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Family Linen
"Brilliant, haunting, dark, joyous, remarkably compelling...immensely difficult to put down...a master storyteller."
THE VILLAGE VOICE
A childhood memory re-experienced, a funeral that brings about a family reunion, and the excavation of a swimming pool on the site of an old well, uncover family secrets and air the dirty linen in this behind-the-scenes look at life and family, memory and forgetfulness, anger and forgiveness in a small Southern town.
"Falls in line with the best of classical Southern fiction...but Ms. Smith's vision is her own and places her among the best of contemporary Southern writers."
THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION
THE VILLAGE VOICE
A childhood memory re-experienced, a funeral that brings about a family reunion, and the excavation of a swimming pool on the site of an old well, uncover family secrets and air the dirty linen in this behind-the-scenes look at life and family, memory and forgetfulness, anger and forgiveness in a small Southern town.
"Falls in line with the best of classical Southern fiction...but Ms. Smith's vision is her own and places her among the best of contemporary Southern writers."
THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION
322 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1985
About the author
Lee Smith
43 books1,050 followersGrowing up in the Appalachian mountains of southwestern Virginia, nine-year-old Lee Smith was already writing--and selling, for a nickel apiece--stories about her neighbors in the coal boomtown of Grundy and the nearby isolated "hollers." Since 1968, she has published eleven novels, as well as three collections of short stories, and has received many writing awards.
The sense of place infusing her novels reveals her insight into and empathy for the people and culture of Appalachia. Lee Smith was born in 1944 in Grundy, Virginia, a small coal-mining town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, not 10 miles from the Kentucky border. The Smith home sat on Main Street, and the Levisa River ran just behind it. Her mother, Virginia, was a college graduate who had come to Grundy to teach school.
Her father, Ernest, a native of the area, operated a dime store. And it was in that store that Smith's training as a writer began. Through a peephole in the ceiling of the store, Smith would watch and listen to the shoppers, paying close attention to the details of how they talked and dressed and what they said.
"I didn't know any writers," Smith says, "[but] I grew up in the midst of people just talking and talking and talking and telling these stories. My Uncle Vern, who was in the legislature, was a famous storyteller, as were others, including my dad. It was very local. I mean, my mother could make a story out of anything; she'd go to the grocery store and come home with a story."
Smith describes herself as a "deeply weird" child. She was an insatiable reader. When she was 9 or 10, she wrote her first story, about Adlai Stevenson and Jane Russell heading out west together to become Mormons--and embodying the very same themes, Smith says, that concern her even today. "You know, religion and flight, staying in one place or not staying, containment or flight--and religion." From Lee Smith's official website.
The sense of place infusing her novels reveals her insight into and empathy for the people and culture of Appalachia. Lee Smith was born in 1944 in Grundy, Virginia, a small coal-mining town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, not 10 miles from the Kentucky border. The Smith home sat on Main Street, and the Levisa River ran just behind it. Her mother, Virginia, was a college graduate who had come to Grundy to teach school.
Her father, Ernest, a native of the area, operated a dime store. And it was in that store that Smith's training as a writer began. Through a peephole in the ceiling of the store, Smith would watch and listen to the shoppers, paying close attention to the details of how they talked and dressed and what they said.
"I didn't know any writers," Smith says, "[but] I grew up in the midst of people just talking and talking and talking and telling these stories. My Uncle Vern, who was in the legislature, was a famous storyteller, as were others, including my dad. It was very local. I mean, my mother could make a story out of anything; she'd go to the grocery store and come home with a story."
Smith describes herself as a "deeply weird" child. She was an insatiable reader. When she was 9 or 10, she wrote her first story, about Adlai Stevenson and Jane Russell heading out west together to become Mormons--and embodying the very same themes, Smith says, that concern her even today. "You know, religion and flight, staying in one place or not staying, containment or flight--and religion." From Lee Smith's official website.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 134 reviews
April 22, 2025
2.5 stars rounded up to 3. This is set in a small Appalachian town in southwest Virginia although it lacks the feel of a generational family drama, that is what it is. It is told from multiple POVs which was frustrating at times. I had to go back to figure out who this character was and what was their relationship in the family. The opening chapter is a good hook, but we don't come back to that secret until the last quarter of the book. The ending was unsatisfying. Otherwise, the crazy family dynamics we often see in these type of novels were all there, but I challenge you to pick someone that you root for throughout the story.
I know that there are many readers that love Lee Smith, I'm just not one of them.
I know that there are many readers that love Lee Smith, I'm just not one of them.
April 11, 2018
This is an amusing, light story. As such, it is very well done.
A word of warning is however appropriate. The humor is mixed with serious topics--long-term family disputes, adultery, physical and sexual abuse, psychological impairment and perhaps even murder. A good author is able to mix the serious, the sad and the funny. My sense of humor though, may not be yours.
We have here a multigenerational saga set in the South, in Booker Creek, a small town near Roanoke, Virginia. It opens in 1983, but in covering the lives of a grandmother, her own parents, her husbands, her two sisters, her five children and their children we go back to the beginning of the 20th century. The book opens as Sibyll, the grandmother’s eldest daughter, on the advice of her best friend, agrees to go to a hypnotist. She has splitting headaches. Hopefully, she will get to the bottom of the malady without spending a lot of money. In a hypnotic trance, she sees her father’s dead body down in a well. Is what she saw correct, and if he was murdered who killed him? This is the mystery to be solved. We meet a large cast of characters--we hear their thoughts and what they say to each other. The grandmother speaks to us through her diary.
The dialogs are amusing. What the characters say perfectly captures the idioms and speech of the 1980s. The songs, the food, the movies, the news headlines and the books the characters speak of are what people of that time spoke of. The antics described are amusingly typical of that time. The book is less a description of the South than an apt portrayal of a time.
Each character comes alive. Fourteen-year-old kids, older dating teens, midlife crises, women in the throes of change of life and the elderly are well drawn, often with tongue in cheek humor.
I had to draw a family tree to keep track of who was who.
The diary section is a bit too long. In its lack of dialog, it has less spark.
The audiobook is read by Linda Stephens. She modifies her intonations to capture the personality and age of each character, and she does this exceptionally well. She captures the Southern dialect well too. I have given the narration performance four stars.
This is a fun, charming story, perfect when you are looking for that sort of thing. It was what I was looking for when I started. By the end, I had had enough. It had done what it was supposed to do.
My ratings of Lee Smith's books :
Fair and Tender Ladies 4 stars
Oral History 4 stars
Family Linen 3 stars
Dimestore: A Writer's Life 2 stars
A word of warning is however appropriate. The humor is mixed with serious topics--long-term family disputes, adultery, physical and sexual abuse, psychological impairment and perhaps even murder. A good author is able to mix the serious, the sad and the funny. My sense of humor though, may not be yours.
We have here a multigenerational saga set in the South, in Booker Creek, a small town near Roanoke, Virginia. It opens in 1983, but in covering the lives of a grandmother, her own parents, her husbands, her two sisters, her five children and their children we go back to the beginning of the 20th century. The book opens as Sibyll, the grandmother’s eldest daughter, on the advice of her best friend, agrees to go to a hypnotist. She has splitting headaches. Hopefully, she will get to the bottom of the malady without spending a lot of money. In a hypnotic trance, she sees her father’s dead body down in a well. Is what she saw correct, and if he was murdered who killed him? This is the mystery to be solved. We meet a large cast of characters--we hear their thoughts and what they say to each other. The grandmother speaks to us through her diary.
The dialogs are amusing. What the characters say perfectly captures the idioms and speech of the 1980s. The songs, the food, the movies, the news headlines and the books the characters speak of are what people of that time spoke of. The antics described are amusingly typical of that time. The book is less a description of the South than an apt portrayal of a time.
Each character comes alive. Fourteen-year-old kids, older dating teens, midlife crises, women in the throes of change of life and the elderly are well drawn, often with tongue in cheek humor.
I had to draw a family tree to keep track of who was who.
The diary section is a bit too long. In its lack of dialog, it has less spark.
The audiobook is read by Linda Stephens. She modifies her intonations to capture the personality and age of each character, and she does this exceptionally well. She captures the Southern dialect well too. I have given the narration performance four stars.
This is a fun, charming story, perfect when you are looking for that sort of thing. It was what I was looking for when I started. By the end, I had had enough. It had done what it was supposed to do.
My ratings of Lee Smith's books :
Fair and Tender Ladies 4 stars
Oral History 4 stars
Family Linen 3 stars
Dimestore: A Writer's Life 2 stars
October 7, 2025
I hoped Lee Smith would be another Anne Tyler and Tessa Hadley, but somehow she was less emotional and a little boring, a little strange for me. Those authors creat family relationships so intuitively you want to be part of that. Smith couldn’t do that to me.
The story is told as first person by different characters as well as by author. The narrative is a little difficult to follow, a lot of characters are introduced at first, and jumping from one person to another makes the story a little confusing.
Smith is quite thorough with her characters, showing in full contrast with one another. However, I had no empathy or any positive emotion towards any of characters. However genuine, however imperfectly perfect the relationships are, they seem artificial to me.
The plot was interesting, mysterious. The prose is beautiful, Smith is a good storyteller, but sometimes looses the trail of thought, not connecting the transitions.
I am glad I read this and will definitely read more of this author, maybe the timing wasn’t right this time.
The story is told as first person by different characters as well as by author. The narrative is a little difficult to follow, a lot of characters are introduced at first, and jumping from one person to another makes the story a little confusing.
Smith is quite thorough with her characters, showing in full contrast with one another. However, I had no empathy or any positive emotion towards any of characters. However genuine, however imperfectly perfect the relationships are, they seem artificial to me.
The plot was interesting, mysterious. The prose is beautiful, Smith is a good storyteller, but sometimes looses the trail of thought, not connecting the transitions.
I am glad I read this and will definitely read more of this author, maybe the timing wasn’t right this time.
December 26, 2009
The plot was interesting enough, but I needed a character to like. There were too many family members at the center of the story, so none of them were sufficiently developed.
January 10, 2008
Was assigned for my recent Southern Lit class, and she teaches at State. My favorite character is the sister who has a kooky-ass daughter who, like, wears oversized attire from the Army-Navy surplus store, hates her mother, and attends Friends School. That shit was almost-- just almost-- too close for comfort.
December 21, 2010
I want to like it more than I did, though I'm wavering between one and two stars. Tries to be all psychological/ Freudian and comes across crude and clunky. The "mystery" is all on the surface and obvious, the characters are stereotypes or parodies, none of them are likeable. Nothing much to say. Don't waste your time.
September 9, 2008
Good book, but I was irritated by the Faulkner-esque stream of consciousness at times. Though I have to say Smith is less...irritating (dare I say it?) The story is good, though I think it could use some tightening. Read Oral History instead.
April 23, 2017
A completely absorbing book about a family coming to terms with loss and the secrets they have been keeping from each other – and from themselves. This is very fine writing – so well done that even in their more dramatic moments, the characters remain very real and believable. Lee Smith achieves authenticity and writes with complete dominion about fascinating people, places, and life situations. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys a very good story!
October 21, 2008
Just loved it. It started off slowly, but Smith just has such a way of writing people, and of building this story so carefully - excellent. Southern without being overtly gothic or cliched - these characters reminded me so much of my husband's family from mountain NC that it was scary. I'll be reading more Lee Smith.
July 31, 2015
Disappointment
Blah. Did not finish. I did not like this style of writing. Would not recommend this book unless you are desperate to waste some time.
Blah. Did not finish. I did not like this style of writing. Would not recommend this book unless you are desperate to waste some time.
May 4, 2021
This was written by a Virginia writer and while a book about Virginia, it is more placed in Southwest Virginia which is as hillbilly as hillbilly gets. It is a portrait of a family with all the strangeness that occurs in families. I am a West Virginian and this family leaped out as believable. This is mainly a story of sisters , but it does show an old adage in my family. We do not believe in divorce, but we do believe in murder. I do appreciate a book that is not about the wealthy and well to do people. Many people just get by and somne do quite well.
June 21, 2012
This book was a slow starter but a few chapters in I began to care about this dysfunctional family group, each one going through their own crisis. The fact that the writer chose to use first, second and third person narrative, all in the same book, was a bit off-putting. Still, the story is engrossing. The book begins with Sybill and her memory from childhood of a murder she had witnessed. By the time we reach the end of the book we know the murderer was one of two people but the final conclusion on which one is left to the reader. I usually hate books that are left unresolved but in this case it seems okay. I can live with either scenario and in the end the family has healed to the point of being able to celebrate a wedding together and enjoy each other's company. Overall, I liked it and was glad this book had been chosen as my mystery group read for this month. I probably would not have picked it on my own but enjoyed reading it.
May 1, 2014
If you're out of Ambien, may I recommend this ..........
February 18, 2020
This is the first book I’ve read by Lee Smith, but after reading this delightful novel, I’ll definitely be reading more by her. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I began this book, but what I found was a hard to put down story about a quirky, southern family and their secrets. Each chapter gives the reader a perspective from a different family member and insight into their personal world. This is an older book, but I think it definitely ages well and could easily be from today.
September 3, 2021
A billion characters, and I didn’t care about a single one.
July 18, 2008
There's nothing like digging into sordid pasts of people who do their best to appear perfect. This was the second book I've read by Lee Smith, and hopefully not the last. A great story that sucked me in, and I enjoyed all the characters, although there were a few too many at times.
tried-to-read-but-couldn-t
April 27, 2009Not sure what possessed me to even try...
June 24, 2008
This is not my book. I have a lovely hardcover with a very delicate white-on-white embroidered linen design in the background of the dust jacket. This jumped into my hands as a result of my genealogical "bug" being about the aeration of family secrets and the resulting hanging the family linen out for all the world to see and know and being notated on the cover that she is also the author of Oral History -- another genie hook. It should be fun.
Well, maybe not exactly fun, but it was good reading. Each chapter is a different voice and very few of the shifts was at all unclear or confusing. I thought of Eudora Welty's people and settings as I read this. The wounded psyches clinging and breaking with family and with place. Beginning with the oldest child, Sybil, a 40ish single woman who in the time might still in that place be termed an "old-maid" and her uncharacteristic visits to a hypnotist the search is underway for the answer to a mystery brought from Sybil's subconscious. With each chapter's changing viewpoint we get a few more bits of the story until we know each of the characters as well as the story behind the story behind the unsettling dreams which led Sybil to seek out the hypnotist.
Well, maybe not exactly fun, but it was good reading. Each chapter is a different voice and very few of the shifts was at all unclear or confusing. I thought of Eudora Welty's people and settings as I read this. The wounded psyches clinging and breaking with family and with place. Beginning with the oldest child, Sybil, a 40ish single woman who in the time might still in that place be termed an "old-maid" and her uncharacteristic visits to a hypnotist the search is underway for the answer to a mystery brought from Sybil's subconscious. With each chapter's changing viewpoint we get a few more bits of the story until we know each of the characters as well as the story behind the story behind the unsettling dreams which led Sybil to seek out the hypnotist.
April 1, 2012
Love Lee Smith;s writing and her insights into people, relationships and family. Many quirky characters in this novel, that reunite for their mother's funeral. All the sisters are so different, all view their family in different ways. Didn't much care for the brother, felt he was way to self indulgent. My favorite characters was probably Nettie, an aunt, who is quite a personality with an extremely strange world view.
July 25, 2012
Had overlooked this Lee Smith novel, despite the fact that she's one of my favorite authors. It has the warmth and depth that you expect from her, but it will not go on my "keeper" shelf. It felt too much like a cliche of Southern families. The characters were just that much too far over the line to find compassionate understanding of their foibles. Still a good book and a well researched snapshot of the time and place it portrays.
October 23, 2008
A cast of quirky family members get together for their mother's funeral. The oldest sibling has been hypnotized and thinks the father was murdered and buried in the backyard. Each tells their own history, reveals their own skeletons and the story unfolds. I would recommend this book.
August 28, 2009
This was definitely not my favorite of her books. Very dark and too much unnecessary swearing...
July 14, 2012
Love this book! I've read it three times, and each time I find something new to love. The story is told from different viewpoints, each character well-developed by Smith.
June 29, 2013
I'm sad to say it's my least favorite Smith book (except Fancy Strut). While I appreciated the protagonist's development, I disliked the majority of the characters.
June 10, 2016
It's really hard to enjoy a book when you not only don't like the main characters, but actively dislike them. I kept thinking it would get better and they would grow on me, but they never did.
August 5, 2017
I'm 30% complete and have to put it down. I have it on my kindle. I love Lee Smith books, but this one has too many characters that are so boring. Maybe I will try again another time.
July 24, 2020
I didn't like a single character. The best I can say is indifference.
September 28, 2020
DNF'd. Did not like any of the characters and there were too many of them to keep track of. The timeline jumped around and so did the narrative viewpoint.
October 10, 2024
Exceptionally inconsistent writing- boring to fascinating plot twist back to boring. Very dated language.
Dnf.
Dnf.
Read
September 1, 2023Borrowed from my mum’s bookshelves while in Virginia—Smith is impossible to find in the UK. This was my first of hers and is apparently not her best, but I enjoyed it immensely. It skips through the heads of most members of the Hess family as they react to two major events: one, the recovery under hypnosis of what seems to be a repressed memory belonging to the eldest daughter, Sybil; two, the death of their matriarch, Elizabeth. Set in southwest Virginia, it has that peculiar combination of gentle delivery and surprisingly hard-hitting material that characterises a specific subgenre of Southern writing, and while the novel doesn’t lack a sense of wry humour about its characters, no one—not even the Faulkner-esque grotesques—is ever portrayed cruelly. I’ll definitely read more Smith.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 134 reviews