"A sweet Southern story of growing up and coming home!"
Reviewed by Sharon Galligar Chance
Posted January 15, 2010
Women's Fiction Contemporary
Once in a while, there comes along a book that is so
wonderful, so well-written that you want to share it with
everyone you know, even to the point of stopping people in
the bookstore saying "you must read this book!" SAVING
CEECEE HONEYCUTT by Beth Hoffman is one of those books. The world turned upside-down for 12-year old Cecelia
Rose "CeeCee" Honeycutt in 1967. For years, CeeCee had
taken care of her delicate but mentally-unstable mother,
Camille, who loved to relive her triumphant days as Miss
Vidalia Onion Queen by parading through town in raggedy
prom dresses and a tiara on her head. But tragedy strikes
when Camille is killed in a horrific accident. With her
uncaring father gone most of the time, CeeCee is left to
face an uncertain world on her own. To the rescue comes a
whirlwind of perfume, hats and Southern graciousness in the
form of her previously unknown Great-Aunt Tootie Caldwell. In her beautiful berry-red Packard convertible, Aunt Tootie
whisks CeeCee away to Savannah, Georgia to a world that
seems to CeeCee to be run entirely by women. From the
exotic next-door neighbor Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes
in her backyard concrete bathtub and uses garden slugs as
her secret weapons, to Tootie's very wise (and soon to be
CeeCee's best friend) housekeeper, Oletta Jones, the ladies
of Gaston Street help young CeeCee adjust to her new life
in the South. And she is thoroughly entertained and
enchanted for an entire summer. In SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT, Beth Hoffman paints an amazing
portrait of life in 1960s Georgia, capturing a certain
unusual gentleness of the time, with the social and
political upheaval of the world a long way from the
beautiful bubble CeeCee inhabited. You can almost smell the
sweet magnolia blossoms and the fresh peach preserves in
every word. She has also captured the rarefied glory of
sweet female friendship that is so indicative of women
raised in the South. (That's not to say Northern gals don't
have close friendships, it just different below the
Mason- Dixon line, sugar!) This is gorgeous and
glorious novel
that celebrates the indomitable strengths of those female
friendships and how very much those friendships are
cherished. There is a long line of Southern women writers who are
beloved for their fictional masterpieces -- Margaret
Mitchell (GONE WITH THE WIND), Harper Lee (TO KILL A
MOCKING BIRD), Fannie Flagg (FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE
WHISTLESTOP CAFE), Rebecca Wells (DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-
YA SISTERHOOD), to name a few. With her debut novel, Beth
Hoffman stands poised to join the ranks of these cherished
authors with a sweet Southern story of growing up and
coming home.
SUMMARY
Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years,
she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother,
Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock
of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment
of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille
is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for
herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-
aunt, Tootie Caldwell. In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee
away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and
Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run
entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae
Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses
garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie's all-
knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who
entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow
peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee
entertained and enthralled for an entire summer. SAVING CEECEE HONEYCUTT explores the
indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us
the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds
many others.
ExcerptMomma left her red satin shoes in the middle of the road.
That’s what three eyewitnesses told the police. The first
time I remember my mother wearing red shoes was on a snowy
morning in December 1962, the year I was seven years old. I
walked into the kitchen and found her sitting at the table.
No lights were on, but in the thin haze of dawn that pushed
through the frostbitten window, I could see red high-heeled
shoes peeking out from beneath the hem of her robe. There
was no breakfast waiting, and no freshly ironed school dress
hanging on the basement doorknob. Momma just sat and stared
out the window with empty eyes, her hands limp in her lap,
her coffee cold and untouched.I stood by her side and breathed in the sweet scent of
lavender talcum powder that clung to the tufts of her robe. “What’s the matter, Momma?” I waited and waited. Finally she turned from the window and
looked at me. Her skin was as frail as tissue, and her voice
wasn’t much more than a whisper when she smoothed her hand
over my cheek and said, “Cecelia Rose, I’m taking you to
Georgia. I want you to see what real living is like. All the
women dress so nice. And the people are kind and
friendly—it’s so different from how things are here. As soon
as I feel better, we’ll plan a trip—just you and me.” “But what about Dad, will he come too?” She squeezed her eyes closed and didn’t answer. Momma stayed sad for the rest of the winter. Just when I
thought she’d never smile again, spring came. When the
lilacs bloomed in great, fluffy waves of violet, Momma went
outside and cut bouquets for every room in the house. She
painted her fingernails bright pink, fixed her hair, and
slipped into a flowery-print dress. From room to room she
dashed, pushing back curtains and throwing open the windows.
She turned up the volume of the radio, took hold of my
hands, and danced me through the house. We whirled through the living room, into the dining room,
and around the table. Right in the middle of a spin, Momma
abruptly stopped. “Oh, my gosh,” she said, taking in a big
gulp of air and pointing to the mirror by the door, “we look
so much alike. When did that happen? When did you start to grow up?” We stood side by side and gazed at our reflections. What I
saw was two smiling people with the same heart-shaped face,
blue eyes, and long brown hair—Momma’s pulled away from her
face in a headband and mine tied back in a ponytail. “It’s amazing,” my mother said, gathering her hair in her
hand and holding it back in a ponytail like mine. “Just look
at us, CeeCee. I bet when you get older, people will think
we’re sisters. Won’t that be fun?” She giggled, took hold of
my hands, and spun me in circles till my feet lifted off the
floor. She was so happy that after we finished dancing, she took me
into town and bought all sorts of new clothes and ribbons
for my hair. Momma bought herself so many pairs of new shoes
that the salesman laughed and said, “Mrs. Honeycutt, I
believe you have more shoes than the Bolshoi Ballet.”
Neither Momma nor I knew what that meant, but the salesman
sure thought he was clever. So we laughed along with him as
he helped us carry our packages to the car. After stuffing the trunk full with bags and boxes, we ran
across the street to the five-and-dime, where we sat at the
lunch counter and shared a cheeseburger, a bowl of French
fries, and a chocolate milkshake. That spring sure was something. I’d never seen Momma so
happy. Every day was a big celebration. I’d come home from
school and she’d be waiting, all dressed up with a big smile
on her face. She’d grab her handbag, hurry me to her car,
and off we’d go to do more shopping. Then came the day when Dad arrived home from a three-week
business trip. Momma and I were sitting at the kitchen
table, she with a magazine and me with a coloring book and
crayons. When my dad opened the closet door to hang up his
jacket, he was all but knocked senseless when an avalanche
of shoeboxes rained down on him. “Good Christ!” he barked, turning to look at Momma. “How
much money have you been spending?” When Momma didn’t answer, I put down my crayon and smiled.
“Daddy, we’ve been shopping for weeks, but everything we got
was for free.” “Free? What are you talking about?” I nodded wisely. “Yep. All Momma had to do was show the
salesman a square of plastic, and he let us have whatever we
wanted.” “What the hell?” Dad pounded across the kitchen floor,
yanked Momma’s handbag from the hook by the door, and pulled
the square of plastic from her wallet. “Damn it, Camille,”
he said, cutting it up with a pair of scissors. “How many
times do I have to tell you? This has got to stop. No more
credit cards. You keep this up and you’ll put us in the poor
house. You hear me?” Momma licked her finger and turned a page of the magazine. He leaned down and looked at her. “Have you been taking your
pills?” She ignored him and turned another page. “Camille,
I’m talking to you.” The sharpness of his words wiped the shine right out of her
eyes. Dad shook his head and pulled a beer from the refrigerator.
He huffed and puffed out of the kitchen, kicking shoes out
of his way as he headed for the living room. I heard him
dump his wide, beefy body into the recliner, muttering the
way he always did whenever he was in a bad mood. Which, as
far as I could tell, was pretty much always. My father didn’t smile or laugh very much, and he had a
limitless gift for making me feel about as important as a
lost penny on the sidewalk. Whenever I’d show him a drawing
I’d made or try to tell him about something I’d learned in
school, he’d get fidgety and say, “I’m tired. We’ll talk
another time.” But another time never came. He was a machine-tool salesman and spent much of his time in
places like Michigan and Indiana. Usually he’d stay away all
week and would come home only on weekends. And most times
those weekends were filled with an unbearable tension that
sprung loose on Saturday night. Momma would get all dolled up, walk into the living room,
and beg him to take her out. “C’mon Carl,” she’d say,
tugging at his arm, “let’s go dancing like we used to. We
never have fun anymore.” His face would turn sour and he’d say, “No, Camille. I’m not
taking you anywhere until you straighten up. Now go take
your pills.” She’d cry and say she didn’t need any pills, he’d get mad,
turn up the volume of the TV, and drink one beer after
another, and I’d run upstairs and hide in my bedroom. Whole
months would go by and I’d hear only an occasional kind word
pass between them. Even less frequently I’d see them touch.
Before too long even those things faded away, and my
father’s presence in the house faded right along with them. Momma seemed glad that Dad stayed away so much. One day I
was sitting on the floor of her bedroom cutting out paper
dolls while she sat at her vanity and put on makeup. “Who
needs him anyway?” she said, leaning close to the mirror as
she smoothed on bright red lipstick. “I’ll tell you
something, Cecelia Rose. Northerners are exactly like their
weather—cold and boring. And I swear, none of them has one
iota of etiquette or propriety. Do you know that not one
single person in this godforsaken town even knows I’m a
pageant queen? They’re all a bunch of sticks-in-the-mud,
just like your father.” “You don’t like Daddy anymore?” “No,” she said, turning to look at me. “I don’t.” “He doesn’t come home very much. Where is he, Momma?” She blotted her lips with a tissue. “That old fool? He’s not
here because he’s down at the cemetery with one foot stuck
in the grave. And that’s another thing. Never marry an older
man. I mean it, CeeCee. If an older man ever sweeps you off
your feet, just get up and run away as fast as you can.” I set down my scissors. “How old is Daddy?” “Fifty-seven,” she said, rubbing a smudge of rouge from her
cheek. “And look what he’s done to me.” She scowled at her
reflection in the mirror and shook her head. “I’m only
thirty-three and I already have lines on my face. Your
father is nothing but a Yankee liar. I can’t tell you how
many promises he made just so I’d marry him and move up here
to this god-awful excuse for a town. But all those promises
amounted to nothing but a five-hundred-pound bag of dog
breath.” As I was about to ask her what that meant, a strange, icy
expression moved across her face. She gazed down at her
wedding picture and slowly lifted it from the vanity. With
her tube of lipstick she drew a big red X over my dad’s
face, then shrieked with laughter, fluffed her hair, and
walked out the door.
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