Word: discomfort
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...HARD to believe that the South of William Faulkner. Gone With the Wind and the Ku Klux Klan could produce Rita Mac Brown. In her latest novel. Southern Discomfort--which is filled with her signature wit and warmth--Brown follows several of Motgomery. Alabama's more interesting citizens as they wander through a sexual and social labyrinth as only a candid, radical feminist...
Here Brown weaves humor into the pathos. Southern Discomfort avoids didacticism and sentimentality, the twin pitfalls of any novel discussing unauthorized, romantic love. Brown has no patience with humanity's cruelties, and laughs at her characters' foibles; she is, however, never unsympathetic. At times she treats helpless sinners with art unexpected gentleness that betrays the author's love for our race, despite its flaws...
...Rhonda and her professional colleagues, but eventually allows readers to glimpse some love in the beautiful mansions. Realizing that these diverse classes will all contribute to the future. Brown portrays the next generation's hope as a bright mulatto child. Catherine Despite its span of only a decade. Southern Discomfort stresses awareness of past and future. The present does not exist in a vacuum, memories of a great-aunt's youth are recalled and young Catherine learns of her lineage. Life continues, and we may be a bitchy, bickering family. Brown implies, but we are all related somehow in this...
LIKE HER earlier novels, Southern Discomfort is redolent of feminism. Most major characters are women, several of whom exhibit great strength and independence, although none are idealized. This offers acute timeless insights into the limits and opportunities available to women bound by traditional societies, revealing hidden heroism and behind-the-scenes sisterhood. Several of the men are appealing, but Brown does not focus on them. A few become three-dimensional and believable, such as Hercules father, sunk into passive resignation because of a harsh life. Brown avoids flat, stock figures, but her male characters are generally not as fully fleshed...
...despite her consistent philosophy, a similar setting and a few recurring characters. Southern Discomfort differs greatly in mood from Brown's earlier and very popular Rubyfruit Jungle. That superb novel focuses on one woman, and presents an affectionate, humorous study of growing up gay in the South. Southern Discomfort tackles a broader range of restrictions; these characters must negotiate wealth and race as well as sexuality. Blue Rhonda, Hortensia and Catherine alternate in the role of protagonist, but the book lacks on central character with whom a reader can identify. This results in a more distanced, although no less sensitive...