- Paperback: 560 pages
- Publisher: Pocket Books; 1 edition (July 3 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1416553533
- ISBN-13: 978-1416553533
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 14.5 x 3.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 476 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"A splendid book...absolutely mesmerizing!"
-- Chicago Tribune Book World
Book Description
The dark but seductive tale of five generations of Southern women and the house that was both their greatest inheritance and their most confining prison.
In 1904, Ruth Yancey is only ten years old when she is brought to live at the magnificent mansion called Fox's Earth. But the impoverished daughter of an abusive mill worker has already internalized her mother's steely code: Men may hold all the power, but a woman possesses one thing that can get her anything in the world she wants...if she's prepared to make certain sacrifices. Deserted by her mother in order to give her a better chance at wealth, Ruth's own ambition drives her to possess Fox's Earth at any cost, even though her sacrifice will ultimately be her own husband, children, and grandchildren.
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First Sentence
BY TWO P.M. THEY HAD WALKED FOR HALF AN HOUR, THE man and his family, and the sweat of that sun-blanched September Saturday in 1903 lay sour in waistbands and collars and dampened pale hair and ran rank down thin necks and backs and legs. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
BY TWO P.M. THEY HAD WALKED FOR HALF AN HOUR, THE man and his family, and the sweat of that sun-blanched September Saturday in 1903 lay sour in waistbands and collars and dampened pale hair and ran rank down thin necks and backs and legs. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
For me, very disappointing,
By jeffsdate "jeffsdate" (Boxford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fox's Earth (Mass Market Paperback)
Wow! I'm astonished that everyone else liked this so much. For me, watching Ruth Yancey Fox ruthlessly destroy the lives of everyone in her family was just too depressing. I probably wouldn't have even finished this if I hadn't been on vacation. I thought Ruth should have had her comeuppance a lot earlier in the story, and then there would have been a LITTLE more joy and happiness instead of grinding misery for the whole damn book. I also thought the depiction of the black servants was a bit racist and patronizing. (The old warmhearted-but-dimwitted stereotype.)
4.0 out of 5 stars
my review,
This review is from: Fox's Earth (Mass Market Paperback)
I have already read many books from this author, and I have enjoyed each and every one. This was no exception.This book is very entertaining and the plot keeps us hooked until the very end. The characters are alive and well liked or disliked, in Ruth's case.
5.0 out of 5 stars
PFG & VV...if you've read the book, you know what it means..,
By A Customer
This review is from: Fox's Earth (Mass Market Paperback)
PFG: the writing. Wow. Lush, vivid, rushing forward and pulling you with it...you cannot put this melodrama down. I give it five stars for sheer entertainment.PFG: the characters. Siddons is a great psychological writer. She gives individualistic sketches of several characters that could be textbook, especially the screamingly psychotic sociopath Ruth Yancey-Fox. Yikes. PFG: the first several chapters, describing the Yancey family. V.V.: Descriptions of good ol' black folks who still like to dance on the old plantation 'cause they's devoted to their massahs - ugh. Demeaning, stereotypical, crap. Made me want to throw up. V.V.: Rip, the black woman who "knows" the sickie Ruth almost in the biblical sense: we are set up to believe that she has some magical powers to "protect" Ruth's offspring, but in fact she never does do a damn thing to help them. She's always "lookin' out" for her "chirren," but I found that she was basically in collusion with Ruth. It's like the old saying: "If you're not part of the solution then you're part of the problem." She watched Ruth do horrible things, including murder, and never said a word. Her rationalization, at the end, that "Who would believe me?" just didn't cut it. She had power in that household, too. Even if they didn't believe her, she should have had the guts to spill to beans...or the chitlins, or whatever. V.V.: Tying up the whole thing in letters from Ruth at the end was a highly unbelievable contrivance. But by then you were just happy to have the fascinating story end. As good as it is, it gets on your nerves after a while. I found Nell, the final heroine, to be a milksop. But in the end, too, it's a good sister story. If you've ever had a female sibling rival and made up when you found out how sick the grownups were, you'll probably love it. PFG: Painterly descriptions. V.V.: Location, Location, Location. The South doesn't get more nauseating than this.
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