- *Carbondale, Illinois. 1958. For widowed Tessie Lockhart, booking two seats on a passenger train to Florida symbolizes a fresh start, far from her memories of love and loss. For TessieΠ²Πβ’s teenage daughter Dinah, who misses her father terribly, the move to Gainesville means a new school and the painful ordeal of making new friends. Rich, popular Crystal Landy is one of the first girls Dinah meetsΠ²Πβand it will be Crystal, along with her exquisite mother, Victoria, who will transform the LockhartsΠ²Πβ’ lives in ways they never could have imagined. For as war and change come to this small southern town, the bonds between mothers and daughters will be tested, friendships sealed, secrets revealed, and relationships forever altered by the turbulence of the coming decades.
Wise, moving, and warmly funny*,* The Orange Blossom Special*,* spans twenty years in the lives of an unforgettable cast of characters. Betsy Carter has crafted a powerful, richly rewarding novel about growing up, moving on, and turning strangers into friends.
From Publishers Weekly
The title of Carter's sympathetic if somewhat contrived debut novel (she's the author of a memoir, Nothing to Fall Back On) refers to the first New YorkΠ²ΠβtoΠ²ΠβMiami passenger train, a not-so-subtle metaphor for the American dream and the forward march of history, as the story hurtles from the late '50s and into the '80s. In 1958, comely widow Tessie Lockhart and her seventh-grade daughter, Dinah, uproot from Carbondale, Ill., to Gainesville, Fla., driven by a very American faith in the healing power of a fresh start. There, their lives intertwine with those of Gainesville's powerful Landy family, as Dinah's popular classmate Crystal Landy and her solemn older brother, Charlie, befriend Dinah. When the Landys' house burns down, killing their father, Dinah and Crystal form a special bond, speaking "the same language of loss" across the divide of class and social status. Even Tessie and supercilious matriarch Victoria Landy cement a rocky friendship, and over the years, a tumultuous love blossoms between Dinah and Charlie. Carter's plot skips lightly over the passing decades, which are marked by periodic eruptions of changing culture. Each incident of racial strife or Vietnam tragedy feels forced and representative, though, and as the novel barrels into the lateΠ²Πβ20th century like the titular locomotive, Carter sacrifices character development in her reach for historical import.
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From Booklist
Justly praised for her candid, humorous memoir, Nothing to Fall Back On (2002), magazine writer and editor Carter tries her hand at fiction in this affecting tale of widow Tess and her daughter, Dinah, who relocate to Gainesville, Florida, in 1958. They are soon virtually adopted by the wealthy Landy family, which includes pampered mom Victoria; teenager Charlie, who has the gift of second sight; and overweight, sassy seventh-grader Crystal. As the Landys help to ease their transition into southern small-town culture, Tess lands a good job and finds love with a jai alai mogul, and Dinah finds her soul mate in Charlie. Over the next two decades, they must all confront the changes brought on by Victoria's new business venture and Crystal's distress over Dinah and Charlie's relationship. The plot of this first novel seems overly thin at times, and the transitions between decades are sometimes too abrupt; yet there's no denying that the characters, drawn with fresh, often idiosyncratic detail, are instantly engaging. A light, funny read that also offers a distinctive sense of place. Joanne Wilkinson
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