Carolina Moon

January 1, 1996
The sad, gritty truths about life have always poked through the graceful prose and smart, funny dialogue of McCorkle's novels and stories (Ferris Beach, Crash Diet, etc.), and here again she illuminates the ways that infidelity, illness, sexual passion and existential desperation can afflict ordinary lives. Her central character, blowsy, outspoken, 60-ish-but-still-sensual Quee Purdy, is a mysterious woman who knows many secret things about her neighbors, and who has a gift, and a mission, for helping those who come to her with their problems. What they don't know about Quee, however, is that, 25 years ago, Cecil Lowe made love to her just before he committed suicide, leaving a wife and toddler son. Bewildered and bereft, Quee has written unsigned, histrionic letters to her departed lover ever since, creating a thick dead letter file in the Fulton, N.C., post office. Meanwhile, Cecil's son grew up to be a skirt-chaser, but his one true love married someone else. Now Quee's goddaughter Denny Parks--who has arrived to work as a message therapist in Quee's newest enterprise, a smoke-enders clinic--falls for Tom. Theirs is not the only romantic liaison that Quee engineers; in fact many different fates--including a well-deserved murder--are played out with Quee's connivance. McCorkle interweaves these plot strands well, but in other respects this novel falters. Quee's letters, though meant to convey her lusty personality, are irritating to read; and too many scenes in the novel seem contrived. While she unleashes some nice surprises and illustrates her theme--that everyone is haunted by the ghosts of their dreams and the legacies of their pasts--McCorkle has not quite succeeded in making the citizens of Fulton as irresistible as those in her earlier books. Author tour.

November 1, 1996
What has happened to Jones Jameson, the DJ who is the Howard Stern of Fulton, North Carolina's local radio station? Why does Tom Lowe, the town handyman who lives with his herd of stray dogs in a camper on his property in the middle of Fulton's newest upper-class suburb, drive out to the beach every day at low tide? And who wrote the mysterious letters addressed to "Wayward One" that Fulton post-master Wallace Johnson reads passionately as if they were addressed to him? At the center of these mysteries is Quee Purdy, the proprieter of the town's newest smoking clinic, Smoke-Signals, whose motto is "Put out your butt and bring your butt in." Indeed, Quee is like a spider at the center of her web who has wrapped each character in the silken threads that she has cast out. The New South of Wal-Marts and shopping malls meets the Old South of haunted longings for family order and property in McCorkle's rollicking tale of love, sex, and addiction in a small Southern town. The razor-sharp humorous portrayal of the disintegration of a small town is reminiscent of McCorkle's best early work like July 7th. Highly recommended.-Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., Ohio

January 1, 1997
YA-Quee Mary Stutts Purdy, cake decorator, seamstress, masseuse, and therapist, opens a no-smoking clinic as well as her heart to the inhabitants of Fulton, NC. Her clients and her staff have more problems than just nicotine addiction. Denny, Quee's goddaughter, leaves a boring husband whose lot in academic life is researching writers with allergies. Her exit is quite public and self-fulfilling. Aliola is the wife of Jones Jameson, the town's sickening radio personality and habitual womanizer. Missing for several days, he is found in a neighbor's garden-dead. Tom, the helpful hired hand, is trying to deal with his past while contemplating a romance with Denny. These and other characters are lively and lead the way through this novel of humor, mystery, and the hazards of the heart. Readers are drawn into the story by soon-to-be retired postal worker Wallace Johnson. He has collected 25 years worth of letters surrounding the suicide of Tom's father. The story connects the townsfolk's personalities, secrets, and misunderstandings. Absorbing and entertaining-much like the characters whose lives are touched by Quee Pur-Day.-Connie Freeman, Alen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IN

August 1, 1996
McCorkle's warm, involving novel (her sixth book) is set in the small town of Fulton, North Carolina, and revolves around bighearted Quee Purdy. Quee is a sixtysomething entrepreneur who has just opened a no-smoking clinic ("Put your butt out and bring your butt in" ), where smokers are loved and pampered right out of their addiction. Her clinic serves as the hub for many charming if wayward folks, including therapist Denny Parks, on the run from a bad marriage and a bad case of nerves, and handyman Tom Lowe, who daily paces off the boundaries of his sunken, underwater property, the sum total of his inheritance from his father. Indeed, Tom, consumed by a past romance and his father's suicide, sees himself as a kind of ghost, until Denny shows him another way. McCorkle is really cooking in this funny, tender story, in which she juggles overlapping plot lines and multiple points of view while writing so compellingly about those whose lives have gone astray and are then renewed. She wears her artistry lightly, casually, and she wears it well. ((Reviewed Aug. 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)

May 1, 1998
McCorkle gives herself over to her stories like a dancer surrenders to music, and, consequently, they flow as naturally across the page as a stream rounds rocks. Each tale in her first collection since "Crash Diet" (1992) sparkles with mischievous humor and affection and reveals an unabashed fascination with how people cope with the boons and forfeitures of life. Dysfunctional relationships of all kinds figure prominently in each story, including "Life Prerecorded," a sweet and funny chronicle of a pregnancy, and "Last Request," a consideration of marriage. McCorkle's spin on the human condition is gratifyingly inventive, whether she's portraying a guy who prefers listening to his perennial rock-'n'-roll favorites to confronting reality, or a woman so fed up with her married lover that she appeals to his wife in "Your Husband Is Cheating on Us." McCorkle, author, too, of five novels, does tap into her southern roots, but her vision extends far beyond regional parameters, making her a natural choice for fans of Jane Hamilton as well as Lee Smith. ((Reviewed May 1, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)