Dimestore by Lee Smith

 

This is author Lee Smith's account of growing up in Southwest Virginia in the small town of Gundy.  It was mountain country and everyone knew everyone.  Her father owned the town's general store which everyone called the dimestore.  Her grandparents lived there also and she and her friends moved happily between each others' houses and those of relatives.  

But all is not perfect.  Like many small Southwestern Virginia towns, the economy was built around one employer and when it closed, the town started dying.  More and more people moved away and few came to settle.  The town was built on a river that periodically flooded and damaged property.  

She also talked about other parts of her life.  About her first marriage which ended in divorce and her second one.  About her son who developed mental illness and who she tragically lost young, joining that horrific mother's club, the one where one has suffered the ultimate loss, that of a beloved child.  About the writing influences she had along the way and about the wonderful city of Chapel Hill, beloved by many as a perfect college town.

I could relate to so much of this book.  I also grew up in Southwest Virginia although more in the foothills than the mountains.  My town was a small mill town, built around textiles and furniture like the other small towns around us.  It was a town where parents could drop their kids off at the pool and let them roam the small downtown without worry and I spent many days moving from pool to the Y to one of the two restaurants.  As textiles and furniture moved overseas, we also saw our little towns struggling to survive.  Finally, like Lee Smith I moved in my adult years to North Carolina where I live about an hour from Chapel Hill.  Lee Smith is an American treasure and her books help us recall the best of Southern life and culture.  This book is recommended for biography readers.