Guests on Earth

August 5, 2013
Zelda Fitzgerald is fictionalized and given a supporting role in Smith’s (On Agate Hill) chronicle of a girl whose life is changed by a North Carolina mental institution. In 1936, after her mother’s suicide in New Orleans, 13-year-old Evalina Toussaint is sent to live at Highland Hospital. There, she’s mothered by Grace Potter Carroll, the director’s wife, who gives Evalina music lessons and a shot at a normal life. Evalina also meets F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, who swings from sweetness to cruelty, and often mistakes Evalina for her daughter Patricia. Mrs. Carroll and Evalina grow apart as the latter leaves Highland to attend school and eventually become engaged. When tragedy strikes and Evalina finds herself once again at the hospital, the Carrolls are no longer in charge, though Zelda remains among the changing crop of patients. At this point, the book becomes truly engaging, as Smith introduces characters like the charming Dixie Calhoun. Evalina also finds herself smitten with groundskeeper Pan Otto, who was found locked in a cage as a child, and doctor Freddy Sledge. Many tragedies pepper the narrative, including the fire that bookends the story, all of which are handled in a touching manner. Smith’s novel takes a while to blossom, but really takes off once it does. Agent: Liz Darhansoff, Darhansoff, Verill, Feldman Literary Agents.

October 1, 2013

It's 1936 in Asheville, NC, when Smith introduces readers to the residents of Highland Hospital, directed by Dr. Robert S. Carroll, known for innovative treatments that include diet, exercise, and activities such as art and gardening but also insulin and electric shock therapies. The novel, which blends true events and fiction, centers on Evalina Touissaint, the orphaned daughter of a New Orleans "courtesan." Evalina shares her experiences and observations of life at Highland and her impressions of her fellow patients, a group that includes none other than Zelda Fitzgerald. Through a variety of circumstances, Evalina is at the hospital on and off for many years, and she is the reader's window into this unique time and place, as events lead up to a terrible fire that kills nine women on a locked floor of the hospital, including Zelda. The cause of the fire is still unknown today. VERDICT Those who enjoyed Smith's previous work (e.g., Fair and Tender Ladies; The Last Girls) will certainly appreciate this absorbing book, as will those interested in the history of treating mental illness in the United States and fans of Southern or Appalachian fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 6/24/13.]--Shaunna E. Hunter, Hampden-Sydney Coll. Lib., VA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2013
Smith (Mrs. Darcy and the Blue Eyed Stranger, 2010, etc.) jumps on the bandwagon of recent interest in Zelda Fitzgerald, bringing to fictional life Asheville's Highland Hospital, where Zelda and eight other patients died in a fire in 1948. Right off the bat, narrator Evalina likens herself to Nick Carroway, asking, "Is any story not the narrator's story?" Perhaps, but while The Great Gatsby dominates Nick's story, Zelda makes only guest cameos in Evalina's narration. Evalina spends her early childhood in New Orleans until her courtesan mother's death. In 1936, after attempting to move her in with his respectable family, her mother's wealthy lover sends adolescent Evalina to Highland Hospital as a combination patient, guest, and ward of Dr. and Mrs. Carroll. The Carrolls are historical figures, Dr. Carroll famed for treating physiological ailments with diet and exercise rather than introspection or analysis, Mrs. Carroll for her skills as a pianist--her most famous student, Nina Simone, has a walk-on here. Evalina soon meets the extremely mercurial Zelda, who treats her as a stand-in for Scotty, and later witnesses the Fitzgeralds lunching unhappily together at Asheville's Grove Park Inn. Evalina also conveniently listens to other characters describe the Fitzgeralds in long-winded detail that adds nothing new. Evalina shows musical talent, and the Carrolls eventually send her to Philadelphia to study at Peabody. She becomes the accompanist/lover of a talented but philandering Italian tenor. After losing him and the baby he didn't want, she returns to Asheville and undergoes shock treatment, newly instituted at the hospital. Ensconced in the halfway house attached to the hospital, Evalina is carrying on two contradictory romances by the time Zelda returns in the late 1940s, a shell of the glamorous woman she seemed a decade earlier. Evalina hints at various possibilities but leaves what caused the fatal fire a mystery. Smith brings to life the world of Highland Hospital, where the line between staff and "guests" often blurs, but Evalina is a mishmash of cliches, while Zelda remains a rehash.

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August 1, 2013
Abandoned as a child upon her mother's death in New Orleans in the 1930s, Evalina is sent to Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, by her mother's wealthy lovera convenient way of dealing with an inconvenient problem. Evalina may be a lot of thingsa budding musician, a romantic dreamerbut mentally ill she is not. Yet over time, the mental hospital becomes her home and its staff and fellow patients her family. Celebrated for its unorthodox treatment methods, Highland attracts the penniless and the notorious, and Evalina is influenced by a nearly feral young man and the hospital's most famous patient, Zelda Fitzgerald. Equally creative, emotive, independent, and adventurous as Zelda, wife of the renowned author F. Scott, Evalina also contradicts society's standard for female behavior, guaranteeing that no matter how often she escapes or improves, she will always return to Highland. Riding the recurring wave of Zelda-mania, perennially best-selling Smith (Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger, 2010) presents an impeccably researched historical novel that reveals the early twentieth century's antediluvian attitudes toward mental health and women's independence.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)