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eBook Mermaids in the Basement epub

by Michael Lee West

eBook Mermaids in the Basement epub
  • ISBN: 0060184051
  • Author: Michael Lee West
  • Genre: Fiction
  • Subcategory: Women's Fiction
  • Language: English
  • Publisher: Harper; First Edition edition (January 8, 2008)
  • Pages: 304 pages
  • ePUB size: 1473 kb
  • FB2 size 1528 kb
  • Formats rtf lrf txt lit
Michael Lee West Women's Fiction English

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I started Early-Took my Dog-. And visited the Sea-. The Mermaids in the Basement. Came out to look at me-. -EMILY DICKINSON.

I started Early-Took my Dog-. Just Outside the Garden of Eden. Chapter 26. Möet in the Morning. Chapter 27. Till Death Do Us Part and All That Jazz.

This book re-tells the story of Michael Lee West's "Mad Girls In Love. The child Renata has grown up and is seeking information about Louie and Selma, her parents. It seems odd that she doesn't remember a lot of the incidents, especially trying to drown herself in the ocean.

Mermaids in the Basement - Michael Lee West. Just for the record, I don’t go around hitting other women, even if they are all wrong for my daddy; I don’t read tabloids, and I certainly would never steal one, yet that’s exactly what happened.

Michael Lee West has beautifully written an engaging tale of a young woman’s quest to uncover the secrets of her eccentric southern family. Mermaids in the Basement is a worthy addition to her funny. It tells the story of Renata DeChavannes, a screenwriter.

Mermaids in the Basement. Reeling from the loss of her mother, plagued with a bad case of writer's block (and don't even talk about those extra twenty pounds), Renata DeChavannes feels as though everything is just plain wrong. And that was before the tabloids caught her sweetheart, filmmaker Ferg Lauderdale, sharing an intimate squeeze with Hollywood's hottest young tamale. On the bookshelvesAll. by. Michael Lee West. Books for People with Print Disabilities. Contemporary Women, Fiction, General, General, Fiction, Fiction - General. Internet Archive Books. Uploaded by Tracey Gutierres on November 18, 2013. SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata).

Mermaids in the Basement book. Michael Lee West grew up on the Gulf Coast with a wild tribe of Southern cooks. She lives on a farm near Nashville with her family

Mermaids in the Basement book. She lives on a farm near Nashville with her family.

Michael Lee West lives on a farm near Lebanon, Tennessee, surrounded by her husband and a large variety of. .

Michael Lee West lives on a farm near Lebanon, Tennessee, surrounded by her husband and a large variety of animals, both farm and domestic. This hardly qualifies her to write sophisticated, comic romances set in surprising locales. But she's done just that in novels like "Crazy Ladies" and "Mad Girls in Love. Now, she has surpassed herself with "Mermaids in the Basement," the story of a woman who has to go home to comfront all the ghosts of her past.

Southern belles hell-bent on belated truth-telling in West's latest wacky outing (Mad Girls in Love, 2005, et. She spots a tabloid depicting Ferg in a pub in the clutches of man-eating actress Esmé Vasquez, who plays Molly Bloom. After the shopkeeper inflicts an impromptu mullet on Renata, she flees to Alabama, into the sheltering arms of her paternal grandmother, Honora, who’s hosting an engagement party for Louie, Renata’s daddy. When, after a few too many flutes of champagne, Renata confronts Louie’s fiancée, squeaky-voiced Joie, in Honora’s attached garage, Joie rips off Renata’s pearls.

You can also find it at your local bookstore.

The beloved bestselling author of Crazy Ladies returns with a funny and poignant tale that explores the complex bonds between a daughter and her father.

Reeling from the loss of her mother, plagued with a bad case of writer's block (and don't even talk about that extra twenty pounds), Renata DeChavannes feels as though everything is just plain wrong. And that was before the tabloids caught her sweetheart, filmmaker Ferg Lauderdale, sharing an intimate squeeze with Hollywood's hottest young tamale.

But the granddaughter of the formidable Honora DeChavannes possesses more hell than belle in her backbone—and she's about to reclaim it. Heading south to Honora's home on the Gulf Coast, Renata is determined to stop feeling like a wilted gardenia and emerge as the unstoppable kudzu her beloved grandmother proudly proclaimed she would be: "I'll just tell you, Sherman may have burned the South, but kudzu will engulf it." But for that to happen Renata's got to face some not-so-genteel ghosts from her past, discover the truth about the mother she desperately misses, and make peace with the first man who abandoned her and broke her heart—her handsome and distant father.

Comments: (7)
Little Devil
Carrying twenty extra pounds is enough of a load, but Renata DeChavannes rationalizes that she has earned every pound. Five months ago her mother and stepfather died in a plane crash leaving Renata bereft. Recently the National Examiner ran a feature about her boyfriend award winning movie director Ferguson Lauderdale having an affair with actress Esme Vasquez while filming on location in Ireland Joyce's Ulysses. Finally her father Louie informs her that he is marrying again for the nth time with someone younger than her.

However, all that goes on the back burner when Renata obtains a message from her late mom insisting she go "home" to learn her "dirty secrets." A chance to escape Hollywood and her current case of writer's block, Renata leaves for the Alabama's Gulf Coast. There she will do her mom's bidding while seeing the steel magnolia make that tungsten magnolia triad of her grandmother Honora DeChavannes, Renata's former nanny Gladys Boudreaux and longtime friend former actress Isabella D'Agostina McGeehee.

Although the myriad of subplots needs a scorecard (or perhaps a flow chart) to keep track of, fans will enjoy this amusing slice of southern life. The women including Renata's late mother come across as fully developed formidable people while the men especially her boyfriend and her dad seem emaciated in comparison. Still readers will appreciate this humorous but discerning look at you can come home even if a major part of what made it home has passed on.

Harriet Klausner
Adokelv
With all due respect to the writer, I say this as my opinion only. I was born and have lived in the South for 39 years now. As a self-proclaimed Southern Writer, I wish more respect and accuracy had been paid to our lovely culture.

I also think that the writer's editor's ability should be question as I found several mistakes in the book. As a result of this disrespect and these mistakes, I found it hard to finish the book.

I will give the writer credit for having a good PR team.
Granirad
Having grown up in the south, I always look forward to a fluffy beach read about southern women and love gone wrong. That's what I was expecting from this book. I wasn't completely disappointed, but I found the reading a little difficult and was disappointed about the resolution of some of the subplots - of which there were many!

To me, the true theme of the book is learning to love your parents in a different way after finding out that they are truly not what you have believed them to be all of your life. Renata's character is fertile ground for this kind of self-discovery and analysis, but the author doesn't focus there. We don't even get to really understand how Renata is dealing with the death of her mother - the central figure in her life. Practically nothing is written about the months between her death and the beginning of the story.

Instead the prose focuses on simply imparting the information that Renata is missing from her childhood and family/community history.
It is written entirely in the first person, but rotates between SIX central characters. I found it a bit difficult to switch from one person to another, and occasionally had to re-read paragraphs to figure out exactly which character was speaking. It changes at the beginning of most chapters. The prose is rife with name and location details that are difficult to keep straight sometimes, but you have to in order to follow the twisted tangle of familial relationships and "who's sleeping with who". Admittedly, I just didn't want to have to think that much while reading this book!

Most of it reads like a gossip column. I tried hard to love Renata's character, but the author didn't give me much to work with. Renata struck me as kind of bumbling and air-headed. All the southern stereotypes are present here and the only character that I felt had any depth was Honora. And only when she was exploring the complicated relationship she shared with her son Louie. Isabella was way over the top and in my opinion the story could have been told just as well without her.

The plot offered no real surprises and some ended abruptly and a bit contrived, kind of like, okay the book's too long, let's wrap this up quickly. The sub-plots keep popping up throughout the narrative and because they are told from different perspectives, it's hard to keep names and locations straight. And some of the time lapses seem a little odd. Shelby and Andy marry less than 2 months after meeting one another and there is nothing about their courtship or how Shelby emotionally "got to the altar". Given the context of Shelby's life at the time, I wanted to understand how she made that leap. Instead the author explains it away in a few cryptic sentences.

I would recommend this book if you can get it from your local library and have time to sit down and read it in big chunks, so you can keep track of the details.
saafari
I've been a major fan of West's until this book, which I struggled to read right from the beginning. Between the flash backs, flash forwards and present day activity, I was never sure what time-frame I was supposed to be in. The story was told from points of view, but the author didn't see fit to title the chapters with the character's name or anything else that would identify them. It wasn't a good book at all. I still don't know what it was about. I'm just glad I got to the end and was able to shut the thing and be done with it. Sorry I spend the money on it.
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