Fair and Tender Ladies

Her work has a mixture of lyricism and sexual boldness. . . Like Sissy Spacek and Loretta Lynn, Smith can make a performance in a popular medium seem like a complete declaration of feeling. . . Fair and Tender Ladies might have been sung into being.” —Newsweek

Among her most devoted readers, Fair and Tender Ladies (1988) is probably Smith’s most beloved book; Smith says she knows of at least four babies named for the novel’s indomitable heroine, Ivy Rowe. This epistolary novel chronicles the life of Ivy, a tenacious mountain woman who remains cussedly dedicated to the ideal of perseverance, despite the many formidable obstacles she faces. It is considered by many to be Smith’s most fully realized and artistically successful work. In 1995, a reviewer wrote that in Fair and Tender Ladies, Smith seemed to be “working toward [an] elemental and profound grasp of emotions and storytelling.”

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Visit barbarabatessmith.com to learn about the Ivy Rowe one woman show!