Charms for the Easy Life, Kaye Gibbons
Charms for the Easy Life, Kaye Gibbons
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Charms for the Easy Life

Author: Kaye Gibbons

Narrator: Kaye Gibbons

Abridged: 2 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/01/1994

Synopsis

A family without men, the Birches live gloriously offbeat lives in the lush, green backwoods of North Carolina. In a sad and singular era, they are unique among women of their time. For radiant, headstrong Sophia and her shy and brilliant daughter Margaret possess powerful charms to ward off loneliness, despair, and the human misery that all too often beats a path to their door. And they are protected through the years by the eccentric wisdom and muscular love of the most stalwart Birch of all—a solid, unbending, and uncompromising self-taught healer who can cure everything from boils to broken hones to broken hearts…a remarkable matriarch who calls herself Charlie Kate.
     Charms for the Easy Life is the passionate, luminous, and exhilarating New York Times bestseller by Kaye Gibbons, the acclaimed author of Ellen Foster and Sights Unseen.

About Kaye Gibbons

Kaye Gibbons was born in 1960 in Nash County, North Carolina, on Bend of the River Road. She attended North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying American and English literature. At twenty-six years old, she wrote her first novel, Ellen Foster. She is also the author of A Virtuous Woman, Charms for the Easy Life, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, A Cure for Dreams, Sights Unseen, and Divining Women.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Will on May 12, 2021

Charms is a family saga. The narrator, Margaret Birch, tells of her mother, Sophia, her grandmother, Charlie Kate, her no-good father, her failed grandfather and a broad cast of characters that inhabit the southern towns of her upbringing. It oozes warmth. I was reminded of The Secret Life of Bees.......more

Goodreads review by raheleh on April 25, 2007

It's amazingly easy to read and grabs you right away. In fact, it feels so effortless (but it's the kind of writing that you know was slaved over, honed and perfected), that I questioned how I could have gotten quite so much from it. Two lovely ideas from this book: The grandmother, when she's young,......more

Goodreads review by Kristin on March 28, 2018

After My Antonia and Here Be Dragons I wanted a light read...some chick-lit if you will. This book sounded intriguing. Set in North Carolina during WWII it tells the story of three generations of unconventional Southern women: Charlie Kate, Sophia her daughter, and Margaret her granddaughter...the n......more

Goodreads review by planetkimi on December 27, 2007

Charms for the Easy Life is a mesmerizing fictional biography/autobiography of three generations of women living unconventional lives in North Carolina against the backdrop of the World Wars. The book revolves around the life of the narrator's grandmother, a self-taught healer who appears to lead a......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on December 12, 2009

This book swept me into its fabric from the first page, mainly because the main character, Charlie Kate, is so unconventional and the stories of her turn-of-the-century life in the South are so shockingly humorous, tragic and honest. We all hope to know someone (or be someone) a little like Charl......more

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