Wednesday, May 14, 2008

#23 THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS by Dorothea Benton Frank


Number of Book #23
Date Began and Finished 4/13 - 4/20 2008
Genre - Women's Fiction
Year It Was Published - May 2007
Publisher - Avon
Number of Pages 354
Mass Market Paperback
Reason for reading: Review for Love Romances and More
Rating 4.5/5 stars

Blurb or Synopsis: I haven't read many of Dorothea Benton Frank's books, but each time I do they get better and better. A few years ago I had reviewed a book of hers, and she wrote me and said that I "got it", and that not many people do. She also mentioned that she just had a death in the family, and that she will turn this into a book. I truly believe that book is THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS, and that the death she referred to was her mother.The book is dedicated to her, and the story in part revolves around a woman and her relationship with her elderly mother.

Miriam Elizabeth Swanson lives in New York. She's divorced, and rents out her apartment to help make ends meet. Her good for nothing husband had run off with another woman, much younger, and good riddance to him! Miriam's best friend is her gay renter Kevin, who is the only man in her life that she can trust and depend on. At the start of the story, she is trying to find another renter, to replace the one that had recently died. After much interviewing, they eventually agree on a young woman from Alabama, Liz, who they feel will fit right in.

Miriam's personality is that of a very stuffy southern belle. When I first started reading the book, I had assumed she was elderly. Part of the story line has Miriam writing thank you notes as obsessively and diligently as one can do. She writes these thank you notes for almost everything, and most of them have to do with the social groups she participates in, groups that at one time held her in high regard. but since the divorce, her standing has fallen. Her husband had the money and evidently once the money left she was now considered a nobody.

Miriam's heart however belongs in the south, in the Low Country. When she goes home to visit her mother, she feels her troubles melt away. And when the new renter Liz encounters troubles of her own, Miriam takes Liz home with her to recuperate and to get some mothering from her own mother.

While visiting home, Miriam meets her mother's boyfriend, a much younger man named Harrison Ford (true!). Miriam notices her mother's changed lifestyle, too. She's eating organic, raising her own chicken for eggs, and basically she's a transformed woman. this southern-bred woman is now a hippie, thinks Miriam. her mother must be crazy or it could be just age.

With encouragement from her mother and Harrison, Miriam goes out with a man that Harrison knew, Manny, who brings out the wild side in Miriam, and she even accepts a new nickname, Mellie, which fits just fine. Mellie loosens up her hair so to speak, and to the surprise of everyone becomes a much less stodgy person and a more relaxed woman. But while she's having fun with Manny, she actually has her eyes on Harrison, but she knows Harrison is off limits.

Closer to home, Miriam regrets not having a strong close relationship with her two sons. She had a falling out with one son due to the awful names he had given to his two children, and the other son Miriam wrote off because he moved in with a woman of color who also happened to be boring, and she wasn't even from this country! But something happens to change Miriam's view on life. She vows to change and to not waste her time regretting the past. To prove that she's changed, when Miriam's son Charlie announces that he and Priscilla are finally getting married, she gives him the shock of his life by congratulating him and his fiance, and opens up her arms and heart to both of them. Thus starts their adventures as they plan the wedding,and Miriam hopes that this wedding will be celebrated by the entire family, including her estranged son.

Ultimately, however, THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS is about Miriam (Mellie), who starts off as a person that many people find harsh and stuck up and not very fun, and transforms to a totally different person. Her struggles to unite her family will strike a chord with many people, just as her relationship with her mother will bring out the tissues. I am going to say,without having read all of her books, that THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS is one of her best books yet. A review of this book cannot really describe the wonderful journey the reader will take as they start from the first page and end on that last happy, albeit sentimental, paragraph. THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS is highly recommended.

1 comment:

david mcmahon said...

Thanks for the visit and the comment. I like the way you approach and present your book reviews.