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    A Cure for Dreams: A Novel
    Unavailable
    A Cure for Dreams: A Novel
    Unavailable
    A Cure for Dreams: A Novel
    Ebook119 pages2 hours

    A Cure for Dreams: A Novel

    By Kaye Gibbons

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Generations of Southern women deal with hard times and heartless men in this “joyous” novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Ellen Foster (The Washington Post Book World).
     
    In “a witty and explosive story about men and women, bad girls and good girls, love and laundry,” Kaye Gibbons paints a portrait of shrewd, resourceful women prevailing through hardships and finding unexpected pleasures along the way: gossip, gambling, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing more than they’re supposed to (The Houston Post). In A Cure for Dreams, the acclaimed author “once again demonstrates her extraordinary talent . . . Utterly engaging and convincing” (The Boston Globe).
     
    “This episodic novel, Gibbons’s third, is set during the Depression in back-country Virginia and Kentucky. In 19 vignettes, Betty Davies Randolph reveals her childhood and her mother’s life along Milk Farm Road. Gibbons, winner of several literary awards for her first novel Ellen Foster, has captured magnificently the dailiness and sense of community of rural life—from midwives and WPA ballads to suicides and men gone wild. Southern, and full of the folk wisdom of generations, Gibbons’s voice reveals life’s truths.” —Library Journal
     
    “Years from now, [these] women’s clear, strong words will still be resonating in my mind.” —Anne Tyler, Chicago Tribune
     
    “What a good ear Kaye Gibbons has, and what a good heart. A Cure for Dreams takes the reader down the back roads, and then points out what incredible lives are lived in those ordinary places.” —The Washington Post Book World
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJan 3, 1991
    ISBN9781565126909
    Unavailable
    A Cure for Dreams: A Novel
    Author

    Kaye Gibbons

    Kaye Gibbons was born in 1960 in Nash County, North Carolina, on Bend of the River Road. She attended North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying American and English literature. At twenty-six years old, she wrote her first novel, Ellen Foster. She is also the author of A Virtuous Woman, Charms for the Easy Life, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, A Cure for Dreams, Sights Unseen, and Divining Women.

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    Reviews for A Cure for Dreams

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Once I'd read [Ellen Foster] I couldn't' get enough of Kaye Gibbons, and devoured all the books by her I could find. This one is set in the small towns of Virginia and Kentucky and celebrates strong women who survive within their rural communities.
    • 5/5
      Like Erskine Caldwell, Irene Nemirovsky, Kaye Gibbons is an author who writes books that appeal to me, this one is no exception. A
    • 5/5
      A Cure for dreams is set during the Depression in back-country Virginia and Kentucky. Betty Davies Randolph reveals her childhood and her mother's life along Milk Farm Road, capturing a bits of old-school South; it seems like bad things are bubbling just under the surface, waiting to burst free. She recounts a world where human passions are often dark and where salvation is not often forthcoming. Gibbons has not written a dark novel. The ameliorating effects of resilient women and family relationships bring a sense of the continuation of life, of birth and love and the land.This book made me think about the relationships between generations and the effect they have on our lives. It also made me feel sad for the current generation of young parents. Due to the transient nature of our country, many, including my own, are far from home places and family. They do not get to know the sense of place that comes from having several generations within an easy commute. I think their lives are poorer for it.
    • 4/5
      Gibbons' writing is excellent, and she provides just enough details. The book provided an illuminating picture of people I was not very knowledgeable about. The story was very interesting, and I'm glad I read it, but in the end, it did not amount to too much. I am conflicted; maybe I should just accept it for what it was.
    • 3/5
      This very short and spare novel features Betty Davies Randolph telling the story of her mother, and of her own childhood and young adulthood, marriage, and her daughter's birth. Betty and her mother Lottie were both strong women who led their lives as they saw fit (though they weren't necessarily happy in the end--are these stories meant to be the cure for her own daughter's dreams?). As usual, I would have liked more--especially more from Marjorie. I definitely want to read Gibbons' better-known works.