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Family Linen | 
| Author: Lee Smith
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $13.94 (100%)
Rating:  19 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0345410602
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780345410603
ASIN: 0345410602
Publication Date: August 27, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Some wear on book from reading, some spine creases, wear on binding and pages, we guarantee all purchases and ship all items via USPS mail.
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| Customer Reviews:
 LEE SMITH IS SOLID GOLD February 5, 2007
Pamela A. Poddany (Toledo, Ohio)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book revolves around a Southern family that has their share of secrets. This book is not only a WHO-DUN-IT? but also very, very funny. The characters are all related somehow and are all very comical. The writing flows and you will immediately be caught up in the great story and plot.
We first meet Sybill, one of the family, who finally seeks help from a hypnotist for her dreadful recurring headaches. The hypnotist puts her under and BAM! Sybill flashes back to her childhood and remembers witnessing a horrible, awful, dreadful murder that involves her sweet, kind, proper, mother, Miss Elizabeth.
Sybill returns at once to her hometown of Booker Creek for answers. Unfotunatley, Miss Elizabeth is unconscious in the hospital and cannot answer any of her questions. But the story does not end there!!!!
Now we meet all of Sybill's family -- her sister Myrtle who has it all -- money, THE house, a doctor hubby, looks great, is the perfect hostess, has the perfect life or does she? Myrtle's husband, Dr. Don, who runs the entire show and loves his wife's family, perhaps a little too much -- and a cast of other brothers/sisters/nieces/nephews/cousins -- they are all unique and wonderful and FUN.
This is a book that I highly recommend. Lee Smith has the absolute best writing ability to weave, weave, weave, the story, the characters, the plot, and all the FUN into a great big satisfying book that is full of insights into life, laughs, and surprises.
Read this book. You won't be disappointed. Ms. Smith is one of THE BEST AUTHORS around these days! You can't go wrong!!!!!
Thanks -- Pam
 Desensitized September 15, 2006
Lindsay R. Baxter (South Carolina)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
The very first of Smith's books that I encountered was Fair & Tender Ladies. I became instantly and permanently attached to that novel. I later read Devil's Dream; great as well, but not to the calibur of the previous.
The third novel I read of hers was the one in question: Family Linen.
It is always interesting and depressing and englightening all at the same time to read a favored author's earliest works. It is amazing to see where she began and how she has changed in her calibur and designs. That is why I think Family Linen is recommendable. Beyond that, the book seemed no different than reading a top 10 bestseller that would fall out of history within weeks. I had to keep flipping the book over to make sure I was still reading a book by my favored author. BUT. She came out of this wonderfully and has written some incredible fiction since--in fact, I believe that if she had not written such wonderful things later in life, that Family Linen would have indeed failed to make the annals of noted literature. As it is, I can't wait for her next novel/work to go to press!
This Is The Greatest Book................ November 8, 2005
J. Jeffries (TN United States)
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
you will not want to end. When it does, it will stay with you for days. Lee Smith is one of my favorites!
Rich "Southern" Surprise September 26, 2004
M. G Jackson (New York City)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Enjoyable treat! My first Lee Smith read, I was very surprised at how rich and satisfying it was, surprised mainly because of the well-meaning but missed-the-point critic blurbs on the cover which prepared me for breezy back-porch southern blarney, an enjoyable genre but not at all accurate for "Family Linen". This is tangled Barbara Vine territory, dark family secrets and a mystery that become inscrutable no more, only told in the direct and empathetic voice of an Anne Tyler. With family disfunction that could easily have been rendered as southern-gothic, Smith's story is told with clear-eyed respect for character and for plot development.
It all comes out in the wash October 23, 2002
M. Ellis (Gulf Coast, Alabama)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
Nobody is better than Lee Smith when it comes to creating marvelous characters and Family Linen is filled with them. No cardboard creatures these, but full bodied human beings most of whom are somewhere in our own lives. My only quarrel with Smith is that she sometimes gets so deeply involved with these characters, she forgets to tell us where they are going. Family Linen does have more of a plot and a mystery that will keep the reader turning the pages until it is solved. And even when we know, the characters are still the strongest force in the book.Read it and see which one of your neighbors or relatives are right there to be discovered.
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