When does sleeping with the boss ever work out? As Natalie
Goldberg, recent Harvard Law Grad, discovers in MY SUMMER OF
SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT, she learns it doesn't. Unfortunately,
it doesn't help that when the romance backfires on her, in
a big way, that she packs up her Manhattan corporate law job
and runs away from all her trouble. She ends up down south
in Macon, Georgia where all her values about convicting
arsonists, thieves, and even murderers come out to play.
As things happen in Southern time, the real story of Natalie
discovering how to life well is at the core of this novel.
In a tight knit community like Macon, there really isn't
anything other than time on her hands to figure out how she
made mistakes, what her life means in the present, and what
her future might look like. Sometime all a girl needs is one
long summer of southern discomfort to figure all out.
Overall, this novel is reminiscent of Sophia Coppola's
film, "Lost in Translation."
It meanders, strolls, and loafs around the south as the main
characters takes the summer to try and really figure out
what she wants from life and what she needs. There are some
points that are even tedious. However, if you connect to
Natalie, then you'll absolutely love this book.
Stephanie Gayle's debut novel is an intimate character study
that she wrote while taking a class at Harvard called
"Writing the Novel." She'll be the first to admit that her
imagination was more at play than first-hand experience, in
terms of understanding the south. But, you'd never know it
from the novel! She is currently at work on her second novel
that has a "sort of legal bent to it."
Today is Monday. The calls do not come as
before. Weeks elapse between them, and when I answer the
phone there is no overlap of voices, only my mother's. She
spends much of the conversation avoiding mention of the pink
elephant trumpeting in the middle of the room.
The
pink elephant would be my defection to Georgia. When I
telephoned with the news of my imminent relocation my father
asked, "Georgia, as in the Republic of Georgia by the Black
Sea, or Georgia as in the Peach State?" He hoped I meant the
former because that Georgia promised unique opportunities to
advance the democratic cause of justice. What could Georgia,
former land of the Confederacy, offer?
Convicting arsonists and thieves in Macon, Georgia, was
never Harvard Law grad Natalie Goldberg's dream. The pay is
abysmal, the work is exhausting, and the humidity is hell
for a woman with curly hair. But when a steamy romance with
her high-powered New York boss went bad, Natalie jumped at
the first job offered, packed her bags, and headed south.
Natalie's leftist Yankee background brands her a
conspicuous outsider in this insular community. Her father,
a famous civil rights lawyer, refuses to accept her career
change—or talk to her. Her best friend begs her to come back
home, and Natalie keeps thinking she sees her former lover
everywhere.
But Natalie's not completely alone.
There are a garden-obsessed neighbor, a former beauty
queen-turned-defense attorney, and a handsome colleague who
has a nervous tic whenever she gets near. And then there's a
capital case that has her eating antacids by the truckload.
Yep, it's going to be one heckuva long, hot summer.
. . .
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