Charleston: A Novel
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Charleston: A Novel Hardcover – July 29, 2014
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“In the tradition of great Southern novels, this lyrical tale explores the emotional terrain of love, loss, and memory. It’s about the tug of a person and of a place, leading us to confront what it means to look homeward again.” (Walter Isaacson)
Margaret Thornton, in this beautiful novel, immerses us in a world, Charleston, a place both charmed and vexed by its many-layered history. Eliza’s short, sharp season of happiness forms a complete love story-lush, bittersweet, and dear.” (Ron Carlson)
Charleston is a novel of enormous southern charm and a deep, sweet wisdom. As Thornton so beautifully puts it, it is ‘only okay to look for what was lost if you were prepared to find something unexpected.’ (Anna Funder)
“The seductions of her hometown--’sun, smell of pluff mud, sound of the tide going out’--cast their spell… [a] refined romance . . . Thornton writes with characteristic elegance and restraint.” (Wall Street Journal)
“Much more than a romance, for it delves into issues of identity, place, memory and more.” (Charleston Post & Courier)
“A purposely quiet and subtle novel” (Kirkus Reviews)
“[An] emotionally expansive, visually lush novel . . . a panoply of tints and tones” (Edgefield Advertiser)
Charleston is a character here, and in fact may rival Eliza for the lead role. . . . I read it in a day and wanted to get my plane ticket booked once I closed it.” (BookReporter)
“Bradham Thornton’s eye for detail is superb, from the swamps of the ACE Basin to a South of Broad dinner party. The final act . . . is so powerful as to necessitate a reread.” (Charleston Mercury)
“Emotionally expansive, visually lush.” (Edgefield Advertiser)
“Prepare to be swept away..... Margaret Bradham Thornton does a spectacular job...Charleston is my favorite Southern city and Thornton does it true justice..... I couldn’t put this novel down.” (San Francisco Book Review)
Margaret Thornton, in this beautiful novel, immerses us in a world, Charleston, a place both charmed and vexed by its many-layered history. Eliza’s short, sharp season of happiness forms a complete love story-lush, bittersweet, and dear.” (Ron Carlson)
Charleston is a novel of enormous southern charm and a deep, sweet wisdom. As Thornton so beautifully puts it, it is ‘only okay to look for what was lost if you were prepared to find something unexpected.’ (Anna Funder)
“The seductions of her hometown--’sun, smell of pluff mud, sound of the tide going out’--cast their spell… [a] refined romance . . . Thornton writes with characteristic elegance and restraint.” (Wall Street Journal)
“Much more than a romance, for it delves into issues of identity, place, memory and more.” (Charleston Post & Courier)
“A purposely quiet and subtle novel” (Kirkus Reviews)
“[An] emotionally expansive, visually lush novel . . . a panoply of tints and tones” (Edgefield Advertiser)
Charleston is a character here, and in fact may rival Eliza for the lead role. . . . I read it in a day and wanted to get my plane ticket booked once I closed it.” (BookReporter)
“Bradham Thornton’s eye for detail is superb, from the swamps of the ACE Basin to a South of Broad dinner party. The final act . . . is so powerful as to necessitate a reread.” (Charleston Mercury)
“Emotionally expansive, visually lush.” (Edgefield Advertiser)
“Prepare to be swept away..... Margaret Bradham Thornton does a spectacular job...Charleston is my favorite Southern city and Thornton does it true justice..... I couldn’t put this novel down.” (San Francisco Book Review)
From the Back Cover
A gifted writer makes her fiction debut with this lyrical and haunting story of missed chances and enduring love, set against the backdrop of high society Charleston, which asks the eternal question: can we ever truly go home again?
When Eliza Poinsett left the elegant world of Charleston for college, she never expected it would take her ten years to return. Now she is an art historian in London with a charming Etonian boyfriend who adores her. But the past catches up with her when she runs into Henry, a former boyfriend from Charleston, at a wedding in the English countryside.
Already unnerved by the earlier encounter, Eliza's carefully guarded equilibrium is shattered when she meets Henry again in Charleston, where she's come for her stepsister's debut, a decade after she first left. Set against a backdrop of stately homes, the seductive Lowcountry landscape, and the entangled lives of families who trace their ancestors back for generations, 2 hinges on Eliza's difficult choice: must she risk everything for which she has worked so hard to be with the only man she has ever truly loved?
2 is an evocative, melancholy novel about one woman's love—for both a man and an unforgettable city. Emotionally resonant, beguiling in its atmosphere, it illuminates the elusive notion of home, and explores whether we can ever truly go back to the place—and the people—that indelibly shaped us.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
By
Trudie Barreras
TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on May 11, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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My perception is that this is a story for a "mature audience". By that evaluation I do NOT mean that it is in any way risqué or improper or overly erotic - quite the opposite. However, it is far more psychological than your typical romance, and it is not in any sense an action story.
Thornton obviously knows her locale; her descriptions of the city of Charleston and the surrounding countryside are vivid and evocative. Likewise, she is clearly conversant with local art and the provenance of artworks. Although those who are not interested in the processes of authentication of artworks might find these descriptions tedious, I rather enjoyed them - especially the discussion of Eliza's attempts to verify a pastel portrait, and her subsequent endeavors to develop an exhibition of the work of "Slave Potter Dave".
I have complained in the past that I don't always agree with the way some novelists end their stories, and that is true in the case of "Charleston" as well; it may be true to life, yet novels, unlike memoirs or biographies, might allow for happier resolutions than is the case here. But for anyone who doesn't share my preferences in this direction, and who wants a story with depth and substance, Margaret Thornton's novel should not disappoint.
Thornton obviously knows her locale; her descriptions of the city of Charleston and the surrounding countryside are vivid and evocative. Likewise, she is clearly conversant with local art and the provenance of artworks. Although those who are not interested in the processes of authentication of artworks might find these descriptions tedious, I rather enjoyed them - especially the discussion of Eliza's attempts to verify a pastel portrait, and her subsequent endeavors to develop an exhibition of the work of "Slave Potter Dave".
I have complained in the past that I don't always agree with the way some novelists end their stories, and that is true in the case of "Charleston" as well; it may be true to life, yet novels, unlike memoirs or biographies, might allow for happier resolutions than is the case here. But for anyone who doesn't share my preferences in this direction, and who wants a story with depth and substance, Margaret Thornton's novel should not disappoint.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
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VReviews
VINE VOICE on May 6, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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Excellent first work of fiction by Margaret Bradam Thornton that immediately sweeps you into Charleston, South Carolina with it’s deep sense of history, tradition, and old family community. Eliza Poinsett comes home after ten years, and finds that it is as if she hadn’t left. Emotional ties, still pull, and she is quickly wrapped up in the rhythms of her past, which is intricately woven among Charleston’s landscape and history.
This is a gentle, reflective novel without sharp dramatic edges. It’s a novel that is just simply enjoyable to pick up and immerse yourself in. Perhaps the most satisfying part is the description of Charleston itself, as a culture that looks back more than forward, and how that plays apart in Eliza’s own search for understanding.
Along the way, the author uses a couple predictable plot elements that may disappoint some; but it is the reflective, never strident, events of the story that offers a sort of healing grounded in shared experience and the idea of one true home.
This is a gentle, reflective novel without sharp dramatic edges. It’s a novel that is just simply enjoyable to pick up and immerse yourself in. Perhaps the most satisfying part is the description of Charleston itself, as a culture that looks back more than forward, and how that plays apart in Eliza’s own search for understanding.
Along the way, the author uses a couple predictable plot elements that may disappoint some; but it is the reflective, never strident, events of the story that offers a sort of healing grounded in shared experience and the idea of one true home.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By
L. Courtney
VINE VOICE on May 31, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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When I first saw the synopsis for Charleston by Margaret Bradham Thornton I knew I wanted to read it. Eliza grew up in Charleston but left for art study in New York and then London when things didn't work for her and her high school sweetheart, Henry. She unexpectedly meets up with Henry at a wedding in London, and he tells her to contact him when she's back in Charleston. Now she's back in Charleston for what should be a short visit. But as she absorbed again into the people and culture of the charming Southern cit,y, Eliza has to decide if one can ever truly go home again, go back to what was.
This book is beautiful. The descriptions of the people and places of Charleston were alive. I love Charleston, and, having lived in South Carolina all my life, I've been there many times. Reading this book I could see all the things I love about Charleston, and having things related from Eliza's point of view gave me inside information that I've never known as a tourist. It was truly amazing, and the book drew me in and absorbed me every time I sat down with it.
Eliza and Henry are great characters. They are well-developed, and I found myself liking them and pulling for them and their relationship.
Charleston has a haunting feel, however. There was a tone to the story, a foreboding if you will. And I just knew that the story wasn't going to end happily. I won't give the ending away, but I will say that I was very let down. I left the book feeling emotionally exhausted.
I'm still very glad that I read it. It was hauntingly beautiful, and I can definitely recommend it as a good read.
This book is beautiful. The descriptions of the people and places of Charleston were alive. I love Charleston, and, having lived in South Carolina all my life, I've been there many times. Reading this book I could see all the things I love about Charleston, and having things related from Eliza's point of view gave me inside information that I've never known as a tourist. It was truly amazing, and the book drew me in and absorbed me every time I sat down with it.
Eliza and Henry are great characters. They are well-developed, and I found myself liking them and pulling for them and their relationship.
Charleston has a haunting feel, however. There was a tone to the story, a foreboding if you will. And I just knew that the story wasn't going to end happily. I won't give the ending away, but I will say that I was very let down. I left the book feeling emotionally exhausted.
I'm still very glad that I read it. It was hauntingly beautiful, and I can definitely recommend it as a good read.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By
Daniel Wilner
on July 29, 2014
Format: Hardcover
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Writing evokes that which isn't there, and the best writing makes the absent so vividly present as to be more real than the thing itself. Good writing raises the dead. And it is hard to think of a recent novel that is more haunted and haunting, more brilliantly interested in the dynamic interplay between past and present, gone and here, than Charleston, the exquisite debut novel by the scholar Margaret Bradham Thornton. The book aches with longing for what is lost, while still brimming with hope for our power to reorder our lives, if only by engaging with our losses as courageously and compassionately as we can.
At the heart of the story is Eliza, an art historian in her late twenties - old enough to have a past, young enough to maybe do something about it. Eliza is haunted by the ghost of Henry, her first love, from her native Charleston. Their relationship went wrong in their early twenties when Henry committed an act of drunken infidelity. Eliza could not bear the betrayal and moved first to New York and then to London, where she excelled as a student and fell in love with Jamie, a well-bred, charming, and altogether kind man. When Eliza returns to Charleston for her stepsister's debutante party, she reconnects with Henry and is forced to tackle a set of "equations" between them that "had remained unsolved." And now Eliza is deeply torn: between Henry and Jamie, Charleston and London, past and present selves, old home and new. Where does she truly belong?
Only by reckoning with her past can Eliza determine her present course. But when is it too late to go back?Read more ›
At the heart of the story is Eliza, an art historian in her late twenties - old enough to have a past, young enough to maybe do something about it. Eliza is haunted by the ghost of Henry, her first love, from her native Charleston. Their relationship went wrong in their early twenties when Henry committed an act of drunken infidelity. Eliza could not bear the betrayal and moved first to New York and then to London, where she excelled as a student and fell in love with Jamie, a well-bred, charming, and altogether kind man. When Eliza returns to Charleston for her stepsister's debutante party, she reconnects with Henry and is forced to tackle a set of "equations" between them that "had remained unsolved." And now Eliza is deeply torn: between Henry and Jamie, Charleston and London, past and present selves, old home and new. Where does she truly belong?
Only by reckoning with her past can Eliza determine her present course. But when is it too late to go back?Read more ›
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