Fancy Strut

By: Lee Smith

Narrated by: Linda Stephens

Lee Smith, author of the acclaimed The Last Girls, delights with a tale of dry wit. Smith has won many prizes, including the Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Academy Award in Literature.

Speed, Alabama, is celebrating its sesquicentennial, 150 years of proud existence, and its whimsical inhabitants will definitely not let the event pass without a party. Eccentric resident Miss Iona is there to chronicle the events in her society column featured in the Messenger and to make sure the "zestful preparation" is carried out in a proper southern fashion. For genteel and dignified Miss Iona, that means no majorettes will be featured on the society page!

©1973 Lee Smith (P)2004 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Deft and assured...Smith's seemingly effortless work is a considerable feat....She is nothing less than masterly." (The New York Times Book Review)
"[Smith] has the gift of a McCullers or a Faulkner of catching the sorrow, irony, and humor indigenous to the Southern temperament." (Booklist)

Entertaining and fun!

I hesitated to purchase this because I read to a negative review of the narration. I loved it and found the narration charming, but I am from the south and know ladies who talk like that! Great characters and a fun story. If you appreciate Lee Smith's work and the stories of the south, you will love this. I have read all of her books and enjoy listening to them also.

Great Story but Abysmal Narration

The story is well written, Lee Smith is a great painter of characters, and the pacing is a bit slow, which I find reflects the genre of 1970s Southern authors. However, I suggest you read the paper version because the narrator is so overwrought, stilted and tedious to listen to I could not take it. Imagine 12 hours listening to someone who took a little too much pride is her elocution lessons - everything so painfully over-enunciated as to sound forced and pretentious, detracting from the story.

There are so many great readers on Audible, better to find one of them instead. Lee Smith has a great story in Fancy Strut, but it's not worth listening to this caricature of a reader who seems to be trying to sound as if her voice is more important than the words it carries.