Guests on Earth by Lee Smith
Guests on Earth by Lee Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
While I can’t claim to have read all of Lee Smith’s books – she is terrifically prolific – I found this one to be a quietly powerful read. She is a consummate southern writer whose career has spanned decades, and one feels her command of her craft in this historical novel about the fire that killed Zelda Fitzgerald – told through the eyes of another inmate in Highland Hospital. It is a strong book that conveys the depth of her research, and she chooses to present Zelda on her own, among the people that she encountered in the hospital. Her famous husband is hardly here at all. This makes it tempting to remark that the idea of Zelda feels incomplete without F. Scott in the picture – but that’s precisely the problem with her life and with the attitude toward women altogether, that it takes a man to complete them. So that in the end I think this may be the truest look one could have at Zelda herself. The book does little that is expected; the characters simply hold the page as happens in good fiction. I doubt that this will be remembered as Smith’s best book, but for me it is proof of the breadth of what she can accomplish. She has written so much so well. If there is a problem here it is that Zelda overshadows the other characters, which tips the book out of balance. But the choice to put her in the background was the right one, and the story resonates, particularly if one knows anything about Asheville, which has some powerful literary ghosts.