Lee Smith (fiction author)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other people named Lee Smith, see Lee Smith (disambiguation).

Lee Smith
Born (1944-11-01) November 1, 1944 (age 79)
Grundy, Virginia, U.S.
OccupationWriter
NationalityAmerican
Alma materHollins College
GenreFiction
SpouseJames Seay (divorced)
​
(m. 1985)​
Children2
Website
leesmith.com

Lee Smith (born November 1, 1944) is an American fiction writer who often incorporates her background from the

New York Times bestseller's list and won the Southern Book Critics Circle Award.[1]

Early life and education

Smith was born in 1944 in

Levisa Fork River ran just behind it. Her mother, Virginia Elizabeth née Marshall, known as "Gig", was a college graduate who taught school. Her father, Ernest Lee Smith, was the owner and operator of a Ben Franklin store in Grundy.[2]

Growing up in the Appalachian Mountains of

go-go dancers for an all-girl rock band, the Virginia Woolfs. In 1966, her senior year at Hollins, Smith submitted an early draft of a coming-of-age novel
to a Book-of-the-Month Club contest and was awarded one of twelve fellowships. Two years later, that novel, The Last Day the Dog Bushes Bloomed (Harper & Row, 1968), became Smith's first published work of fiction.

Since 1968, she has published fifteen novels, as well as four collections of

short stories, and has received many writing awards. Her memoir Dimestore: A Writer’s Life published in 2016 and constructed as a series of personal essays,[3] is the story of her life in Grundy and beyond.[4]

Career

Following her graduation from Hollins, Smith married James Seay, a poet and teacher, whom she accompanied from university to university as his teaching assignments changed. They had two sons. In 1971 she had completed her second novel, Something in the Wind, which garnered generally favorable reviews. Her next novel was Fancy Strut (1973).

In 1974 Smith and her family moved to

Book-of-the-Month Club
featured selection, exposing Smith for the first time to a wide national audience.

In 1985 she published Family Linen. That same year Smith - who was by then divorced from Seay - married journalist Hal Crowther, to whom she dedicated the new book.

Since then, Smith has published

New York Times Bestseller
The Last Girls in 2002.

On Agate Hill (2006), is set in the piedmont South during

Reconstruction. The New York Times found the young narrator's voice to be occasionally unconvincing, but praised "Smith's inventive storytelling".[5]

Guests on Earth (2013) is based on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald. It is narrated by Evalina Toussaint, a former piano prodigy living in a mental hospital where she meets Zelda.[6] The Washington Post called it "a carefully researched, utterly charming novel".[7]

In April 2020, Smith published Blue Marlin, a novella that follows Jenny, an adventurous thirteen-year-old, down to Key West for a patched-up family vacation following the discovery of her father’s illicit affair. The book was published by Blair.

In April 2023, Smith published Silver Alert.

Smith currently lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina with husband Hal Crowther.[1]

Bibliography

Novels

  • The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed (1968)
  • Something in the Wind (1971)
  • Fancy Strut (1973)
  • Black Mountain Breakdown (1980)
  • Oral History (1983)
  • Family Linen (1985)
  • Fair and Tender Ladies (1988)
  • The Devil's Dream (1992)
  • Saving Grace (1995)
  • The Christmas Letters (1996)
  • The Last Girls (2003)
  • On Agate Hill (2006)[8]
  • Guests on Earth (2013)
  • Blue Marlin (2020)
  • Silver Alert (2023)

Short story collections

  • Cakewalk (1981)
  • Me and My Baby View the Eclipse (1990)
  • News of the Spirit (1997)
  • Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger (2010)

Memoir

References

  1. ^ a b c Weeks, Isaac (October 12, 2013). "Bookstores celebrate Southern writer Lee Smith's 45 years of publishing". Raleigh News and Observer. Archived from the original on January 16, 2014. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  2. ^ ""Virginia, Bureau of Vital Statistics, County Marriage Registers, 1853-1935"". Familysearch.org.
  3. ^ "Lee Smith | Dimestore".
  4. ^ Webb, Gina. "Lee Smith writes what she knows in memoir 'Dimestore'". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Atlanta Courier-Journal. Retrieved January 29, 2017.
  5. ^ Hoffman, Roy (October 8, 2006). "History's Child". New York Times. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  6. ^ Wolfe Boynton, Cindy (October 19, 2013). "REVIEW: 'Guests on Earth,' by Lee Smith". Minneapolis Star Tribune. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  7. ^ See, Carolyn (November 15, 2013). "GUESTS ON EARTH, by Lee Smith (review)". Washington Post. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  8. ISBN 1-56512-452-9
    .

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lee_Smith_(fiction_author)&oldid=1187860167"