Landscapes of the Heart - (Voices of the South) by Elizabeth Spencer (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

With charm and vivid detail, the acclaimed novelist Elizabeth Spencer acquaints readers with the places and people, the pleasures and heartaches, she has known in her life. From her idyllic childhood in small-town Mississippi onward, a questioning spirit and voracity for reading and writing shape Spencer's course: her formal and informal educations at Vanderbilt and in Rome, Florence, New York, and Montreal, and her break with the culturally rigid segregated society from which she sprang; her friendships with such great writers as Eudora Welty, Saul Bellow, John Cheever, and Robert Penn Warren; and her own many remarkable literary successes. A deeply affecting memoir by an esteemed American author, Landscapes of the Heart reveals Spencer to be both a part of and forever apart from her beloved southern roots.

Review Quotes

"Brilliantly rendered.... A story of change and loss, of hard-headed narrow-mindedness and terrible violence, it is also bursting with hopefulness, joy, and memorable eccentric characters."

About the Author

Elizabeth Spencer was the author of many novels, including The Voice at the Back Door, The Salt Line, The Night Travellers, and This Crooked Way, and several short fiction collections, including The Southern Woman. Her work has been widely translated and has merited numerous awards. She was a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.