"A Southern Exposure" takes place in the late 1930s - pre-World War II as a wealthy couple and their only daughter are in the process of relocating from Connecticut to a small town in the Deep South. A town not much know for anything other than the fact that a famous poet resides there. I expected a clash of fast track urban sophistication versus modest laid-back southern genteel manners. Was I in for a surprise!

Acclaimed mostly for her award winning short stories, Alice Adams falls short in composing full novels trying to blend scandalous love affairs with a variety of social issues: the war, the looming threat of a Holocaust, civil rights, mental illness, women’s roles in society, and abortion. However, she does not delve too deeply into any one issue, skirting the perimeter, jumping from character to character in a fast paced plot. Even though I assume the plot is meant to be taken seriously it come across is light fiction. One humorous example: the family moving south is Mr. and Mrs Baird, and when they arrive they want to sound southern so pronounce their name “Baaard” which is interpreted as Bad. So everyone in town is calling them Mr. and Mrs. Bad.

In this particular novel the problem is that in many ways the plot just does not seem authentic for the time frame of the story - late 1930s in a small town of rural America. Some examples: In this small cast of characters, a 12 year old girl’s best friend from school is a black boy. A female is going to college to become an attorney. Married folk are jumping from bed to bed as though the sexual revolution of the 1960s had already taken place, and everyone in town seems to have phones and cars. Is that possible?

In addition, despite being born and raised in Virginia, Alice Adams mocks the southern accents, and derides the hypocrisy of the “southern manners”.

The one redeeming quality is that the plot is unpredictable - it is quite a page turner. In many ways it resembles "Peyton Place" which created quite a sensations 40 years prior to A Southern Exposure’s publication.

Rated 3 Stars August 2022 ( )