family dysfunction and pig shit. What more could you ask of Southern literature?
I found it in the library of the lodge where we were staying, and it definitely made me want to read more of Alice Adams' work.

[Patty · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was just about the most confusing book I've ever read. The author was all over the place like she was on some kind of drugs that made her thoughts flit here there and every where. It took me forever to read because I had to keep going back and rereading to see what in the world she was talking about and who it was that was doing the talking. The book made absolutely no sense at all.

[Hope · Rating 2 out of 5]

I generally like books that are very character driven but I didn't particularly like any of the characters in this book, nor did I find them compelling. I finished the book still waiting for something interesting to happen beyond people behaving badly and getting away with it.

[Loreldonaghey Donaghey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing to say about this. I read it.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely novel. Great, but not required reading like her short story collections.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fluff novel I read by accident. Don't judge!!!

[Gail · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like most of the people or at least was interested in what happened to them. The problem was that not much happened. In the end, I felt no one had grown or done anything about their problems.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice read.

[Lynn Shurden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book to read along with The Help by Stockett.

[Julie Barrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

g read

[Ellen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into this book, and have stopped reading. Going to return it to the library shortly. Too many other books to read!

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have rediscovered Alice Adams and she is a mesmerizing writer. This is one of her later books, and quite gritty but very satisfying in the end.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just couldn't finish this book - need a shelf for that. Actually, couldn't get started.