Mayes' Magnolia

UNDER MAGNOLIA: A SOUTHERN MEMOIR
by Frances Mayes

I've enjoyed reading many of Frances Mayes' books and I look forward to reading this - her memoir. Here, to pique your interest, are quotes from her blog:

"I grew up in Fitzgerald, Georgia after World War II and on the cusp of the civil rights movement. We were the last isolated generation–before widespread TV–and a small town deep in South Georgia seemed a world unto itself. For me, a marvelous world. I loved the land, the flat horizon, the fragrant nights, the rain that “walked” across the fields, the sun that could melt gold. Like many southern families, mine had it’s share of wild, eccentric characters. They were full of love but flailed about in preposterous ways, unable to figure out how to live. I grew up. And thrived. And that green, green world still exists whole in memory, that vast terrarium."

and:

"I hope you will like taking this journey with me back into the deep South. If you’ve read my (mostly) sunny, happy books about Tuscany, you might be surprised by my early life. Oddly enough, I was always confident of my happiness. I never doubted it! The best thing writing a memoir might do for the writer is to reveal that you were always exactly yourself, inevitable as a planted seed, regardless of circumstance. I see that I started out writing my life."

There is more to read, but you must take yourself over to her blog for that! And this is how you get there:

Frances Mayes Blog and Website