Lee Smith

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Maryland

A Novel

Thirty-five years after a trip down the Mississippi on a raft with their classmates, four women are reunited to cruise the river once again where they plan to release the ashes of a fellow rafter, Margaret "Baby" Ballou.

The Last Girls

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Louisiana

Discovered in the ruins of a North Carolina plantation, an old box of mementos brings to life the world of young Molly Petree, an orphan growing up in the smoldering remains of the post-Civil War American South.

On Agate Hill

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Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Missouri

Arkansas

Revered for her powerful female characters, Smith tells a brilliant story of how college pals who grew up in an era when they were still called "girls" have negotiated life as "women."

West Virginia

Minnesota

Alabama

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Michigan

“Reading Lee Smith ranks among the great pleasures of American fiction . . . Gives evidence again of the grace and insight that distinguish her work.” —Robert Stone, author of Death of the Black-Haired Girl It’s 1936 when orphaned thirteen-year-old Evalina Toussaint is admitted to Highland Hospital, a mental institution in Asheville, North Carolina, known for its innovative treatments for nervous disorders and addictions. Taken under the wing of the hospital’s most notable patient, Zelda Fitzgerald, Evalina witnesses cascading events that lead up to the tragic fire of 1948 that killed nine women in a locked ward, Zelda among them. Author Lee Smith has created, through a seamless blending of fiction and fact, a mesmerizing novel about a world apart--in which art and madness are luminously intertwined.

Guests on Earth

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The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U. S. History

Investigative journalist Lee Smith uses his unprecedented access to Congressman Devin Nunes, former head of the House Intelligence Committee, to expose the deep state operation against the president -- and the American people.

Investigative journalist Lee Smith's The Plot Against the Presidenttells the story of how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the commander-in-chief. While popular opinion holds that Russia subverted democratic processes during the 2016 elections, the real damage was done not by Moscow or any other foreign actor. Rather, this was a slow-moving coup engineered by a coterie of the American elite, the "deep state," targeting not only the president, but also the rest of the country.


The plot officially began July 31, 2016 with the counterintelligence investigation that the FBI opened to probe Russian infiltration of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. But the bureau never followed any Russians. In fact, it was an operation to sabotage Trump, the candidate, then president-elect, and finally the presidency. The conspirators included political operatives, law enforcement and intelligence officials, and the press.


The plot was uncovered by Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his investigative team. They understood that the target of the operation wasn't just Trump, but rather the institutions that sustain our republic. A country where operatives use the intelligence and security services to protect their privileges by spying on Americans, coordinating with the press, and using extra-constitutional means to undermine an election then undo a presidency is more like the third world than the republic envisioned by the founding fathers.


Without Nunes and his team, the plot against the president -- and against the country -- never would have been revealed. Told from the perspective of Nunes and his crack investigators -- men and women who banded together to do the right thing at a crucial moment for our democracy -- the story of the biggest political scandal in a generation reads like a great detective novel, feels like a classic cowboy movie. The congressman from the cattle capital of California really did fight corruption in Washington. Devin Nunes took on the "deep state."

The Plot Against the President

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There is a black remainder mark on the bottom pages.

Arizona

This funny and endearing novel of family, secrets, and aging follows an elderly man who heads off on a joyride with a new young friend--who may have some secrets of her own.



A driving force in literature, the one and only Lee Smith returns with a road trip novel, a story full of hope and humor about not going away quietly--at any age.



Aging Herb's charmed life with his dear wife, Susan, in their Key West house is coming undone. Susan now needs constant care, and Herb is in denial about his own ailing health. The one bright spot is the arrival of an endlessly optimistic manicurist calling herself Renee. She sings to Susan during manicures, gets her to paint, and brings her a sense of contentment.



But then Herb and Susan's adult children arrive to stage an intervention on their stubborn, independent father, and as a consequence, Renee's gig with Susan--and her grand plans for her own life--start to unravel as well. So much had seemed as if it could change for Renee, who is not the happy, uncomplicated young girl she pretends to be. She is actually named Dee Dee, and she's fleeing a dark past.



And Herb can't just let go of all that he has ever had. So, he suggests one last joy ride in his Porsche. And the two take off north out of Key West, soon setting off a Silver Alert. As the unlikely friendship between Herb and Dee Dee deepens, we see how as one life is closing down, another opens up.



In this buoyant novel, the masterful Smith asks: What do we deserve? And how do we make it our own? Sometimes, you just have to seize the wheel.



Fans of Smith's many books in her storied, bestselling career won't want to miss her newest novel. And readers of novels like Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes will adore Silver Alert.

 

Silver Alert

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Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Virginia

"Delightful and entertaining." PEOPLE When Jennifer, a college student, returns to her childhood home of Hoot Owl Holler with a tape recorder, the tales of murder and suicide, incest and blood ties, bring to life a vibrant story of a doomed family that still refuses to give up.... "Deft and assured....[Lee Smith] is nothing less than masterly." THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW From the Paperback edition.

Oral History

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Pennsylvania

" Lee Smith] re-creates a vanished way of life with stunning authenticity."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

Speed, Alabama, is frantically preparing for the event of a lifetime: Sesquicentennial Week. And all her proud citizens are kicking up their heels in a lively, pompous fancy strut. . . .

Praise for Fancy Strut

"Smith offers ripe entertainment."--People

" She] brings the storytelling gift off the porch swing and onto the printed page with an often breathtaking vitality. . . . A writer of rare talent."--Publishers Weekly

"A spellbinding storyteller."--Newsday

" Smith] has the gift of a McCullers or a Faulkner of catching the sorrow, irony, and humor indigenous to the Southern temperament."--Booklist

Fancy Strut

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New York

North Dakota

On a beautiful June day in 1965, a dozen girls-classmates at a picturesque Blue Ridge women's college-launched their homemade raft (inspired by Huck Finn's) on a trip down the Mississippi. It's Girls A-Go-Go Down the Mississippi read the headline in the Paducah, Kentucky, paper.Thirty-five years later, four of those "girls" reunite to cruise the river again. This time it's on the luxury steamboat, The Belle of Natchez, and there's no publicity. This time, when they reach New Orleans, they'll give the river the ashes of a fifth rafter-beautiful Margaret ("Baby") Ballou.
Revered for her powerful female characters, here Lee Smith tells a brilliantly authoritative story of how college pals who grew up in an era when they were still called "girls" have negotiated life as "women." Harriet Holding is a hesitant teacher who has never married (she can't explain why, even to herself). Courtney Gray struggles to step away from her Southern Living-style life. Catherine Wilson, a sculptor, is suffocating in her happy third marriage. Anna Todd is a world-famous romance novelist escaping her own tragedies through her fiction. And finally there is Baby, the girl they come to bury-along with their memories of her rebellions and betrayals.
THE LAST GIRLS is wonderful reading. It's also wonderfully revealing of women's lives-of the idea of romance, of the relevance of past to present, of memory and desire.

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Ohio

"LUCID IN EXECUTION, BREATHTAKING IN SCOPE AND HEART-RENDING IN EFFECT--A REDEMPTIVE WORK OF ART. . . . Lee Smith has done more than write another novel about the South. She has broken through the grotesque surface to the underground spring, the music of Scrabble Creek, and the effect is stunning--a beguiling, gentle prose formed by an honesty so severe we are brought to our knees. . . . This novel has a grand and singular purpose, to clothe the spirit with flesh. In this, Lee Smith succeeds."
--The Washington Post Book World
"A compelling journey into all matters southern and spiritual . . . . Set in North Carolina and Tennessee, we follow young Grace Shepherd from a cabin in the bucolic poverty of Scrabble Creek to independence as a single woman. Stops along the way include seduction by a half-brother, a failed marriage, motherhood, the loss of her son, residence in the aptly-named Creekside apartments in Knoxville and a job waitressing. . . . While Grace's path may be a journey many of us would not choose to undertake, we have to raise a small fist of jubilance to Grace for having survived."
--The Boston Sunday Globe
"Ms. Smith possesses a fine talent for creating narrative voices, whether the ungrammatical eloquence of a hill-country healer or the educated affectations of a Richmond gentleman."
--The New York Times Book Review
"Lee Smith patiently woos us into double vision. . . . As her fans know, [she] has one of the truest ears for the speech in her part of the world."
--Los Angeles Times Book Review

Saving Grace  (71)

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New Jersey

Illinois

Kentucky

"A TOUR DE FORCE" - Los Angeles Times "The story of Ivy Rowe, born near the turn of the century in the Virginia Mountain enclave of Sugar Fork, is told completely through letters that Ivy is forever writing family and friends...Lee Smith exhibits her own understanding and affection for the traditions of the Appalachians. She is at home with the down-home speech and ways of her characters. They come vividly to life, and none more so than Ivy, whose voice and heart and humor sustain Fair and Tender Ladies." - Philadelphia Inquirer "Because of Ivy's narrative ability and her zest for living, Fair and Tender Ladies opens for us like a flower with a gloriously unexpected center. There are unforgettable characters...Few readers will be dry-eyed as they watch this extraordinary woman disappear around that last bend in the road." -Chicago Tribune "These beautiful letters...display Ivy's soul up close, the way a just-caught firefly illuminates a jar. So real does she become that it is hard to believe that Ivy did not actually live to write her letters." -USA Today "This is about a moving a work of literature as has ever been written." ANNIE DILLARD

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