Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger

“Smith’s heroines find strength in the moments that push us all forward.”  —People

“Lee Smith has long had a reputation as a master of the short story, and her new collection…galvanizes that reputation…Smith offers the grit of the domestic scene, the power of the written word, and the transcendent beauty of women as friends, lovers, daughters, and mothers.”  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“This wonderful writer is a readers’-advisory librarian’s dream. Short stories, ordinarily a relatively hard sell to library patrons, are a different animal when they are Lee Smith’s short stories. In a very hospitable way of talking, reminiscent of Ellen Gilchrist’s style in her delicious writing, Smith offers stories that deliver an irresistible one-two punch. The first punch is—again, like Gilchrist—the humor that fills every page. She doesn’t poke fun at the ordinary folks who stock her fiction but gets us to see, by their plights and successes, the universal absurdity in their struggles to attain love and significance. The second punch is the meaningfulness of every story. All of us, in different garb, appear at some point in a Smith story…The title story is entertaining and riveting from its first line…The most beautiful story is the very short ‘Toastmaster,’ an imaginative narrative from the point of view of a bookish little boy.” —Booklist (starred review)