She: The Old Woman Who Took Over My Life - Hardcover

Windham, Kathryn Tucker

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1588382788 ISBN 13: 9781588382788

Publisher: NewSouth Books, 2012

Synopsis

This slender book, the last of twenty-nine written by Kathryn Tucker Windham over her long and productive life, will be an exquisitely bittersweet read for the many fans of the late storyteller and author from Selma, Alabama. In She, which Windham was putting the finishing touches on when she died in June 2011, the author describes how she woke up one day to find that she had an unwanted houseguest, an old woman who had suddenly moved into her home and was taking over her life. Windham referred to this interloper simply as She, and here the reader has been invited into the lively colloquy between the author -- whose spirit has not changed -- and her alter ego, who moves haltingly toward her earthly end. She will leave you laughing and crying, but also grateful and hopeful.

About this title

About the Author:

Kathryn Tucker Windham grew up in Thomasville, Alabama. She graduated from Huntingdon College in 1939, married Amasa Benjamin Windham in 1946, and had three children before being widowed in 1956. A newspaper reporter by profession, her career spanned four decades, beginning in the shadow of the Great Depression and continuing through the Civil Rights Movement, which she observed at ground level in her adopted home town of Selma. In the 1970s, she left journalism and worked as a coordinator for a federally funded agency for programs for the elderly. She continued to write, take photographs, and tell stories. The storytelling was an outgrowth of her 1969 book, 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. More volumes of ghost stories, folklore, recipes, and essays followed; she has now published more than twenty books. Her reputation as a storyteller led to thirty-three appearances over an eighteen-month period on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, which introduced her to an even larger audience. She has written, produced, and acted in a one-woman play, My Name Is Julia, about pioneering social reformer Julia Tutwiler, has narrated several television documentaries, and is a regular interviewee for national and international journalists visiting Alabama in search of the Old or the New South. It is a testament to the good humor, keen intelligence, and life-long curiosity of one of the region’s best known public citizens that she can guide visitors unerringly to either mythical place.

Review:

"With her trademark humor, Kathryn Tucker Windham addresses the reality of getting to an advanced age." ―Dave “Doc” Kirby, Book Bites
"This little book is good-natured, wise, realistic but also optimistic in its way. Windham’s many fans will enjoy it and She may bring her a few new fans as well." ―Don Noble, First Draft

About this edition

• Publisher: NewSouth Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1588382788
• ISBN 13: 9781588382788
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 112