Product Description

A collection of the author's previous or unavailable works features excerpts from each of her books; a complete novel, When Sisterhood Was in Flower; noted columns and book reviews, and a selection from The Barbarian Princess.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1598504 in Books
• Published on: 1995-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 417 pages

Amazon.com Review
The chignoned, post-menopausal author of Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady has given us a feast--an anthology of her fiction and non-fiction written over the past 20 years. King has us dancing with joy as she turns her keen eye and uncivil tongue on sisterhood, the sexes and sex (she's against it these days), politics, and most particularly the South that hatched her. Ms. King is simply what many strive to be and few achieve--a true American original. She's unafraid, unabashed and unleashed from worrying about what anyone else might think.

From Publishers Weekly
King's politically incorrect humor and social satire does not appeal to everyone, but for devotees, this eclectic anthology of essays, fiction and criticism will be a delight. Included is an excerpt from With Charity Toward None (1992), King's celebration of misanthropy, as well as a sampling of her sardonic book reviews and columns originally published in the National Review. Although she describes herself as a Southerner and feminist, King parodies Dixieland in a selection from her memoir, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, and executes a hilarious send-up of the women's movement in When Sisterhood Was in Flower, an abridged version of her only novel published with her real name. Other pieces humorously skewer Episcopalians, American husbands, gay Southern men and Bill Clinton. Early in her career, King wrote genre fiction under pseudonyms and includes here a portion of a "trash historical," The Barbarian Princess.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
King fans will be ecstatic, publicists will tremble (for King is a notorious misanthrope who takes her loathing of book tours and author interviews out on those who host and herald such occasions), and those yet unacquainted with this uncommon southern writer have pages of gut-wrenching laughter in store for them. King sets the stage in her hilarious introduction: "One of the values of an anthology is supposed to be the opportunity it gives readers to see how an author has grown over the years. Well, tough titty." King claims to "have cut, revised, edited and in general rewritten the excerpts. Polishing and tightening my prose is my idea of good clean narcissistic fun." Among the pieces selected here are King's novel in its entirety, a chapter of her uncompleted, savagely funny, "heaving-bosom historical," book reviews, and excerpts from essay collections on any and all topics in American life. A reader to be relished. Denise Perry Donavin

Customer Reviews

The Mistress of Mendacity makes mavelous mischief
I am angry at Florence King. She hasn't written a book in years and frankly, I am tired of waiting for her next one. Since National Review put a contract out on my life for my unpaid subscription, I am not even given the pleasure of reading her splendid column in the back, which I naturally flip straight to when I can pilfer a copy from the library, who are also gunning for me. In between dodging the collection goons at NR and the shock troops from the library, I would like to have a comforted soul with the immediate purchase of Miss King's newest book, which is five years over due, by my estimation. Where is it, Miss King?

This anthology is, of course, utterly delightfull and one of the rare books that lives up to every expectation built up on the dustcover. King's scrumptuous analogies and meticulous self-editing have created prose I could eat my lunch on, it is so clean and perfected.

The other 'King partisan' I know told me once that people who read her inevitably end up buying all her books. As I am a man given to contrarianism, I balked at the idea and resolved not to be that dreaded monicker- a fan. I further balked when I read her editor's praise of her work in the same vein. Those are the same kinds of praises the moron teachers in my english classes in college gave John Updike for having prose I would not feed to rabid dingos.

But damned if I haven't bought every book in her set. I have, against all good sense, become a thorough fan of this excellent woman's works. She is, simply put, the best prose stylist of the latter half of the twentieth century. Her works are like an elixer on the relentless nature of my hyper-modern Gen-X environment. A good hour long sit down reading of King can dispell an entire week's worth of the New York Times and two months worth of CNN.

In short, buy her book. If you're here reading this review and you're wondering about the possibility of it being a good buy, stop wondering- no one with an ounce of artistic appreciation could possibly feel they had not had money well spent.

And I am wailing and gnashing my teeth to say it, but you will end up buying every single one of her books. If you're the praying sort, pray for two thing- one, that Miss King will write a book real soon, and two, that the doorbell that just rang was not Bill Buckley come looking for his twenty nine dollars.

Delightful collection of King
This book is incredibly good value. Not only does it contain extracts from all Miss King's hilarious books, Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, Reflections ina Jaundiced eye etc, but it contains the WHOLE of her wonderful novel 'When Sisterhood was in Flower' which sends up the wilder shores of Feminism so hilariously. Also there are lots of previously uncollected articles and book reviews, most of which I hadn't read before. There's even a chapter from her bodice-ripper "The Barbarian Princess" the writing of which is so amusingly described in 'Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye'. Lack of space means you won't find all your favourite passages here (for my money, the chapter 'The Sperm and I' in He:an Irreverent look at the American Male' is one of the funniest things she's ever written), but there is enough to keep any King fan happy for days. If you haven't before encountered Miss King's waspish wit and disdain for practically everyone and everything, this is a good place to start.

I laughed so hard my eyes wouldn't focus
It must have been fate. I'd never heard of Florence King and just happened to find this book while browsing for something for a gift. I read the whole thing in less than 2 days. This is the funniest book I've read in ages, maybe ever. Florence King is a genius with words. The novel included in this book, "When Sisterhood was in Flower" is priceless.