Gail Kathleen Godwin - 1937
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I. Biography
Gail Godwin was born on June 18, 1937 in Birmingham, Alabama. She was raised in Asheville, North Carolina. She went to school at St. Geneviere's-of-the-Pines in Asheville, Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also holds a PhD in English.
In her childhood, Godwin lived with her divorced mother, who was a writer and college literature teacher. Her mother was the model for some of Godwin's strong female characters.
Three of her novels were nominated for the National Book Award. A Southern Family (1987) was both the Janet Heidiger Award winner from the University of Rochester and the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, endowed by the Lipinskay Foundation and presented by the Western Carolina Historical Association.
The Good Husband was published in September 1994. Both A Southern Family and Father Melancholy's Daughter were Main Selections of the Book-of the-Month-Club, and her last four novels were on the New York Times Best Seller list. Godwin's long-waited tenth novel, Eversong [a sequel to Father Melancholy's Daughter] was published in early 1999 by Ballantine/Random House.
II. Literary Works
The Odd Women, 1974
Violet Clay, 1978
A Mother And Two Daughters, 1982
The Finishing School, 1985
A Southern Family, 1987
Father Melancholy's Daughter, 1991
The Good Husband, 1994
Mr. Bedford and the Muse, 1996
Glass People, 1996
Evensong, 1999
III. Asheville
Asheville is located in Buncombe County, North Carolina, nestled in the Mountain where the great Smokies and the Blue Ridge Mountains meet 2340 feet above sea level. Asheville is the seat of Buncombe County, covering 659 square miles. Asheville is located at the junctions of Interstates 26 and 40. Blue Ridge Parkway passes through Asheville with 5 entrances in the immediate area.
Asheville is well-known for its pleasant year round climate. Moderate summers and winters are divided by the long, spectacular spring and fall seasons. The average annual snowfall is 47.59 inches. The average annual relative humidity is 58%.
The Asheville area enjoys a rich craft and folk heritage. Culturally, Asheville opportunities and participation in the fine arts of painting, dance, theatre, and music, as well as mountain crafts.
Two great national forests offer trout and bass fishing, hiking trails, and rock hunting. The great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway offer unlimited recreational opportunities and scenic splendor
IV. About Evensong
(Taken from Evensong)
At the advent of the new millennium, the residents of High Balsam are in desperate need of hope. Economic and social unrest has led to tragedy. For Margaret Bonner, the young pastor of High Balsam's Episcopal church, care of the community is her constant challenge and devotion.
But now, into Bonner's well-ordered life, come three strangers--a firebrand female evangelist with a haunted past; an elderly, itinerant man whose visit to this quiet hamlet may be no accident; and a troubled boy who Bonner's husband, headmaster of a progressive, local school, is determined to save. Soon these explosive personalities will ignite a conflagration in Bonner's marriage and in the depths of her very soul.
The Odd Women Trade Paper : Professor Jane Clifford is in her early thirties, smart, and attractive. A popular teacher at a midwestern college, she appears to be going somewhere. But Jane knows better. After a lifetime habit of looking to books for the answers to life's mysteries, she seems to be finding only more questions.
Then her beloved grandmother suddenly dies, and Clifford returns home for the funeral, where she is faced with the little dramas and fictions of both the past she has lived and the past she has only been told about. In the midst of it all, she is considering breaking off a long-term, long-distance affair, but like the family stories she tries to make sense of, she cannot seem to find a reason to claim a life of her own.
This essay was submitted by students of Leslie Andres, a teacher at Lake Norman Charter School in Huntersville, North Carolina.