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The Land of Mango Sunsets
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Review
[A] warming female-empowerment tale with a side order of southern magic--Kirkus Reviews
Product Description
Miriam Swanson is thoroughly provoked and she doesn't mind letting you know. Twenty years ago her husband Charles, a powerful attorney with one of the last remaining white shoe law firms in New York, dumped her for a younger woman nearly half her age. Obviously it happens all the time and it's not exactly news, but what's fascinating is to watch Miriam evolve from pathetic to spectacular. Perfectly proper Miriam's great metamorphosis results from the arrival of a little red neck school teacher, Liz, from Nowhere, Alabama.Liz is Miriam's tenant along with Kevin, a 50 something gay man who is Miriam's best friend. Liz is everything that Miriam is not: young and thin. They constantly clash. Then finally, she meets a man named Harrison who changes her into a gal named Mellie. Miriam spins out from the revolving door of her postured life as a Manhattan quasi socialite while she thirsts, no, starves for recognition. How did she become what she hates the most and what does she endure to realize it? And where are the answers? It takes a few spins, dips and one spectacular fall until Miriam gets her head on straight. Then in a whoosh she's off to see her mother in the enchanted and mysterious land of Sullivans Island, deep in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Meet Miriam Elizabeth Swanson who describes herself thusly in New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank's tale "The Land of Mango Sunsets": "I am older now and it doesn't matter anymore if someone thinks I am a fool. It makes me laugh because I have been a fool so often that if you could stack the occasions one upon another, they would reach the top of the sky and then spiral away into their own orbit.."
That's a pretty accurate self-evaluation as Miriam has made mistakes, some inconsequential, others harmful and, sadly, a few damaging. She's describing herself as she sits on the porch of her family home on Sullivan's Island in the Low country of South Carolina. Miriam has retreated here in the hope of finding perspective and healing.
Her husband of two decades has dropped her for a much younger and prettier woman, her two sons offer no consolation - one avoids her and the other has all he can do to care for himself. Once part of a social set she has been dropped by all of her friends as soundly as her husband dropped her.
Enough woe? Not at all. Miriam's museum boss is a former friend who treats her with barely concealed disdain, and she has had to turn her Manhattan townhouse into apartments because she needs the money (what happened to a good lawyer?) And, she finds that one of her tenants has become a victim.
However, when Miriam returns to Sullivan's Island she finds new opportunities in the very attractive form of retired banker, Harrison Ford (no relation to the actor).
Now, if you're wondering about the title, it refers to the big red orange ball the sun became at sunset on Sullivan's Island, as well as the sliced mangoes Miriam's parents enjoyed at breakfast.
- Gail Cooke
That's a pretty accurate self-evaluation as Miriam has made mistakes, some inconsequential, others harmful and, sadly, a few damaging. She's describing herself as she sits on the porch of her family home on Sullivan's Island in the Low country of South Carolina. Miriam has retreated here in the hope of finding perspective and healing.
Her husband of two decades has dropped her for a much younger and prettier woman, her two sons offer no consolation - one avoids her and the other has all he can do to care for himself. Once part of a social set she has been dropped by all of her friends as soundly as her husband dropped her.
Enough woe? Not at all. Miriam's museum boss is a former friend who treats her with barely concealed disdain, and she has had to turn her Manhattan townhouse into apartments because she needs the money (what happened to a good lawyer?) And, she finds that one of her tenants has become a victim.
However, when Miriam returns to Sullivan's Island she finds new opportunities in the very attractive form of retired banker, Harrison Ford (no relation to the actor).
Now, if you're wondering about the title, it refers to the big red orange ball the sun became at sunset on Sullivan's Island, as well as the sliced mangoes Miriam's parents enjoyed at breakfast.
- Gail Cooke
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
71 reviews
38 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Dot Frank Is Better Than Ever With Characters, Setting, and Plot to Warm Your Heart
21 July 2007
Format:Hardcover
This is the best book by Dorothea Benton Frank since she penned the original SULLIVAN'S ISLAND and the follow-up PLANTATION. Why? Because with her deft skill and tremendous talent for creating local color, she has given us not only the charm and peacefulness of the Carolina Low Country but the frenetic, struggling- for- survival pace of New York City which adds even more humor and pathos than ever before.
Miriam Elizabeth Swanson is a whimpering divorcee still ruffled by the fact her no-good husband dumped her for his younger, thinner girlfriend, a lingerie model to boot. Forced to rent the upper floors of her townhouse in order to make ends meet and still desperate to be a part of the society that rejects her at the same time her husband does, Miriam is none too likeable. In fact, I'm thinking why should I care about this woman? She has broken ties with her sons, rejected one's wife and children and has nothing good to say about the other's live-in lover. She is so wrapped up in herself and her desire to be a society queen bee that I was almost pulling against her. But then a coffee urn and a totally despicable director of volunteers changed my mind and Miriam's life forever. Sullivan's Island, as only Dot Frank can describe it, morphed uptight Miriam into the laid-back and totally sympathetic Mellie.
Miriam/Mellie makes coming home a journey to remember and comes to understand "...all that predictability in coming home, that there was a time when you could depend on the fact that you were wanted, missed, welcomed, and really loved by someone who knew you and loved you despite your flaws."
Loved she is by her quirky mother, Miss Josie, and the stunning man Mellie assumes is her mother's beau, the too-good-to-be-true-so-grab-him-fast Harrison Ford (not the actor.) Mellie splits her time between Sullivan's Island and New York and we are charmed by her friends in both places. In New York there is the irrepressible Harry, a parrot with a vocabulary to die for, and Kevin, a successful window dresser and the dearest friend a woman could ever have, plus Liz, the tenant that Miriam/Mellie unwittingly sets up for a traumatic experience. In the Low Country, the aforementioned Miss Josie and Harrison as well as Manny Sinkler help Miriam/Mellie realize the life she deserves and wants can be hers. She only has to get her priorities straight, and when she does, her cup runneth over with love given and love returned.
Frank has woven a great story of mending fences and reconnecting with the important parts of your past while letting go of the hurtful parts. She has given us the unbeatable combination of great characters, charming settings, and an uplifting story. That's why her work is always a favorite of mine.
Miriam Elizabeth Swanson is a whimpering divorcee still ruffled by the fact her no-good husband dumped her for his younger, thinner girlfriend, a lingerie model to boot. Forced to rent the upper floors of her townhouse in order to make ends meet and still desperate to be a part of the society that rejects her at the same time her husband does, Miriam is none too likeable. In fact, I'm thinking why should I care about this woman? She has broken ties with her sons, rejected one's wife and children and has nothing good to say about the other's live-in lover. She is so wrapped up in herself and her desire to be a society queen bee that I was almost pulling against her. But then a coffee urn and a totally despicable director of volunteers changed my mind and Miriam's life forever. Sullivan's Island, as only Dot Frank can describe it, morphed uptight Miriam into the laid-back and totally sympathetic Mellie.
Miriam/Mellie makes coming home a journey to remember and comes to understand "...all that predictability in coming home, that there was a time when you could depend on the fact that you were wanted, missed, welcomed, and really loved by someone who knew you and loved you despite your flaws."
Loved she is by her quirky mother, Miss Josie, and the stunning man Mellie assumes is her mother's beau, the too-good-to-be-true-so-grab-him-fast Harrison Ford (not the actor.) Mellie splits her time between Sullivan's Island and New York and we are charmed by her friends in both places. In New York there is the irrepressible Harry, a parrot with a vocabulary to die for, and Kevin, a successful window dresser and the dearest friend a woman could ever have, plus Liz, the tenant that Miriam/Mellie unwittingly sets up for a traumatic experience. In the Low Country, the aforementioned Miss Josie and Harrison as well as Manny Sinkler help Miriam/Mellie realize the life she deserves and wants can be hers. She only has to get her priorities straight, and when she does, her cup runneth over with love given and love returned.
Frank has woven a great story of mending fences and reconnecting with the important parts of your past while letting go of the hurtful parts. She has given us the unbeatable combination of great characters, charming settings, and an uplifting story. That's why her work is always a favorite of mine.
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Brava, Dottie!
27 April 2007
Format:Hardcover
How did we live without Dorothea Benton Frank? Each book she writes is better than the last. Every time I think I've died and gone to heaven, as in Sullivan's Island, Shem Creek, and all the rest, she comes up with a new, unique set of characters that win my heart forever.
Meet Miriam, an uptight (to the point of being ridiculous) divorced New Yorker whose entire life is wound around her status in various society committees. My first reaction was, "ewwwww, who wants to read about this shallow person?" Of course I was dead wrong...as I learned in short order, when I met Harry the Bird, a character in his own right, and Kevin, the gender-bending, absolutey fabulous window designer who is not only Miriam's tenant, but her best friend.
And THEN, we find out that our uptight Miriam is really a bona fide geechee girl, from Sullivan's Island, and once we fly down south with her to visit her wonderful mother Miss Josie, and to share in all the traditions and the lifestyle with which Miriam grew up, we entirely forgive her. Especially when she becomes "Miss Mellie," which is a story in itself.
The book goes faster and faster, and gets better and better, and then all of a sudden it is finished, and readers like me are left to beg: "Please, Dottie, may I have another?"
Meet Miriam, an uptight (to the point of being ridiculous) divorced New Yorker whose entire life is wound around her status in various society committees. My first reaction was, "ewwwww, who wants to read about this shallow person?" Of course I was dead wrong...as I learned in short order, when I met Harry the Bird, a character in his own right, and Kevin, the gender-bending, absolutey fabulous window designer who is not only Miriam's tenant, but her best friend.
And THEN, we find out that our uptight Miriam is really a bona fide geechee girl, from Sullivan's Island, and once we fly down south with her to visit her wonderful mother Miss Josie, and to share in all the traditions and the lifestyle with which Miriam grew up, we entirely forgive her. Especially when she becomes "Miss Mellie," which is a story in itself.
The book goes faster and faster, and gets better and better, and then all of a sudden it is finished, and readers like me are left to beg: "Please, Dottie, may I have another?"
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Touching and funny with great characters
10 Aug 2007
Format:Hardcover
A story about a woman of a certain age that finds herself challenging some long-held assumptions and habits. The story is filled with quirky, fun characters and will have you both laughing and crying. A very touching story with enough twists and turns to keep your interest.
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