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A lyrical and evocative memoir from Frances Mayes, the Bard of Tuscany, about arriving of age in the Deep South and the region's powerful influence on her life.The author of three favorite tales about her life in Italy, including Under the Tuscan Sun and Every Day in Tuscany, Frances Mayes revisits the turning tips that described her early years in Fitzgerald, Georgia. With her personal style and grace, Mayes explores the power of landscape, the thought of home, and the long lasting force of an chaotic and caring family. From her years as a spirited, secretive child, through her school studies - a period of exquisite independence that imbued her with a serious appreciation of a friendly relationship and a love of travel - to her get away to a fresh life in California, Mayes exuberantly recreates the powerful interactions of her past, recounting the bitter and sugary experiences of her complicated family: her beautiful yet fragile mother, Frankye; her unpredictable dad, Garbert; Daddy Jack port, whose life Garbert preserved; grandmother Mom Mayes; and the family maid, Frances's confidant Willie Bell.Under Magnolia is a searingly honest, funny, and moving ode to family and place, and a thoughtful yoga on the ways they determine us, or cause us to determine ourselves. With acute sensory language, Mayes relishes the sweetness of the South, the smells and flavor at her family table, the fragrance of her hometown trees and shrubs, and creates an unforgettable story of a woman whose perspicacity and dawning self-knowledge lead her from the South and in to the rest of the world, and then to a serious return home.
