Lookaway, Lookaway

Move over, Tom Wolfe! Writing with brilliance and brio, Barnhardt has penned a hilarious satire which often has surprising depth and hits way too close to the truth. Lee SmithJerene Jarvis Johnston and her husband Duke are exemplars of Charlotte, North Carolinas high society, a world where old Southern money and the secrets behind it meet the new wealth of bankers, real estate speculators, and carpetbagging social climbers. Steely and implacable, Jerene presides over her familys legacy of paintings at the Mint Museum; Duke, the one-time college golden boy and descendant of a Confederate general, whose promising political career was mysteriously short-circuited, has settled into a comfortable semi-senescence as a Civil War re-enactor. Jerenes brother Gaston is an infamously dissolute bestselling historical novelist who has never managed to begin his long-dreamed-of masterpiece, and their sister Dillards unfortunate life decisions and losses have rendered her a near-recluse. As the four Johnston childrensmart but reckless Annie, good-boy minister Bo, might be gay but thats okay Joshua, and damaged, dangerous Jerilynflounder in their adult lives, Jerene must take action to preserve the family's legacy, Dukes fragile honor, and what's left of the dwindling family fortune. She will stop at nothing to keep what she hasis it too much to ask for one ounce of cooperation from her heedless family? In Lookaway, Lookaway, Wilton Barnhardt has written a full-bore, headlong, hilarious narrative of a family coming apart, a society changing beyond recognition, and an unforgettable woman striving to pull it all together. Includes a bonus interview between Wilton Barnhardt and George Witte, editor-in-chief of St. Martin's Press.