ACRES OF AFTERNOON
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Acres of Afternoon
Babs H. Deal
307 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1959Book details & editions
5 people want to read
About the author
Babs H. Deal
21 books6 followersFollow
Ethel “Babs” Hodges Deal is the author of more than nine novels, including High Lonesome World and The Reason for Roses. Her short stories have appeared in magazines and she was the winner of the Mystery Writers of America Award in 1967 for her novel, Fancy’s Knell. “Mrs. Deal…has the great gift of capturing a whole countryside and season in a few short sentences. Nobody does that thing any better,” wrote the New York Times, while the Nashville Tennessean added, “…in her ability to create suspense and psychological interest, in her mastery of scene, tone, and characterization, Mrs. Deal emerges as a major Southern writer.”
Mrs. Deal was born in Scottsboro, Alabama, and lived in Florida with her author-husband, Borden Deal, and their three children.Show more
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4 reviewsFollowJuly 15, 2020
I’m from Scottsboro (Bellfonte in the book) and grew up there in the 50’s & early 60’s when I left for college. Babs Deal did a marvelous job of capturing the ambiance of the town and the characters of some of the town’s leading citizens. The identity of some of them was (very) thinly disguised. Good looking Fletcher Hudson is the main character. She is totally involved in the “polite society” of the town and all but engaged to Howard Loyd the son of a upper class family in “Bellfonte” but she is knocked off her feet by the appearance of Troy Wright a young man from “out on Sand Mountain.” As a bricklayer and a lumberyard worker Troy is most definitely not a part of Bellfonte’s polite society although he is a man of strong ethics and principles. From the author’s description I picture him as looking quite a bit like James Dean. From the first encounter it is obvious that the physical attraction between the two of them is going to lead to some sultry bedroom scenes and indeed it does! But Fletcher is not willing to give up her society friends, family, and position in Bellfonte’s society and Troy is not one to sneak around so they arrive at an impasse. In the violent conclusion of the book Troy is killed driving up to “the line” (Tennessee) for a few beers and conversation with his friends Bill & Sue Ellen. The people in the other car in the accident are Fletcher’s friends Connie & Emmett the moody and undisciplined son of the Minister of the First Baptist Church. The families of the top crust of Bellfonte all gather after the accident trying to figure out how to make the accident Troy’s fault (it wasn’t). Fletcher knows better and she stands up for him because – “there isn’t anyone else to do it, and it isn’t right to blame him for something that wasn’t his fault.” So as the book ends we are left to imagine Fletcher being reabsorbed into Bellfonte’s gentry and her marriage to Howard although we suspect that she will never forget her brief and intense affair with Troy Wright the boy from “out on Sand Mountain!”
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185 reviews4 followersFollowJanuary 6, 2022
Fletcher, the daughter of one of the elite families of Bellefonte, becomes enamored with Troy, a boy from Sand Mountain. Being from Sand Mountain, Troy would not be considered good enough for Fletcher, so Fletcher tried to keep her love affair with Troy a secret. But like most small towns, the scandals of Bellefonte are secrets that rarely stay hidden. Thus Fletcher begin her quest to free herself from Bellefonte and the people who insist on strict rules of behavior.
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