Wednesday, January 04, 2006

A Heart Divided, by Cherrie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld

When Kate's family moves from New Jersey to a suburb of NAshville TN and tears her away from her fledgling playwright training, Kate is sure that she will hate it. At first every stereotype of the South seems to come true -- from her rich antebellum boyfriend to the Confederate flag flying overhead. But as Kate tries to understand her new ome well enough to write a play about it, she discovers that the more she learns, the less she knows.

I'm inherently distrustful of books about the South. They are either written by Southerners and depict romantic views, or they are written by Yankees, explaining either the superiority or inferiority of the South. Neither approach really gets at the truth and I leave dissatisfied. But this novel gets at the greater complexity of things (and deals with the whole Confederate flag issue to boot!). It tosses in a nice romance story as well. Surprisingly good and recommended.

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