This is an auction for UNDER MAGNOLIA: A SOUTHERN MEMOIR by Frances Mayes.

“One of those books you want to devour but realize it’s more satisfying to savour for as long as possible.”

• a *** starred *** review in Kirkus Reviews (US)

“As gothic as anything Faulkner could have dreamed up, populated by characters straight out of a Flannery O’Connor story…a thorny memoir that strips away the polite Southern masks, sweet magnolias be damned. Unforgettable.” – Atlanta Journal Constitution

"Mayes, adored for her famed Tuscany books (Under the Tuscan Sun etc), mined the murky depths of her family’s history for her first novel, Swan (2002). She now returns to the scene of the crimes in both literal and figurative senses. Her “southern memoir” is a tale straight out of Faulkner, rife with episodes of dissipation and disillusion, parents who loved and fought with equally wild abandon, and ancestors with names like Big Mama and Daddy Jack. While on a book tour in Oxford, Mississippi, Mayes realized her southern roots ran deeper than she believed or would have liked. But she and her husband were sufficiently compelled to relocate from Northern California to North Carolina, settling in a university town with a far enough remove to allow her an objective distance from which to analyse the signature episodes of her childhood. With her trademark skill for capturing the essence of place and time, Mayes candidly reveals a youth riddled with psychological abuse and parental neglect that, nevertheless, ignited a fiery passion for adventure and self-discovery."

• Booklist (US)

Large format (trade) paperback 2014.

293 pages.

Photographs throughout.

Very good condition.

The cost of shipping is $4.95, or $6.95 by tracked mail. If you are on rural delivery and want tracked mail, the shipping cost will be $9.95.

There is of course no charge for shipping if you collect this book from my store in Palmerston North following the auction.

Payment within seven days, please.