Description
A timeless American classic rediscovered—an unforgettable saga of a heartland family
On a farm in western Missouri during the first half of the twentieth century, Matthew and Callie Soames create a life for themselves and raise four headstrong daughters. Jessica will break their hearts. Leonie will fall in love with the wrong man. Mary Jo will escape to New York. And wild child Mathy’s fate will be the family’s greatest tragedy. Over the decades they will love, deceive, comfort, forgive—and, ultimately, they will come to cherish all the more fiercely the bonds of love that hold the family together.
About the Author (from Wikipedia)
The Moonflower Vine was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1962, and proved to be a sensation. It was edited by Robert Gottlieb, who said of it, “Of the hundreds upon hundreds of novels I’ve edited, this is literally the only one I’ve reread several times since its publication.”[5] The novel spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list; it was selected for promotion by two major book clubs, appeared as a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book, and was published in eight other countries.[1] Due to its success Cottey presented Carleton with its Distinguished Alumna Award in 1964 for her work.[2] Nevertheless, it remained the only novel which she published during her lifetime.[1]
Carleton and her husband moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1970, and opened a publishing house, The Lightning Tree, with the money earned from her novel. Never profitable, it put out poetry, cookbooks, and works on regional history, and kept her too busy to write. During this time she continued with her tradition of visiting family in Nevada every summer. The press folded in 1991, two years before Lyon died.
Carleton began work on another novel, The Back Alleys of Spring, based on her experiences teaching in Joplin. She had nearly finished it in 1997, and was preparing to shop it around for publication when she suffered a stroke and hit her head on a stone floor at her house; she was not found for some hours, and ultimately was robbed of her ability to speak. At her death in 1999 her papers went to a nephew in Missouri; the novel was thought lost in a May 2003 tornado, but it had instead been preserved by her literary executor, Larry Calloway, in Santa Fe.
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