Product Description

By the #1 bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany and In Tuscany, Swan is a haunting novel set in the deep South -- a resonant tale of long-buried family secrets and mysteries brought suddenly to light.

In her celebrated memoirs of life in Tuscany, Frances Mayes writes masterfully about people in a powerful and shaping place. In Swan, her first novel, she has created an equally intimate world, rich with striking characters and intriguing twists of fate, that hearkens back to her southern roots.

The Masons are a prominent but now fragmented family who have lived for generations in Swan, an edenic, hidebound small town in Georgia. As Swan opens, a bizarre crime pulls Ginger Mason home from her life as an archeologist in Italy: The body of her mother, Catherine, a suicide nineteen years before, has been mysteriously exhumed. Reunited on new terms with her troubled, isolated brother J.J., who has never ventured far from Swan, the Mason children grapple with the profound effects of their mother's life and death on their own lives. When a new explanation for Catherine’s death emerges, and other closely guarded family secrets rise to the surface as well, Ginger and J.J. are confronted with startling truths about their family, a particular ordeal in a family and a town that wants to keep the past buried.

Beautifully evoking the rhythms and idiosyncrasies of the deep South while telling an utterly compelling story of the complexity of family ties, Swan marks the remarkable fiction debut of one of America’s best-loved writers.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #334445 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-26
• Released on: 2003-08-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.com Review
It seems like there's a law that every novel set below the Mason-Dixon Line must feature a family secret, a beautiful dead mother, and a contested paternity. Also, iced tea. Swan, the debut novel from memoirist Frances Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany), is pretty standard stuff. J.J. Mason lives like a hermit in the woods outside the town of Swan, Georgia; his sister Ginger Mason works as an archaeologist in Italy. Their family has been in Swan forever; the whole town mourned when Caroline, Ginger, and J.J.'s mother committed suicide. Now the town joins in shock when Caroline's body is mysteriously and crudely exhumed. Ginger returns from Italy; J.J. comes into town. Over the course of a week in July 1975, and against a backdrop of townspeople, relatives, gossipy old biddies, and mill workers, the siblings explore the dark history of their mother's death. The book is competently done, and Mayes is clearly enjoying her break from the Tuscan sun--she especially seems to enjoy folksy-yet-Gothic Southernisms: "Who'd ever think someone that pretty could up and die? ... Just goes to show how quick it is from can to can't." Despite the book's grisly grave-digging, though, Mayes unearths nothing new. --Claire Dederer

From Publishers Weekly
Combining elements from her own life abroad and at home, Mayes presents her first novel, after a series of wildly popular Italian memoirs (Under the Tuscan Sun, etc.). The author, a Georgia native, has much working in her favor: she's built up a legion of loyal readers through her nonfiction, and this tale which takes place in a Steel Magnolias-like sleepy Southern town offers the tried and true matters of family saga, mystery and Americana. The Mason family has owned cotton mills and other valuable real estate in the town of Swan, Ga. for generations. J.J. and Ginger Mason lost their mother, Catherine, when they were children. Now they are in their early 30s, and Ginger is living where else? in Tuscany, working as an archeologist; J.J. is still in Swan, a sort of reclusive mountain man who spends his days sketching the arrowheads he finds on fishing trips. They're reunited when bad news surfaces: Catherine's body has mysteriously been dug up, 19 years after her death. Ginger flies home, and she and J.J., while at a loss as to whodunit, begin to unearth previously unknown details about their mother's life. With the steady if not necessarily riveting mystery serving as a base plot, Mayes weaves various side stories involving the unfortunate demise of Ginger and J.J.'s father and the fate of their grandfather's mistress, among others. Mayes's writing is smooth and her homespun evocations of the steamy South are moving. And although the story begins to lose its oomph after 200 or so pages, this is a pleasurable read that will please Mayes's devotees.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Fans of Mayes's memoirs about her life in Italy (Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany) will not be disappointed by her first novel, which is set in a backwater town in Mayes's native Georgia. The Masons are the richest family in Swan, but their money couldn't protect them from tragedy. When Ginger and her brother J.J. were children, their beautiful and loving mother committed suicide; their father suffered a stroke soon afterwards, and the children were raised by their Aunt Lily. Now in their thirties, Ginger works as an archaeologist in Tuscany, while J.J. spends most of his time hunting and fishing. But all that changes when their mother's grave is ransacked, and the subsequent investigation proves beyond a doubt that Catherine Mason was actually murdered. As Ginger and J.J. begin to unravel the truth about the past, they also begin to accept their own and others' weaknesses. Mayes clearly never met a quirky character she didn't like, and she's seemingly put every one of them in this book, whether or not they move the plot forward (and most do not). This slows down the pace considerably, especially because these secondary characters aren't well delineated. With that caveat, this remains a solid read, sure to please readers who enjoy Southern fiction.
Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A Fine Southern Novel
I finished Swan yesterday and her characters are with me still- for me a sure sign of a good novel. The Discovery of Poetry by Frances Mayes is one of my very favorite books. I was interested in how her novel would be. The settings are wonderfully described, brought alive and as I have already indicated, the characters appealing and engrossing. Good read !!

...adrift in the pond
This book left the reader with too many loose ends. There were many mysteries in the story... and too many left unsolved. Yes, it would make for good discussions, but left the individual reader adrift and without any closure.

A True Tale from the South
Being a daughter of the South myself, I can honestly say the characters in this book are uniquely southern. I was constantly going, yes, I know that place -- I pass that on my way home -- I have a friend from there, etc. She did a perfect job in her characterization, and her sense of place is phenomenal. The story itself was very easy to read mostly because it pulled you in and made you interested in what became of these people. The plot was interesting and had enough twists to keep you coming back for more. One thing I loved was Mayes' ability to surprise. I would be reading along, engrossed in the story, when suddenly I would have to back up and reread a portion (usually at the end of a chapter) because what I read couldn't possibly be what she wrote. And yet it always was -- interesting bits about the characters that just got slipped in. Altogether, I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting a good read.