Lisa Alther – författare

A provocative and wide-ranging conversation between two distinctive women—one American and one French—on the dilemmas, rewards, and demands of womanhood.Lisa Alther and Françoise Gilot have been friends for more than twenty-five years. Although from different backgrounds (Gilot from cosmopolitan Paris, Alther from small-town Tennessee) and different generations, they found they have a great deal in common as women who managed to support themselves with careers in the arts while simultaneously balancing the obligations of work and parenthood. About Women is their extended conversation in which they talk about everything important to them: their childhoods, the impact of war on their lives and their work, and their views on love, style, self-invention, feminism, and child rearing. They also discuss the creative impulse and the importance of art as they ponder what it means to be a woman.From the Hardcover edition.

A new novel, funny, wise, moving, true, as only Lisa Alther can write ("she had me laughing at 4 in the morning" --Doris Lessing), set on a cruise ship, about a woman, a doctor in charge of the ship''s clinic, recovering from the loss of her longtime female lover, a much-admired writer, and coping with the high-wire madcappery of cruise ship life as she reckons with her past and feels her way into the future.Dr. Jessie Drake, in her mid-sixties, following the sudden deaths of her parents and Kat, her partner of twenty years, has fled the Vermont life she has known for decades.In an effort to escape the oppressive constancy of grief, she accepts a job from an old flame from her residency in New York City''s Roosevelt Hospital, and agrees to assist Ben as the ship''s doctor on a British liner. Jessie boards in Hong Kong, and, as the Amphitrite sails throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East, cruise ship antics ensue. Jessie is lulled back into a long-ago romance with the ship''s co-doctor, and both she and her new/old beau become enmeshed with the ship''s lead (female) singer/entertainer. Among the passengers who fling socialized behavior aside on the high seas: a former Florida beauty queen (Miss Florida Power and Light) on a second honeymoon with her husband, as she causes high-velocity scandal, while juggling onboard affairs with a suicidal golf pro, and a defrocked priest hired as one of the liner''s gentleman hosts, until she vanishes--poof!--from the ship off the coast of Portugal . . . As the ship sails through the Gulf of Aden and into a possible hijacking by Somali pirates, Jessie retreats into her lover''s journals, written during her final months, journals filled with sketches of potential characters, observations on life and love--as well as drafts of a long new poem in progress, "Swan Song," that seems to be about being in love with someone else, someone new. As Jessie''s grief turns to suspicion about the woman she thought she knew so well, her illumination of the poem''s meaning begins to lift the constraints of the past and make clear the way toward the future.

America's most notorious family feud began in 1865 with the murder of a Union McCoy soldier by a Confederate Hatfield relative of "Devil Anse" Hatfield. More than a decade later, Ranel McCoy accused a Hatfield cousin of stealing one of his hogs, triggering years of violence and retribution, including a Romeo-and-Juliet interlude that eventually led to the death of one of McCoy's daughters. In a drunken brawl, three of McCoy's sons killed Devil Anse Hatfield's younger brother. Exacting vigilante vengeance, a group of Hatfields tied them up and shot them dead. McCoy posses hijacked part of the Hatfield firing squad across state lines to stand trial, while those still free burned down Ranel McCoy's cabin and shot two of his children in a botched attempt to suppress the posses. Legal wrangling ensued until the US Supreme Court ruled that Kentucky could try the captured West Virginian Hatfields. Seven went to prison, and one, mentally disabled, yelled, "The Hatfields made me do it!" as he was hanged. But the feud didn't end there. Its legend continues to have an enormous impact on the popular imagination and the region. With a charming voice, a wonderfully dry sense of humor, and an abiding gift for spinning a yarn, bestselling author Lisa Alther makes an impartial, comprehensive, and compelling investigation of what happened, masterfully setting the feud in its historical and cultural contexts, digging deep into the many causes and explanations of the fighting, and revealing surprising alliances and entanglements. Here is a fascinating new look at the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud.

A humorous journey from ’80s Manhattan to the wild side of small-town living, from bestselling author Lisa Alther Clea Shawn is exhausted by her life: her globe-trotting career as a travel photographer, her successful husband’s numerous liaisons, and the unrequited love she feels for her best friend, Elke. She decides to get away from her Manhattan townhouse—and a city in the throws of the ’80s—and move to Roches Ridge, the picturesque Vermont town she visits on a ski trip. Roches Ridge is quiet, sleepy, and seemingly unchanged by the times. But Clea soon discovers this small town has big secrets—and even bigger characters. From the Don Johnson look-alike who introduces his salon’s clientele to punk hairstyles and the band of militant lesbians camped out in Mink Creek to the romance-writing cosmetics saleswoman turned stalker and the strapping hillbilly with a predilection for animal skeleton art, Roches Ridge is livelier than Clea originally thinks.  . . . A rollicking small-town adventure, Bedrock features Alther’s signature mix of unexpected, humorous characters, and a charming heroine on the long bumpy road to self-actualization. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lisa Alther, including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

A wise and funny novel about the kind of love that extends beyond boundaries—within this world and into the next

Raised in the Tennessee hills in the 1950s by a widower father, Jude grows into a young woman who finds her soul mate in her new neighbor Molly. But when age and social convention intervene, she must find a new person to entrust with her heart. Venturing north to pursue all that ’60s New York has to offer, Jude finds comfort in her childhood pal Sandy, a man now in the midst of his own metamorphosis. Will she give her love to Sandy, or will the attractive and mysterious poet Anna be her true match? With an endearing heroine and a keen understanding of the human condition, Alther’s smart and captivating tale considers how changing views on what it means to love—and be loved—can alter lives. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lisa Alther, including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

Bestselling author Lisa Alther’s classic coming-of-age novel set amidst the changing times of the 1960s American South Growing up in Tennessee in a family of privilege, Ginny Babcock’s world is seemingly idyllic. Her father, the Major, runs the local plant—and, thus, the town—and her mother works on beloved home movies, or “kinflicks,” as her children call them, documenting the quintessential moments of her children growing up. But her mother’s camera isn’t there to capture Ginny’s growing rebellion against her prim Southern upbringing. From her backseat exploits as a popular high schooler, to her late night adventures at the moonshine joint with a greaser boyfriend, to her passionate days with a lover at the militant feminist commune in Vermont, Ginny throws herself into the moment—until, finally, she must return home and look after her ailing mother. Funny, wise, and filled with unforgettable characters, Kinflicks is a captivating novel that draws on the human fallout of turbulent times. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lisa Alther, including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

Five childhood friends with big plans face the changing realities of life in Tennessee in the 1960s in this novel from bestselling author Lisa Alther As Sally and Emily Prince and Jed, Raymond, and Donny Tatro sit under their beloved Castle Tree in rural, segregated Tennessee, they dream big dreams. But the journey from these dreams to reality is a long one. As they move into their teens, each faces challenges they could never have imagined. Sally and Jed may take a traditional route as head cheerleader and football captain in their sports-frenzied town, but can their love survive some unexpected bumps in the road? Emily and Raymond, always the outsiders, move north during the civil rights movement and must consider their connection to Southern roots and traditional gender roles. And Donny, as an African-American teen, will endure the effects of generations of discrimination and class boundaries as he tries to live out his dreams in their small factory town. Along the way, the five will fall in love, change one another’s lives, grow apart, and come together again. In this sweeping novel, Alther brings to life characters both tragic and comic as they live through the changing American socio-economic landscape of the 1950s and ’60s. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lisa Alther, including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

Caroline is a giver—as an ER nurse, as devoted lover to her partner, Diane, as a divorced mother of two boys, and as the daughter of world-class do-gooders—but can she accept help from others and still be herself? When trauma cases in the ER leave Caroline emotionally paralyzed and her relationship with her partner, Diane, breaks down, she knows its time to take a look at her life and do something she’d never imagined: go to therapy. Her therapist, Hannah, knows a thing or two about sacrifice and pain. A former war bride, Hannah may live a seemingly cozy domestic life with her beloved husband and two grown children, but she can’t forget her own harrowing past. As she and Caroline work together, each comes to understand and admire the resilient woman sitting before her. A poignant look at the human need for acceptance, Other Women is a thoughtful novel about how a life examined is worth living. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lisa Alther, including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

Three wise and witty novels of the sixties, sexuality, and the South by a New York Times–bestselling “strong, salty, original talent” (Doris Lessing).Kinflicks: “An ambitious, funny, lucid and unfailingly honest” coming-of-age novel set in the 1960s American South (The New Yorker). Tart-tongued Tennessean Ginny Babcock seems to live in an idyllic world—and her mother documents every moment for the family’s home movies. But mother’s “kinflicks” don’t capture everything about Ginny. Not by a long shot.  Original Sins: In this “thoroughly endearing” novel, Sally, Emily, Jed, Raymond, and Donny are friends who dream big in rural Tennessee (Chicago Tribune). But the road to reality isn’t quite what they imagined. Some take the safe route; others drift away to reconsider their roots and traditions; and for Donny, an African American, fulfilling dreams is all about resilience. In the ever-shifting landscape of the 1950s and ’60s, they grow up, grow apart, and have every good intention of coming back together.  Five Minutes in Heaven: Raised in the Tennessee hills in the 1950s, Jude grows into a young woman who finds her soul mate in her new neighbor Molly. But when age and social convention intervene, she ventures north to pursue all that sixties New York has to offer—including a transitional comfort with a man in the midst of his own sexual discovery. With an endearing heroine and a smart consideration of what it means to love—and be loved—this coming-of-age novel is “a little bit of heaven” (Rita Mae Brown).

Meet Ginny Babcock - the forerunner to BRIDGET JONESIt's the 1950's and 60's in Hullsport, Tennessee and Ginny Babcock is coming of age. Bouncing from one identity to the other, she adopts the values, politics, lifestyles and even sexual orientation of each new partner she finds. In this wise, funny and ultimately heartbreaking story, Lisa Alther explores the limited roles offered to women in this period - from cheerleader to motorcycle moll, bulldyke to madonna - each embodying important truths about the aspirations of the culture that created them.Honest, wise, funny and tragic by turns this is a remarkable novel in a class of its own.