Review by New York Times Review
The protagonist of this first novel by Thornton, herself a Charleston native, is ostensibly Eliza Poinsett, a comely Southern belle turned London sophisticate who returns home after a long absence to attend her stepsister's debutante party. However, the real femme fatale is the city itself, a place where the breeze in the laurel oak sounds "like a slow kind of applause," rice fields give way to "swamps of cypress and tupelo and gum" whose "canopies reached wide with feathery leaves" and the citizens speak with "dropped r's that almost sounded English," a habit that "defined them as being different from the rest of the South." This is lush terrain, which is why it's unfortunate that Thornton paves it over with a love story that might be decried as soap operatic if not for its lackluster, nearly motionless plot. As it is, Eliza's simmering romance with her one-time beau, the gallant and chisel-cheeked Henry, who must regain her trust after a mysterious past betrayal, is essentially a montage of Gatsbyesque social encounters peppered with sweet steamy nothings - "She liked the thought of being the cartographer of Henry's body, but he would forever be the cartographer of her heart" - that don't rise to the lyricism and precision Thornton brings to her descriptions of the region. The mapping of Charleston's array of streets and squares is in many ways a metaphor for an exploration of the vicissitudes of its citizens' family life, of the strength or tenuousness of the community's various bonds. The city's domiciles, far more than providing shelter, serve as mirrors of their occupants' greatest ambitions and deepest anxieties. MEGHAN DAUM is an op-ed columnist for The Los Angeles Times and the author of four books. Her latest, "The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion," will be published next month.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 5, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
Thornton's first novel, Charleston, draws much from the South Carolina city for which it is named. The story is largely set there, and its protagonist, Eliza Poinsett, was raised there as a member of the genteel high society for which the South is renowned. But Eliza left the South after her first love, Henry, betrayed her. A chance meeting with Henry 10 years later draws her attention inexorably back to the past, inducing her to return to the city of her youth in the hope of finding home again. As in the city of Charleston, much goes on beneath the surface of Thornton's relatively mundane plot, including strongly developed characters and sharp dialogue spiked with hidden significance. Thornton's prose has a wonderfully slow, languorous quality, which fits the tale perfectly. Any reader interested in realistic romance with a literary, classy style will enjoy this southern sojourn.--Peckham, Amber Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this fiction debut, Thornton isn't successful in an account of a woman's return home and attempt to recapture a lost love. Set in 1990, Eliza Poinsett, a London art historian, starts the book off by musing about the chance occurrences that brought her old flame Henry Heyward back into her life after years apart, causing her to wonder what to do about her current boyfriend and to wonder whether Fate "had its arms wrapped so tightly around her that it would never let her go." Eliza meets Henry again at a wedding in England after 10 years apart, but the plot follows a predictable arc; Eliza returns home to Charleston, SC, where she finds that while "she had lost part of herself. now it was coming back to her." She and Henry, a newspaper publisher, reconnect, as she finds herself more and more drawn to the one who got away, despite the presence of another man. Readers putting a premium on subtlety and originality will be disappointed. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
Thornton, editor of Tennessee Williams's Notebooks, and a Charleston, SC, native, makes her fiction debut with this title. The novel conveys a strong sense of place as it describes the city's landmarks, local eccentrics, and high society through the story of Eliza Poinsett, a white woman returning to the town she grew up in after a decade away. After working in London on an art history fellowship and becoming seriously involved with an English boyfriend, Eliza runs into her old flame Henry at a wedding in England and spontaneously visits Charleston to see him. Their love is easily rekindled but complicated by the presence of Henry's nine-year-old son. Upon returning to the world of debutante parties, cotillions, and old money, Eliza discovers that her hometown seems the same but wonders whether she's changed too much to stay. VERDICT Too tame for fans of the bawdy reality TV show Southern Charm, this is a bittersweet love story with well-mannered Charlestonians who discuss art, ignore race and politics, dance at society parties, take romantic walks, eat excellent food, drink moderately, and don't have sex in front of the reader.-Laurie Cavanaugh, Holmes P.L., Halifax, MA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A womans dilemmawhether to forgo an international academic career for romance in her native Charlestonis the subject of Thorntons debut.Charleston, South Carolina, circa 1990, is an insular world where a clique of founding families cherishes their heritage, clinging to antebellum ways while snubbing the tourists and newcomers who are fueling the citys economic resurgence.It's a world with which Thornton is, clearly, intimately familiar, and as a portrait of a city mired in the past, it works. What works less well is the story she sets against this headily atmospheric backdrop. Eliza, who, like the author, is an academic and a Charleston insider, attempted to escape her roots by moving to New York and then London to study art history.She has a liaison with Jamie, an upper-crust Englishman, but she has unresolved feelings for her childhood sweetheart, Henry, whom she left when he was unfaithful. His alcohol-fueled fling with an unbalanced Southern belle, Issie, resulted in an unplanned pregnancy and a hasty marriage and divorce. Devoid of motherly feeling, Issie has let Henry raise their son, Lawton, now 9, alone. On a visit home after a 10-year absence, Eliza is ineluctably drawn back to Henry. The only problem, besides a complete lack of narrative drive, is the absence of believable chemistry between Henry and Eliza. The couples rapprochement is eked out in long scenes of walking and driving, calling on friends, trips to the beach and to tennis matches, etc., which unspool with excruciating slowness almost in real time. Not until Page 200 does trouble surface in the form of a newly maternal Issie, who finally triggers some dramatic tension. It's telling that a subplot involving Elizas quest to authenticate a painting for an impoverished Charleston widow is more engrossing than the love story.The moving close can't redeem this novel; most readers will have given up long before the end. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
