From the national bestselling author of Whistling Past the Graveyard comes a moving coming-of-age tale set in the tumultuous sixties that harkens to both Ordinary Grace and The Secret Life of Bees. Tallulah James’s parents’ volatile relationship, erratic behavior, and hands-off approach to child rearing set tongues to wagging in their staid Mississippi town, complicating her already uncertain … town, complicating her already uncertain life. She takes the responsibility of shielding her family’s reputation and raising her younger twin siblings onto her youthful shoulders.
If not for the emotional constants of her older brother, Griff, and her old guard Southern grandmother, she would be lost. When betrayal and death arrive hand in hand, she takes to the road, headed to what turns out to be the not-so-promised land of Southern California. The dysfunction of her childhood still echoes throughout her scattered family, sending her brother on a disastrous path and drawing her home again. There she uncovers the secrets and lies that set her family on the road to destruction.
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I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. In return to give a honest review. This book is set between 1960’s-1970’s in Mississippi. The story goes back and fourth from past time and now time in Tallulah childhood. In the beginning we meet Tallulah who is going back home to Mississippi from California because her youngest brother has gotten into some trouble. Problem is it’s has been nine years since Tallulah has been home. Tallulah is a strong young girl who parents didn’t seem ready to have kids. Because Tallulah is left to take care of her siblings. Her mother Margo is about protesting for black rights. And Tallulah father is a teacher who seems with his trouble marriage has different moods and problems of his own. We also meet Tallulah grandmother who is her father mother. Very old fashioned woman she is. And we don’t talk about things that don’t need to be spoken about. I really enjoyed the story how things weren’t talked about back then. Susan did a great job putting mental issues into this story. I know this is now one of my favorite book. Also a book and characters I will not be able to forget and hold close to my heart. I loved how strong Tallulah is and how she really try’s to keep her family together. Susan Crandall amazing story I will be buying all your future books. Again I Highly recommend this book. You will fall in love with this story and all the characters and really feel for Tallulah and her strength.
This book broke my heart for multiple reasons, but ultimately it ended strong and triumphantly. A story told in two alternating time periods (late 50s-mid 60s and early 70s) by a young white girl named Tallulah from Mississippi. The author does an amazing job of aging her voice from a 10 yo to a 27 yo. And I must say that the 10 yo Tallulah will no doubt linger with me for quite awhile. Mental illness, racism, bullying/ostracism and child neglect all play a part here but so does courage, strength and hope. I highly recommend this book.
And I’d like to say as someone who was raised in Mississippi myself, this felt amazingly authentic. There were many passages from this author that were so stunningly beautiful that I simply had to linger with them and let them sink deep in my soul.
I will definitely be reading more from this author!
Thank you to #BookishFirst and #GalleryBooks. The opinion expressed is strictly my own.
I loved this book! It is the first I have read by this author, and now I must read everything else she has written.
I had thought this was a women’s fiction novel, and it is, but it is also a mystery that gradually unfolds through the remembrances of the main character as a young girl growing up in a highly dysfunctional family in rural Mississippi.
Having Mississippi roots through my mother’s side of the family, I could truly relate to this area of the country and its way of life, as well as the time period the book is set in, as Tallulah was just slightly older than I am.
This is a richly written book that totally engrosses you that you will not soon forget. One of the best of 2018 that I have read.
I love everything about this book—the characters, the themes, the setting, the time period, the author, and the ending. A definitive favorite of 2018!
I LOVE THIS BOOK!
It’s a reaffirmation of the pure joy of reading a wonderful story beautifully told.
San Francisco, 1972: Tallulah James left her home in the South 9 years ago when she was 16 years old and never looked back.
She now has an education and a good job in public relations for a charity foundation.
One day she sees on the news that her younger brother, Walden, has been involved in a cult, the Scholars for Humanity, and has been arrested for murder in New Orleans.
She had shouldered the responsibility for raising her two younger twin siblings, Walden and Dharma, before departing Mississippi.
Tallulah returns to her hometown of Lamoyne, MS to visit and then take her Gran, who raised her, to New Orleans to be there for Walden.
While there she reflects on her troubled childhood and growing up in a dysfunctional family in the South in the turbulent late 1950s and the early 1960s.
With a mentally unstable father and a flighty, “absent” mother, town gossip, family burdens and tragedies, Tallulah struggled the best she could.
Then an event occurs concerning her beloved older brother, Griff, that pushes things over the edge and eventually she has to leave.
Also, back in town, she uncovers secrets which led her family down its destructive path and took her out to California to find herself.
And, ultimately, back to family.
Gorgeously written with love that comes off the page, “The Perpetual Myth of Summer” is an unbridled pleasure of a novel.
In one word: BEAUTIFUL.
A perfect southern novel about a perfectly dysfunctional southern family. Great characters, great locations, great story!
This was a wonderful story of the coming of age, family secrets, trauma, relationships, racial prejudices, and corruption. While lots of heavy topics are covered, you are drawn into Tallulah James’s life. She is surrounded by a very dysfunctional family but between her brother, Griff, and her grandmother she finds the emotional support she needs. At least until these fall away. (But you have to read the book in order to learn how this happens!)
Set in a time of unrest…Vietnam War with its protest demonstrations and racial discrimination…life is unsettled. Then you realize how the bullying, ostracism, and child neglect affect Tallulah and her family. It is amazing how she has managed to become a functioning adult.
The author does a great job of going back and forth from Tallulah’s childhood and adulthood…especially since the book is written from her viewpoint. It is well written with the voice of Tallulah as a 10-year-old and that of her as a young adult. This young lady’s life will haunt you even after you’ve finished the last page of this amazing story.
I have read quite a few of Susan Crandall’s books in the past (you absolutely MUST read Whistling Past the Graveyard) and this one did not disappoint. I love her style of writing and how she makes the characters like real people who are actually living the story she is telling. You care about them and ache for the unfairness of how life has treated them.
I received a free copy of this book from Gallery Books in exchange for my honest opinion. This is definitely one for you put on your to-be-read list!
I enjoy nothing more than a good book about the south and this was one of those books. It was about the south, about dysfunctional families, took place in the 60s. There was a little mystery, a little romance and wonderful characters to love so it was a perfect book to curl up with on a long summer evening.
Tallulah left home at 16 to try to find a more stable life. She hitchhiked to California to start over and never let anyone at home know where she was. When she heard that her brother was in jail for murder, she immediately returned to Mississippi to try to help him. What she finds after 9 years away is that her family is torn apart and the town is still holding a grudge against them. The story is told during Tallulah’s growing up years, when her parents basically ignored their children and left them to take care of themselves, to her grown up years when she tries to find out the real truth about her family and how the secrets and lies destroyed her family.
This was a wonderful book about family and the secrets that keep them apart. It asks the question whether love can stop the destruction of the family and bring them all together again.
Thanks to Bookish Firsts for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
Truly could not put this one down. A deep look into the lives of a troubled family with past secrets keep coming back to haunt them. Memorable characters and a setting so realistically described that I could feel the heat of the summer days. The perfect book for the beach, pool, or comfortable chair at home.