“An accurate and heart-wrenching picture of the sensibilities of the American South.” Kirkus Book Reviews
The heart has a home when it has an ally. If Millie Crossan doesn’t know anything else, she knows this one truth simply because her brother Finley grew up beside her. Charismatic Finley, eighteen months her senior, becomes Millie’s guide when their mother Posey leaves their father and moves … their mother Posey leaves their father and moves her children from Minnesota to Memphis shortly after Millie’s tenth birthday.
Memphis is a world foreign to Millie and Finley. This is the 1970s Memphis, the genteel world of their mother’s upbringing and vastly different from anything they’ve ever known. Here they are the outsiders. Here, they only have each other. And here, as the years fold over themselves, they mature in a manicured Southern culture where they learn firsthand that much of what glitters isn’t gold. Nuance, tradition, and Southern eccentrics flavor Millie and Finley’s world as they find their way to belonging.
But what hidden variables take their shared history to leave both brother and sister at such disparate ends?more
Have you ever finished a book and needed time to allow it to sit inside of you, settle around your heart before you are able to talk about it?
Claire Fullerton’s third novel, Mourning Dove, the recipient of multiple awards and accolades, had that kind of effect on me. At the heart of this novel is Millie Crossan, a sister searching for what went wrong with Finley, her golden brother eighteen months her senior.
One of the author’s gifts is her ability to write about sibling relationships, whether she’s talking about childhood or those in-between years into early adulthood. She has a knack for writing about time and place, inviting us inside a certain segment of society where money and class give the illusion that all is well. But once we’re inside the big house on the hill, we see through Millie’s eyes that behind the exterior facade, a family crumples under the influence of expectations and perceptions, addictions, and keeping up appearances.
Sometimes betrayal and forgiveness walk side by side, just as joy and sorrow often rub shoulders at the same party. Finley, a charismatic young man with good looks, intellect, and musical gifts above average, is a natural leader with the propensity to draw all types of people to his side, including his little sister. Like Millie, we tag along hoping Finley will turn around and notice us, flash his charm or tousle our hair, or even take our hand and lead us back to our beginnings where all things are possible.
It’s no secret that loss is at the heart of this beautifully rendered tale, for the title gives it away. But all of life is full of loss and longing and our endearing desire to both control it and let go at the same time.
So much of Millie’s search can be summed up in one quote near the end of the novel: “And what unsettles me to no end is the recognition that the choices that shape our lives are not always of our making. Sometimes we’re on the bitter end of somebody else’s.”
Some readers may approach this novel simply to revel in its rich Memphis setting of high society and the mansion located at 79 Kensington Park, built in the early 1900s. Others like me will keep turning the pages, putting ourselves in Millie’s shoes. For I have been Millie searching for that lost brother. Like Millie, I will never have all of the answers, but somehow reading about this fictional family helps me sort through my own past and present circumstances.
The novel is full of descriptive lines that add to the flavor: “Blankets were arranged and cups passed around in this starlit Memphis light, sultry and loose as a slip dress.”
If you love novels steeped in family drama and characters so well formed you expect them to walk into the room and start talking, you will love Mourning Dove. You’ll find yourself, along with Millie, trailing up the serpentine stairs in search of her brother.
You do not need to hail from Memphis, the moneyed set, or even the south to find yourself pulled into this remarkable story.
Claire Fullerton’s Mourning Dove is an exquisite coming-of-age tale set against the backdrop of Memphis, circa 1970. With her haunting, lyrical prose, Fullerton immediately and effortlessly transports the reader south of the Mason-Dixon Line from the very first sentence.
Fullerton superbly spins the tale of a brother and sister, Finley and Millie Crossan, who are forced, due to their father’s alcoholism, to leave their rather relaxed existence in the woods of Minnesota and take up refuge with their mother’s family in the heart of the a “manicured south,” a bastion of grace and manners and respectability. Though their mother is able to deftly pick up just where she left off, as though her first marriage was merely an unpleasant aberration, Finley and Millie find it harder to fit in. They are immediately welcomed into the inner circle of the Memphis elite by virtue of their mother, but somehow they nonetheless remain outsiders.
When their mother very quickly marries an exacting, domineering man, a shade of something darker casts its shadow across Finley and Millie’s world, widening the cracks already formed by the shattering of their original family.
Mourning Dove is an achingly beautiful tale of love in all its myriad forms—a story that lingers long after the last page is read. Fullerton is an author to watch. Highly recommend!
A thought-provoking, emotional, deep-reaching narrative.
Claire Fullerton has masterfully weaved a story by bringing her gift of language and defining elements to the lives of her characters and truth to their southern heritage steeped deep within.
Mourning Dove will touch on many emotions as it creeps into your veins like a slow southern drawl. It’s poetic, it’s sharp and holds many a meaning as to the sensibilities of the South in the 1970’s for one family and their move to begin again.
It is a story of purpose and direction as our main characters find their place in life through the good, the bad, the indifferent. A story of exploration through darkness and the ever-changing atmosphere that exudes the family dynamic. It is colorful, rich, profound and true to it’s Fictinal, Southern-saga genre.
I highly recommend this story to anyone who is drawn to the sentimental, the dysfunctional, perfection, love and loss that makes for an articulate, realistic storyline.
Claire Fullerton has delivered consistently through this novel with her writing prowess pertaining to southern gentiity, whimsy and heartbreak and by bringing it to a story that will leave you satisfied with its place in your heart.
I thank Claire for this personal gift of Morning Dove, one in which I thoroughly enjoyed reading and reviewing.
5 Stars
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I am not sure that anyone who is not born into the opulent, and long cultivated upper echelons of Southern culture, would be able to slip into its charming, but strictly adhered to rules of engagement easily. Especially when you are on the cusp of your teen years and brought up in the very different environment. As are Millie aged ten and her brother Finlay, who is eighteen months older.
“We had Minnesota accents, we were white as the driven snow, and we both had a painfully difficult time deciphering the Southern accent, which operates at lightening speed, and doesn’t feel the need for enunciation. Instead, it trips along the lines of implication.”
Posey comes from an affluent Southern family and was brought up in a sprawling stucco French Chateau which she left having met a charismatic and rich Yankee. Her marriage is over, and the wealth that she is accustomed to is gone; and she has little choice but to return to her family home in Memphis. She slips right back into society where she left off, as she takes over the running of the house, and with four years until an income will be available from her inherited trust fund, other means must be found.
The intricacies of the society that the two children find themselves inserted into, has little relation to the outside world. Steeped in tradition, long forged alliances, eccentricities and acceptable behaviour, stretching back through many generations. Little has changed, and that is the way it is orchestrated to remain. Clearly defined roles for males and females are perpetuated in the schooling that prepares the young to continue the status quo into the future, and non-conformity is frowned upon. You will fit in or face exclusion.
This novel is about the relationship between a brother and sister and is written from Millie’s perspective, now 36 years old, as she revisits their childhood and teenage years. She is looking for answers and clues as to where her relationship with Finlay, which had been so solid and close, began to disconnect. Without a doubt for me one of elements that is crucial to this, is their mother, and Claire Fullerton has done a masterful job in creating her self-absorbed but somehow vulnerable character.
“My mother did not walk into a room, she sashayed, borne from the swivel of her twenty-four inch waist. Her name was Posey, and although there was a lot more to her that she ever let on, to all appearances, the name suited her perfectly.”
The story is not fast paced, flowing smoothly as it meanders through the lives of Posey, Millie and Finlay. You are drawn into their experiences, and you find yourself mentally bookmarking certain events and revelations, that explain how such a close bond became disconnected. I found myself engaging with the main characters early on, and I became emotionally attached to them all. Those of us with brothers and sisters can find parallels in our own relationships, especially those that might not be as close as they were when growing up.
Mourning Dove is elegantly written with a brilliantly descriptive language that has you immersed in this very exclusive and opulent society. I dare you not to read, and not come away with a distinctive drawl of lightening speed, without the need of enunciation!
Claire Fullerton writes about southern living in Memphis, TN in the 1970’s and 80’s in her novel, MOURNING DOVE. Her children, Finley and Millie Crossan, move with their Mother, Posey, to Memphis from Minnesota to escape her alcoholic husband after she divorces him and to inherit the childhood home she grew up in. The story is written in the first person by Millie who has a fascination for her brother. She looks up to him, she’s very close to him and loves him. Posey is a true southern belle who’s theatrical, loves her parties, cocktails and she’s such a socialite. As the children grow up, their lives change, but their father’s alcoholism always affects their lives and choices they make.
For some reason the character I kept seeing in my mind for Posey is actress Allison Janney. If this is ever made into a movie, I think she would be the perfect actress to play her. For those that love southern fiction, this is the novel for you.
It stands among the best books I’ve ever read and I’m an avid reader. Fullerton creates vivid characters you won’t soon forget. She explores the complexities of family dynamics and the journey of coming of age. A must read.
1n 2018, Mourning Dove by Claire Fullerton won Literary Classics Words on Wings Award and a Gold Medal for Literary Fiction. I recently finished reading Fullerton’s masterpiece and found her prose extraordinary and her setting and description of the south in the 1970s to be remarkably exacting. Told in first person by the younger of two siblings, the book details the life of the upper class amongst the changing landscape of Memphis’s rock and roll music revolution and our nation’s race relations. The story is filled with characters so fully developed, you’ll believe they lived and want to go read more about their lives. Four stars because I found the ending to be unfulfilling.
Not my usual genre these days, but I do find the culture of the Deep South interesting, and the reviews assured me that it would be worth a read. It certainly was; it’s a fine book.
The book starts in the late 1960s-ish, and does not have a rounded plot with a beginning, middle and end, but is more just the tale of a family’s lives. It is a first person narrative, told by Millie, who is a child at the start of the book. Millie’s mother is Posey Crossan, née Hawthorne, the archetypal Southern belle from a monied family, with all the accompanying conservative, old-style social expectations, standards and prejudices deeply ingrained within her psyche. She is the ultimate survivor, and is beautifully drawn:
She had the kind of looks that waited in arrested development during her youth, then pounced like a cat around the time she turned forty.
She was a woman who thought ahead, who’d redirected a nurse from inflicting an innoculation shot on my infant left shoulder to the area tucked beneath my left shoulder blade so I’d look good in a strapless evening gown.
… socialising in her fabulous full-length beaver coat, deeply engaged in gossiping, which was the only contact sport that ever truly held her attention
The other main character is Millie’s brilliant, charismatic brother Finley, who excels at school but chucks up any sort of ‘expected’ career in favour of his band; this brings with it the usual associated difficulties, as artistic clashes occur, and later the insanity of relgious cults is added to the mix. Throughout, I could feel the clash of the old guard with the ideas and aspirations of the younger generation.
In many ways, although we hear about her circumstances too, Millie is the narrator of the lives of Posey and Finley and the life and times of those around them, standing back, as if her own tale is but a minor plot thread. It’s so well-written, and the characterisation is marvellous.
It works best if you read it in a Deep South accent, I found… and if complex family sagas are your thing, I am sure you will adore this book.
Mourning Dove took me inside Memphis high society through the eyes of the young narrator, Millie. Fullerton creates wonderful characters like Posey, the effervescent mother keeps up appearances no matter the cost. Finley, Millie’s older, charasmatic brother is both loving and inscrutable. His iconoclastic approach to life stirs things up in Memphis, where social rules are set in stone. Millie navigates adolescence in the shadow of her mother and brother, trying to find her own place in the family and her social circle.
Fullerton tells her tale beutifully. She is a writer to watch out for.
MY REVIEW
This beautiful moving novel , full of Southern charm, family dysfunction, family life , love, loss, heartache, survival , and dreams is just amazing. In Claire Fullerton’s Mourning Dove, Millie tells us her story and that of her brother, Finley.
I found it easy to connect with the story and it far exceeded my expectations. It gripped me emotionally and I’m still thinking about it the next day. This book is funny, but also heart wrenching and these characters capture your heart and stay with you. The characters were all so well developed. I loved the sister and brother relationship . Throughout the story i laughed and cried so much. Anytime a book can give you different emotions you know it is a good one. I really enjoyed Claire’s writeing style so much. The descriptions of people ,rooms, and places made you feel like you were standing right there. The characters were so charming, funny, and sad at the same time. I will be looking for more from this amazing author! You can tell this fantastic fabulous story (which anyone would enjoy ) was told by a truly gifted author. I highly recommend it to all!
Claire Fullerton, Author of “Mourning Dove” has written an intense, emotional, intriguing, captivating, thought-provoking novel. The Genres for this novel are Fiction, and Women’s Fiction. The timeline of the story is mostly in the 1970’s, and goes to the past or future when it pertains to the characters or events in the story. The author describes her unique characters as complex and complicated, possibly due to the circumstances describes.
After a divorce, the Crossan family makes a difficult move from Minnesota to Memphis. Mrs. Crossan originally comes form the Southern culture, and easily adapts, but for her children Millie and Finley, it is harder to adjust. Finley is 18 months older than Millie, and Mille is dependent and looks up to her brother for everything. Finley is charming, and intelligent and talented. Millie feels that Finley has it all.
In this story, the characters are searching for the meaning of life and the meaning of home. I appreciate that the author discusses such topics as alcoholism and addiction, communication, honesty , emotional support, love and hope. I would highly recommend this deep and involved family drama for readers who enjoy a novel that is deep and emotional.
Mourning Dove is the first novel written by Claire Fullerton I’ve had the pleasure of reading. This is her third novel.
A coming of age story set in the 1970’s south, specifically Memphis Tennessee.
Millie and her brother, Finley, were always close; born 18 months before her, he became her best friend; her interpreter, her life guide. When their mother, Posey, moves them from Minnesota to her hometown of Memphis, back to her affluent neighborhood and friends, they become closer than ever. Their mother’s decision to abandon her alcoholic father will have far reaching meaning for both of them.
In Memphis, Posey moves into the family mansion, beginning life anew as if moving herself and two children, leaving her husband behind, isn’t of much consequence. But it is.
Millie and Finley must find their way in a completely new affluent setting, amongst strangers, and in the south where manners and mannerisms are completely different than anything they’ve known.
Witness Millie and Finley growing up amidst the confusion brought on their parents actions, including a mother who uses alcohol as a social status symbol. How is it that father’s drinking was a problem, but mother’s was not.
Posey is a somewhat standoffish and cold parent; hugs and kisses aren’t her thing. She seems to have her own issues to deal with.
Millie and Finley grow to adulthood, go off to college and seem as if they’ve left the troubles of their childhood behind.
While the writing style of this novel was not particularly to my liking, the story line was thought provoking. I could see this story becoming a movie one day. Also, with my college background in psychology, this would be a great book for a student or class to analyze and discuss.
I received an e-book copy of this book via the publisher and Just Read Publicity Tours, and am not required to provide a positive review. All thoughts and opinions, thereof, are solely my own.
You guys, book FOMO (fear of missing out) is a thing! And books like Mourning Dove by Claire Fullerton only feeds that FOMO. Fullerton is a new-to-me authors, but boy, oh boy, did she make a big and lasting impression!
Readers are taken through a tumultuous childhood through Millie Crossan. While things started out almost idyllic for this young lady in Minnesota, times changed. Situations and poor choices from others around her upend young Millie’s sense of security. And when the family trades Minnesota for Memphis, appearances become even more important than nurturing.
Fullerton delves into some of the dangers of burying and hiding emotions, dysfunctional family life, and what happens when the person held as a hero falls from their pedestal. Millie’s unique voice, influenced by southern gentility often reads like poetry. It’s her inner struggles and questions that drew me to her and her story.
A simple sentence within the first pages of Mourning Dove invested me in the lives of Millie and her family. And it happened more than once—one sentence that kept me from setting down the book until the very end.
This is not an easy read. It’s real, it’s raw, it’s life. But the emotional journey is well worth the ride.
Disclosure statement:
I receive complimentary books from publishers, publicists, and/or authors, including NetGalley. I am not required to write positive reviews. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
The Deep South in the 70s with its unwritten rules and slow moving life is beautifully written about in MOURNING DOVE. The story is told in that languid, slow and relaxed pace that life in the upper echelons of Memphis society occupied.
When Posey realized that her marriage to her northern husband was over, she took her two children (Finley and Millie) from their homes in Minnesota and moved them to her childhood home in Memphis where she immediately claimed her place as part of the upper society. For Finley and Millie, it was an alien place but they soon learned the rules and how to survive. With their mother busy at cocktail parties and evenings at the country club while she looked for a new husband, Finley and Millie were often left on their own. Millie knew that her older brother was her protector and then she could survive anything with him at her side. at 36 years old, Millie is looking back at those early times and she is still struggling to understand how the relationship between she and her brother evolved into the darkness that it became.
This book is not only a coming of age story for Millie but it’s so much more. It’s a look at the hierarchy of the South in the 70s and it’s a look at two outsiders trying to learn the rules of the game so that they have a chance of surviving.
Mourning Dove is a beautifully written, but hauntingly sad story with a realistic setting and characters. I absolutely felt like I was in Memphis as I read this novel…
MOURNING DOVE by Claire Fullerton is a compelling and thought-provoking story of family, culture and the true meaning of home. Set in the 1970s in Memphis, Tennessee, young sister and brother, Millie and Finley, struggle to fit in to the genteel world of their mother’s upbringing. Thrust into their new home in the South when their mother divorces their father and leaves him behind in Minnesota, they soon learn that all is not as it seems and in Memphis’ elite society, appearances are everything. Finley appears to adapt more easily than Millie, but there may be more to Finley’s charming and easy-going nature than meets the eye. Millie relies on her close relationship with Finley to keep her grounded in her new world. The writing is beautiful and the multi-layered story kept me engaged from beginning to end. The descriptions of Memphis during this age were so vivid, I felt like I had taken a trip back in time to this colorful city, not just to the homes of the wealthy socialites, but also to the seedy bars where the music scene was beginning to flourish. There are parts of the story that are hard to read, but there are also moments where the strength of the emotional bonds between the members of this dysfunctional family is portrayed with understanding and compassion. I enjoyed this moving book and highly recommend it.