Low Country

Low Country

by Anne Rivers Siddons
Low Country

Low Country

by Anne Rivers Siddons

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Overview

Caroline Venable has everything her Southern heritage promised: money, prestige, a powerful husband—and a predictable routine of country-club luncheons, cocktail parties, and dinners hosting her husband's wealthy friends, clients, and associates in his successful land-developing conglomerate.

To escape her stifling routine, Caro drinks a little too much. But her true solace is the Lowcountry island her beloved Granddaddy left her—an oasis of breathtaking beauty that is home to a band of wild ponies. When Caro learns that her husband must develop the island or lose the business, she is devastated. The Lowcountry is her heritage—and what will happen to the ponies whose spirit and freedom have captivated her since childhood?

Saving the island could cost Caroline more than she ever imagined. To succeed, she must confront the part of herself numbed by alcohol and careful avoidance—and shatter long-held ideals about her role in society, her marriage, and ultimately, herself.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061747137
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 10/13/2009
Sold by: HARPERCOLLINS
Format: eBook
Pages: 480
Sales rank: 87,266
File size: 929 KB

About the Author

About The Author

Anne Rivers Siddons is the New York Times bestselling author of 19 novels that include Nora, Nora, Sweetwater Creek, Islands, Peachtree Road, and Outer Banks. She is also the author of the nonfiction work John Chancellor Makes Me Cry.

Hometown:

Charleston, South Carolina and a summer home in Maine overlooking Penobscot Bay

Date of Birth:

January 9, 1936

Place of Birth:

Atlanta, Georgia

Education:

B.A., Auburn University, 1958; Atlanta School of Art, 1958

Read an Excerpt


I think I'll go over to the island for a few days," I said to my husbandat breakfast, and then, when he did not respond, I said, "The light'sbeautiful. It can't last. I hate to waste it. We won't get this pure goldagain until this time next year."
Clay smiled, but he did not put down his newspaper, and he did not speak.The smile made my stomach dip and rise again, as it has for the past twenty-fiveyears. Clay's smile is wonderful, slow and unstinting and a bit crooked,and gains much of its power from the surrounding austerity of his sharp,thin face. Over the years I have seen it disarm a legion of people, fromtwo-year-olds in mid-tantrum to Arab sheiks in same. Even though I knewthat this smile was little more than a twitch, and with no more perceptionbehind it, I felt my own mouth smiling back. I wondered, as I often do,how he could do that, smile as though you had absolutely delighted him whenhe had not heard a word you said.
"There is a rabid armadillo approaching you from behind," I said."It's so close I can see the froth. It's not a pretty sight."
"I heard you," he said. "You want to go over to the islandbecause the light's good. It can't last."
I waited, but he did not speak again, or raise his eyes.
Finally I said, "So? Is that okay with you?"
This time he did look up.
"Why do you ask? You don't need my permission to go over to the island.When did I ever stop you?"
His voice was level and reasonable; it is seldom anything else. I knew thathe did not like me to go over to the island alone, though, for a numberof reasons that we had discussed and one that we had not, yet.
The island is wild and largely undeveloped now, except for a tiny settlementonits southwestern tip, and there are wild animals living on it that arehostile to humans, and sometimes dangerous. It is home to a formidable colonyof alligators, some more than twelve feet long, and a handful of wild boarthat make up in ferocity what they lack in numbers. Rattlesnakes and watermoccasins are a given. Even the band of sullen wild ponies that have livedthere on the grassy hummocks between the creeks and inlets since time outof mind are not the amiable toys they seem. A small child from the settlementwas badly kicked only last year, when he got too close to a mare nursingher foal. Clay knows that I have been handling myself easily and well onthe island since I was a child, but he mistrusts what he calls my impetuositymore than he trusts my long experience and exemplary safety record.
Then there is the settlement itself, Dayclear. That beautiful word is Gullah,part of the strange and lyrical amalgam of West African and Colonial Englishonce spoken by the handful of Gullah blacks still living in pockets of theSouth Carolina Lowcountry. They are the descendants of the slaves broughthere by the first white settlers of these archipelagos and marshes, andsome of the elders still speak the old patois among themselves. When I wasa child I knew some of it myself, a few words taught me by various Gullahnurses and cooks, a few snatches of songs sung by gardeners and handymenon my grandfather's place. I know that Dayclear means "dawn."I have always loved the word, and I have always been aware of the settlement,even if I did not often visit it when I was growing up and have no occasionto do so now. I do know that it is made up now largely of the old, witha preponderance of frail old women, and that some of them must be the kinof those workers of my childhood, if not the actual people themselves. Iknow that there are virtually no young men and women living there, sincethe young leave the island as soon as they are physically able to do so,to seek whatever fortunes they might find elsewhere. There is nothing forthem in Dayclear. There are children, small ones, left behind with the oldwomen by daughters and granddaughters who have taken flight, and there aresometimes silent, empty-faced young men about, who have come home becausethey are in trouble and have, temporarily, nowhere else to go, but theydo not stay long.
I have not been to the settlement for many years, as my route across theisland lies in the dry, hummocky heart of it, and the house to which I gois at the opposite end, looking northwest toward the shore of Edisto. Butwhen I think of it, I feel nothing but a kind of mindless, nostalgic senseof safety and benevolence. Dayclear has never given me anything but nurturingand love.
Clay fears it, though. He has never said so, but I know that he does. Ican tell; I always know when Clay is afraid, because he so seldom is, andof almost nothing.
"There's nothing there that can hurt me; nobody who would," Ihave said to him. "They're just poor old women and babies and children."
"You don't know who's back in there," he said. "You don'tsee who comes and goes. Anybody could come across. There are places youcould wade across. Anybody could drop anchor in the Inland Waterway andcome ashore. You think everybody in that little place doesn't know whenyou're at the house, and that you're by yourself? I don't like it when yougo, Caro. But you know that."

What People are Saying About This

Pat Conroy

Siddons has never written a sentence that did not have music in it.

Reading Group Guide

"We need myths more than food or water. They give shape and put us in touch with the world. We don't have enough heroes or myths in this century . . ."
Plot Summary
Caroline Venable has everything her Southern heritage promised: money, prestige, a rich husband, and a predictable routine of country-club luncheons and cocktail parties. Caroline is the chatelaine of a magnificent home, hostess to her husband's wealthy friends and prospective clients, and the official "one woman welcome wagon" for the young, eager talent that her husband, Clay, imports to their corner of South Carolina to work for the family company, a vastly-successful land-development conglomerate, Peacock Island Plantation. But ever since her ten-year-old daughter, Kylie, drowned in the nearby ocean, Caro hasn't been able to fully cope with her hostess role, and she hasn't been able to stop drinking. Instead, she has been taking refuge on "the island," the wild and undeveloped part of Peacock Island, in the house she grew up in. As Clay's booming business takes him away from home more frequently, Caro finds herself alone in her grandfather's old lodge, immersed in the spectacular beauty of the unspoiled flora and fauna. Roaming the island are a band of wild ponies whose freedom and spirit captivated both Caroline and, during her lifetime, the young Kylie. Across the island is Dayclear, a community of Gullahs, direct descendants of the West African slaves, who still retain much of their ancient culture and way of life. But that way of life is about to be shattered. The Gullahs learn from a visiting botanist, Luis Cassells, that they do not own the land on which they live. When Carolinelearns that her husband's business is collapsing and the only way to save it is to develop her beloved "island," including Dayclear and the ponies' grazing lands, she realizes she must confront the part of herself that she has numbed with alcohol and careful avoidance, and she must reconsider her priorities. Luis challenges her to imagine what she would be "willing to die for," forcing Caroline to redefine her role in society, her marriage, and ultimately, herself.

Topics for Discussion
1. What role does painting play in Caroline's life? What dictates her interest or ability to paint on a given day? How does her relationship to her painting change through the course of the novel?

2. Caroline's grandfather remarks to her, "No sense thinking we could keep this island to ourselves much longer, and I'd rather Clay looked after opening it up than anybody I know of. He's going to keep the spirit of it, and that's all I care about." Does Clay keep the spirit of the island intact? How has he betrayed his early vision? How do you think Caroline has managed not to notice for so many years?

3. What aspects of the Gullah culture and faith has Caroline adopted? How do the Gullah help Caro through her time of trial? What role do the Gullah myths play in Caroline's life? What does it mean to "hear the panther?"

4. The Gullah are a dying culture in need of medicine and electricity. Do you think Clay's development plans answer any of the Gullahs' needs? Is it the best solution? How else might the Gullah be better served? How else might their culture be preserved?

5. What has brought Luis Cassells to Peacock Island? How would you characterize his initial opinion of Caroline? Is there an agenda behind his initial friendship toward her? How does that agenda change through the course of the novel? Luis describes himself as a coward. Do you agree with his assessment of himself? Why do you think his granddaughter, Lita, is so drawn towards Caro?

6. What role does Kylie's ghost play in the lives of Caroline and Clay? Why does Caro want to sever relations with Kylie's ghost? How is she able to do so?

7. Clay has deeply betrayed Caro by placing everything she holds dear in dire jeopardy. Do you think it is possible for them to salvage their marriage? How will Caroline's future differ from her early years of marriage? How has she grown?

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