Book Review of
Dimestore
“A memoir that shines with a bright spirit, a generous heart and an entertaining knack for celebrating absurdity.”—The New York Times Book Review“This is Smith at her finest.”—Library Journal, starred review Set deep in the mountains of Virginia, the Grundy of Lee Smith’s youth was a place of coal miners, tent revivals, mountain music, drive-in theaters, and her daddy’s dimestore. When she was sent off to college to gain some “culture,” she understood that perhaps the richest culture she would ever know was the one she was leaving. Lee Smith’s fiction has always lived and breathed with the rhythms and people of the Appalachian South. But never before has she written her own story. Dimestore’s fifteen essays are crushingly honest, wise and perceptive, and superbly entertaining. Together, they create an inspiring story of the birth of a writer and a poignant look at a way of life that has all but vanished.
Lynn's Review
Memoirs are one of my favorite types of books to read. A well written memoir takes you to a time and place that you would never experience. It helps you see a world that you wouldn’t otherwise see. It helps you look into others lives. Lives that are usually very different from your own.
Dimestore A Writer’s Life is a story about the small town Grundy in the mountains of Virginia. A town that is like so many towns in America. It is the type of town and way of life that is vanishing all across the U.S.
Dimestore is a book of essays about life in the mountains of Virginia written by the daughter of a store owner in a small town. It is a honest look at life. It doesn’t paint a rosey picture. It deals with the ups and the downs of small town life that is vanishing in our fast paced world.