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Nancy Culpepper: Stories
Kentucky native Nancy Culpepper boldly left home to attend school in Massachusetts, married a Yankee, and raised her son in the Northeast. “One day I was feeding chickens and listening to Hank Williams and the next day I was expected to know what wines went with what,” she tells her husband, Jack. Yet no matter where she travels, her rural southern heritage is never far from her thoughts, her habits, and her heart.
Nancy is on a lifelong quest to understand her place in the world. Returning home to the family farm, she searches for photographic evidence of an ancestor bearing her own name. Still in her jeans, she brings home strange ideas and an assertiveness she learned up north.
Always adventurous, Nancy travels far and wide–searching, seeking. The narrative sweep of her life traverses the turbulent sixties, the Vietnam War, the eighties and the foreboding death of John Lennon, and finally the new millennium–when a self-assured Nancy finally emerges. These humorous and often touching stories recount her courtship and marriage to Jack, her relationship with her precocious son, and the deep, loving bond between her parents, Spence and Lila Culpepper. Eventually Nancy’s marriage is threatened by a cultural divide that plagued her and Jack from the start. But when she inherits the Culpepper family farm and discovers more pieces of her ancestral puzzle, she realizes that her life is assuming its proper shape. Later, standing on a lonely mountain in England, she sees the world from a surprising perspective.
Bestselling author Bobbie Ann Mason’s prizewinning Nancy Culpepper chronicles have appeared in The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The Southern Review, and other distinguished literary anthologies. She has compiled these stories into one definitive collection, which includes the novella Spence + Lila, two new, never-before-published stories, and one Pushcart Prize winner. Heartfelt and thought-provoking, Nancy Culpepper is a poignant depiction of change and growth in a modern-day heroine.
From the Hardcover edition.
Nancy is on a lifelong quest to understand her place in the world. Returning home to the family farm, she searches for photographic evidence of an ancestor bearing her own name. Still in her jeans, she brings home strange ideas and an assertiveness she learned up north.
Always adventurous, Nancy travels far and wide–searching, seeking. The narrative sweep of her life traverses the turbulent sixties, the Vietnam War, the eighties and the foreboding death of John Lennon, and finally the new millennium–when a self-assured Nancy finally emerges. These humorous and often touching stories recount her courtship and marriage to Jack, her relationship with her precocious son, and the deep, loving bond between her parents, Spence and Lila Culpepper. Eventually Nancy’s marriage is threatened by a cultural divide that plagued her and Jack from the start. But when she inherits the Culpepper family farm and discovers more pieces of her ancestral puzzle, she realizes that her life is assuming its proper shape. Later, standing on a lonely mountain in England, she sees the world from a surprising perspective.
Bestselling author Bobbie Ann Mason’s prizewinning Nancy Culpepper chronicles have appeared in The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The Southern Review, and other distinguished literary anthologies. She has compiled these stories into one definitive collection, which includes the novella Spence + Lila, two new, never-before-published stories, and one Pushcart Prize winner. Heartfelt and thought-provoking, Nancy Culpepper is a poignant depiction of change and growth in a modern-day heroine.
From the Hardcover edition.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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189 people want to read
About the author
Bobbie Ann Mason
89 books219 followersBobbie Ann Mason has won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her books include In Country and Feather Crowns. She lives in Kentucky.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 6, 2025
Short stories from the life of Nancy Culpepper, a fictional character from Kentucky. Though they weren’t particularly gripping stories, they had an authentic voice and felt like people I knew at one time. I enjoyed the descriptive writing.
July 9, 2008
I used to love, love, love Bobbie Ann Mason, back in the late 80s, early 90s. She writes about an area of the country, western Kentucky, specifically around Paducah, where I lived from age 5 - 10, in the early 70s. I hadn't picked up anything of hers in years and was afraid that my tastes would have changed significantly or that what appealed to me originally would be gone. I was pleasantly surprised with this book.
She deals with leaving a rural way of life for a more urban one, detachment from her family, and long term deterioration of a marriage. I would have enjoyed it more if it had more substance about the protagonists' feelings about motherhood and children, since that's where I am in my life right now. Overall, I really like the book.
She deals with leaving a rural way of life for a more urban one, detachment from her family, and long term deterioration of a marriage. I would have enjoyed it more if it had more substance about the protagonists' feelings about motherhood and children, since that's where I am in my life right now. Overall, I really like the book.
August 3, 2022
This is a very good collection of interconnected stories. Nancy Culpepper, a young woman from Kentucky goes to college in the sixties and ends up staying in the Northeast, living a life her parents would never imagine.
We see in the early years of her marriage and motherhood, the death of a beloved family dog. Later we see her as an empty nester dealing with a trial separation as she and her husband find their marriage struggling.
These stories are fine, they tell the story of Nancy’s life, but the centrepiece and the gem of this collection is the longer, almost novella length “ Lila and Spence.”
Nancy has returned home to Kentucky to be with her Mother while she goes through a mastectomy for her breast cancer. In this story we read the backstory of Nancy’s parents. From their first meeting in high school, the early years of their marriage, to this health challenge Lila and Spence have lived a simple, frugal, farming life.
I think this story resonated for me so much because, though I grew up a thousand miles or more from Kentucky, I know these people. I grew up with these people.
When faced with breast cancer and the health system the way her parents react, the way they speak, it all sounds so familiar. So competent in their daily farm life they are so intimidated by the healthcare process, the Doctors, the hospital. When Nancy speaks and asks questions of the Doctor about treatment they are embarrassed and aghast. It is almost as if by being so intimidated they would rather just accept what is given rather than admit their naivety.
As I said I am well familiar with people like this. Good people, great people, but also easily seeming alien like to Nancy in her now Eastern ways.
This story connected so well for me.
We see in the early years of her marriage and motherhood, the death of a beloved family dog. Later we see her as an empty nester dealing with a trial separation as she and her husband find their marriage struggling.
These stories are fine, they tell the story of Nancy’s life, but the centrepiece and the gem of this collection is the longer, almost novella length “ Lila and Spence.”
Nancy has returned home to Kentucky to be with her Mother while she goes through a mastectomy for her breast cancer. In this story we read the backstory of Nancy’s parents. From their first meeting in high school, the early years of their marriage, to this health challenge Lila and Spence have lived a simple, frugal, farming life.
I think this story resonated for me so much because, though I grew up a thousand miles or more from Kentucky, I know these people. I grew up with these people.
When faced with breast cancer and the health system the way her parents react, the way they speak, it all sounds so familiar. So competent in their daily farm life they are so intimidated by the healthcare process, the Doctors, the hospital. When Nancy speaks and asks questions of the Doctor about treatment they are embarrassed and aghast. It is almost as if by being so intimidated they would rather just accept what is given rather than admit their naivety.
As I said I am well familiar with people like this. Good people, great people, but also easily seeming alien like to Nancy in her now Eastern ways.
This story connected so well for me.
January 5, 2020
The book is separated into 5 parts by years: 1980, 1985, 1994, 2002, and 2005. (The book was written in 2006). It’s really disjointed and you never get complete closure or explanation in any given section. The longest one deals with Nancy’s parents and her mom’s breast cancer scare. I expected to get more about her childhood and relationship with her siblings from this 110 page section, but no such luck.
June 15, 2022
Enjoyable read. Very much in the style of Wendell Berry. Bobbie Ann Mason knows how to turn a phrase. She plucks local expressions from the past with ease.
April 16, 2025
This book made no sense.
May 26, 2011
This novel about the title character was told in a series of short stories. It described her character and motivation well at first, but then the last two stories seemed to come out of nowhere. I guess the author Bobbie Ann Mason was trying to make art imitate life because that happens to a lot of us. Nevertheless, I found it unnerving and so I'm giving it three stars instead of 4. I had read an earlier book of hers "In Country" and thought that that book was written with more sensitivity and understanding than this one was.
September 8, 2012
I read Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country many years ago and loved it. I really liked the idea and structure behind this later work - following the life of one woman, and her ancestors, through selected episodes. But while it was well-written, and striking in parts, overall I just didn't find it that memorable.
September 10, 2011
Bobbie Ann Mason is from Kentucky. There are many parallels in the life of Nancy Culpepper and my life. I find Mason's characters to be geniune. I think often sending a child to college, when the parents did not have that opportunity creates a gap that is hard to bridge in a satisfactory way to the parents and the children.
April 23, 2013
Lovely linked stories. (Maybe not quite linked enough, but that's okay). Great characters. Loved every single section that took place in Kentucky. The hospital scenes with mom and daughters and husband are about as good as I've ever read. Last chapter/story felt like an add-on, but definitely a lovely read.
August 27, 2009
Loved the Spence & Lila story more than the rest of the book. But, overall, it made me think of my family in Missouri and how different my life might be if my parents had stayed in that farming community.
December 1, 2012
I'm not normally a fan of the short story but I do admire Bobbie Ann Mason as a writer. This collection centers around one character, Nancy Culpepper. The story 'Spence & Lila' (about Nancy's parents) was by far the best.
July 21, 2016
I had to read "Nancy Culpepper" and "Lying Doggo" for a class. I liked both of them so much that I decided to buy the entire collection of short stories and read them for fun. Mason did not disappoint. I love her characters!
August 21, 2007
Nothing special about this book. I plowed through it but was disappointed and probably should have stopped 1/2 way through
May 10, 2013
Who doesn't love to read anything by Bobbie Ann Mason! I loved the format of this book which was more like a collection of interconnected short fiction. Tasty little bites that formed a whole cake.
March 1, 2012
Great book.....I loved the love story of Lila and Spence.
January 20, 2016
Great stories.
April 5, 2017
The Nancy Culpepper stories struck home with me, having grown up in a small mid-southern town. I look forward to reading her other works.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews