Beverly
Lowry  1938
Major Works
Novels
Photo above by Nancy Jacobs
Nonfiction
- Crossed Over: A Murder, A Memoir (1992,
2002) CBS movie of same name aired in March, 2002
- Her Dream of Dreams:The Rise and Triu
 mph
of Madam C.J. Walker (2003)
- Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life:
A Biography
(2007)
Short Stories
- Many short stories by Lowry have been published in Boston
Globe, Playgirl, the
Mississippi
Review, Redbook, Houston City Magazine, and
the
Texas Humanist.
Book Reviews and Essays
-
Over twenty-one book reviews by Beverly Lowry have been
printed in the New York Times alone but she
has had reviews and essays printed in many magazines as
well including Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Granta,
Southern and others.
----------------------------------------------------------
Biography of
Beverly (Fey) Lowry
By Michelle C. Lee (SHS)
 On
August 10, 1938, Beverly Lowry was born in Memphis, Tennessee,
but she grew up in Greenville, Mississippi. Her parents
are David Leonard and Dora Fey. Lowry attended Ole Miss
for two years (1956-58) before graduating from Memphis
State University in 1960 with a B.A. in drama and speech and
English literature. That same year Lowry married Glenn
Lowry, (they are no longer married), and they moved to
New York City where she began a career in acting. Lowry
and her husband moved to Houston, Texas, in 1965. In 1976
she became associate professor of writing at the University
of Houston. Her first novel, Come Back, Lolly
Rae, was published in 1977, followed by Emma
Blue in 1978. Both are set in the
Mississippi town of Eunola (thought to be Greenville).
Two sons, Colin and Peter, were born to the Lowrys.
 The
Lowrys moved to San Marcos, Texas, in 1981. For six years
Lowry did not write. During that time both of her parents
died and her younger son Peter was killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Her third novel The Perfect Sonya,
which is about about a Baytown woman who went to New York and
became an actress, was published in 1987.
Altogether Beverly Lowry is the writer of six novels, including
Breaking Gentle (1988),
The Perfect Sonya,
Daddy's Girl, Emma Blue, Come
Back, Lolly Ray, and The
Track of Real Desires: A Novel (1992), which
is essentially a novel about Greenville, Mississippi (called
Eunola in the book) that Lowry wrote while living in Missoula,
Montana. In 1992, Lowry published her nonfiction book,
Crossed
Over: A Murder, A Memoir, which was written while
Lowry was grieving over the hit-and-run death of her eighteen
year old son Peter and is about Karla Fay Tucker on Texas's
death row. Having moved in 1992 to Los Angeles, Lowry published
her most recent novel, The
Track of Real Desires, which returns to the Eunola, Mississippi,
setting.
Lowry lived for a time in Montana, writing non-fiction personal
essays, doing feature journalism, writing book reviews, travel
articles, doing interviews, and working on a new non-fiction
book entitled Her
Dream of Dreams: The Rise and Triumph of Madam C.J. Walker,
which was published in 2003.
Currently, Lowry is the director of the Creative Non-fiction
Program at George Mason University in Washington, D.C.
 Beverly
Lowry has received awards from the National Endowment of the
Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Black WarriorReview, the
Texas Institute of Letters, and the Mississippi Institute of
Arts and Letters. She has served as president of the Texas Institute
of Letters.
She has won many awards, has written more than six novels and
two non-fiction works. She is director of the Creative
Non-Fiction Program at George Mason University in Washington,
D.C.
She appeared at the Oxford Conference of the Book held at the
University of Mississippi in the spring of 2004.
UPDATE 2008: Beverly Lowry is now the author
of seven novels and two nonfiction works: Crossed
Over and Her Dream of Dreams.
She was the recipient of the 2007 Richard Wright Literary Excellence
Award at the Natchez Literary Festival. She was teaching at
George Mason University and living in Washington,D.C., but she
has moved to Austin, Texas
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Review of The
Track of Real Desires
by Michelle C. Lee (SHS)
 Thirty-five
years after leaving Eunola, Mississippi, Leland Standard comes
home with her illegitimate nineteen year-old son and with her
secrets to reveal. This story involves a group of middle-aged
friends who still view each other much the way they did during
high school. Most of the action takes place during Baker
Farrish's dinner party, which is held for Leland in honor of
her visit. No one knows what will happen, but Leland has
returned because she needs support in the possibility that she
has breast cancer. Eleven people sit at the table--Leland
Standard, Toby Standard (her son), Totty Boyette, Dog, Baker
Farrish, Mell Farrish, Roy Farrish, Jacky Nelms, Sissy, Jane
Scott, and Carroll. Leland talks to Jacky, telling him
about her life and her possible breast cancer and about her
recent boyfriend, Simon. Baker Farrish seems to enjoy inviting
people who don't really like each other so he can watch them
clash at his dinner party. Baker is a funny and somewhat
perceptive man who loves his wife, but she keeps herself more
or less drugged with pills from her bathroom medicine cabinet.
 This
book is difficult to get into because of the many characters
and their problems. They have all gotten off "the
track of real desires." There are parts of the book that
I didn't like reading, such as the sexual scenes. At the
end, I was left confused about what happened. Sissy died
in a car wreck. However, I wasn't sure how that ties in
with the rest of the story. In all, this is probably one
book a person has to get used to reading. Most of the
time I seemed to be reading descriptions of what one character
likes or dislikes. What I do get is that Leland wanted
acceptance of her son and support in her possibility of breast
cancer. Leland had left the Delta at the age of sixteen
under terms that were not particularly good. In addition,
she was looking for acceptance and recognition as a dancer.
In returning to the people she once knew in high school, Leland
notices how much they have not changed. Some of them cheat
or neglect each other, hiding their real feelings and pretending
to be happy. This story has a meaning to be unmasked.
A Review of Breaking Gentle
by Summer Buntin (SHS)
 Breaking
Gentle by Beverly Lowry is a modern-day book about a week
in the life of a family living on a Texas horse ranch. The family's
home and barns are situated on sloping land and consists of
sixty-eight acres. The ranch is twenty-two miles from Austin,
Texas. Beverly Lowry describes the landscape as having visible
limestone, cactus, and dark, stunted, wind-snarled trees which
are in contrast with fields of white poppies.
Lowry has a real talent for creating characters. By the time
you have finished the book, you feel as if you know the characters
as well as you know some of your own family members. The characters
are multi-layered. Lowry has a way of showing them at face value
and then exposing the many complicated layers and the differences
of each personality. The parents, Diana and Hale Caldwell, are
perfectionists; but after further reading, they reveal imperfections,
the most obvious of which is their child rearing. They both
had authoritarian parents and neither wanted to be like that
when it came to raising their own children. The irony of this
is that they both considered themselves responsible, good people:
two products of good child upbringing. This was the puzzle throughout
to me.
The plot concerns a family with two teenage children, Roger
and Bethany. Roger is college age , and Bethany is in high school.
The children both have difficult problems. Bethany, by far,
is the worst of the two children. She takes common teenage problems
to the extreme so much that she is faced with the alternatives
of staying in Cedar Hills, an institution that counsels teenagers
and restricts their life styles, or actually going to prison
until she is eighteen. Roger, on the other hand, has some goals
but cannot make himself follow through with them. His free life
style is not satisfactory to him or his parents. Robert is different
from Bethany, however, because he has respect for his parents
and wants his parents' love and approval.
The parents, Diana, who is a college professor and gardener,
and Hale, who raises quarter horses, love and overindulge their
children. The children, especially Bethany through her actions,
cry for more discipline and family standards. The parents struggle
with their chosen professions and with their children. When
the story begins, there is no obvious solution to their problems,
but by the conclusion there is a fragile understanding of each
other that the family can build on in the future.
The theme of the book is the conflict between the generations.
The problems that this family face probably came about from
the free-thinking of this age as opposed to the beliefs and
structure of another age. The structure of the Caldwell family
is almost lost. The tone of each relationship is decided by
the actions of the children. This book could be used as a teaching
tool on how not to raise children.
My opinion of the book is mixed. I liked the style in which
Lowry describes her characters. For example, Diana is described
as one whose "peasant hands and royal wrists were a combination
which in a way defined Diana, that blend of frailty and strength
as if one had been wrongly attached to the other." The author's
description of the differences in her body describes the conflict
between the two generations of the same family. I especially
liked the symbolism of the dog in the book. With all good intentions,
the dog was given a freedom he had never before had and he paid
the ultimate price for his new-found freedom. However, I feel
Breaking Gentle is too graphic. The first page
opens with a sex scene that did not contribute to the plot.
I realize that is is a realistic part of life but could see
no reason for the scene except to grab the reader's attention.
Lowry is an accomplished author who does not need to stoop to
that level to get our attention through basic curiosities.
A Review of The Perfect Sonya
by Meah Staten (SHS)
The Perfect Sonya by Beverly Lowry was written
to illustrate the struggle in life with one's mind, body, and
soul. In this novel an extremely exuberant girl named Pauline
Terry deals with life's trials and tribulations. Throughout
her childhood and her womanhood, she experiences a variety of
traumatizaing events that cause her to break down, only to realize
how life comes and goes, never stopping for the benefit or pity
of anyone.
Pauline Terry has come a long way from Baytown, Texas, to become
a New York actress whose success in a performance of Chekhov's
Uncle Vanya led one critic to call her "the perfect Sonya."
Never mind that she spends more time in acting classes preparing
for her auditions than actually being an actress or that she
swims in a fish tank in a bar in Fort Lee, New Jersey, for a
living. She has married a brilliant playwright/director. She
has even changed her name.
Pauline travels on a journey home to face her father's death,
but she is confronted with the memory of another journey made
long ago and secrets so painful that she has kept them from
even herself. Not knowing where to go or what to do, she turns
to an older man. Pauline is drawn to Will Hand, a charismatic
professor and a nature writer who also happens to be her aunt's
former husband. In the end their affair only pushes her farther
and farther away from herself. When Pauline returns to New York,
she comes to terms with herself and realizes the consequences
of what happened. She must face the life she has tried to leave
behind.
In conclusion, The Perfect Sonya is an overall
fantastic novel. I highly recommend it. The novel is so real
and portrays the life of an actress struggling through life
in a way that captures the mind and heart of the reader.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related
Websites
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bibliography
Author Beverly Lowry to speak November 12 News and
Calendars. October 30, 2003. May 14 2004
<http://www.loyno.edu/newsandcalendars/release.php?id=594>.
Barnwell, Marion and Black Patti Carr. Touring Literary
Mississippi. Jackson: Mississippi, 2002. 17
Daddy's Girl' author to speak at Friends of Libraries event
” Mississippi
State University. March 18, 1998. May 14, 2004
<http://www.ur.msstate.edu/news/stories/1998/lowry.asp>.
"The Nonfiction Faculty.”George
Mason University. 2004.
May 14 2004
<http://www.gmu.edu/departments/writing/lowry.htm>.
Color images of Beverly Lowry by Nancy Jacobs,
2004
---------------------------------------------------------
|
