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Entertainment Weekly
Spirits are as roundly characterized as the living in this fey, mesmerizing novel by Reynolds. …. Shunned for her disfiguring burn scars, narrator Finch Nobles tends her Southern small-town cemetery and literally hangs out with the dead--a sensual, kinetic bunch who spend their time affecting the weather and making peace with their pasts.


The New York Times Book Review, Jack Sullivan
In this Southern Gothic Purgatorio, the dead tell tales of suicide, child abuse, self-mutilation and sexual eccentricity. With their help, Finch tenaciously unravels two mysterious deaths and confronts the hypocrisy of her hometown. Reynolds is a master of pastoral imagery....


From AudioFile
Finch Nobles is the reclusive victim of a childhood scalding that has left her badly scarred. After her parents' death, she becomes caretaker of the graveyard in the small Southern town where she grew up. Despite its odd setting, Reynolds makes quite real the fantastic connections Finch has with the souls of the buried. While she appears lonely and isolated to the townsfolk, Finch actually develops a deep sense of community through her private communication with members of the town who have been laid to rest. Diane Ladd's incredible insight into these characters--living and dead--comes across in her thoughtful rendering of each voice. Her Southern drawl is soft enough to color her reading without jarring listeners out of the story. A Gracious Plenty is just that: a pleasure in both listening and literature. R.A.P. Winner of AUDIOFILE's Earphones Award (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
There's no way this quirky novel about a disfigured woman who tends a cemetery in a small southern town would ever have a first printing as gargantuan as this (300,000) if Reynolds' previous book, The Rapture of Canaan , hadn't been chosen as an Oprah Book Club title. Reynolds has a warm-and-sweet-as-pudding storytelling voice, and her down-home characters are endearing, but her plot is harder to swallow than needles and pins. Her heroine, Finch Nobles, the beloved only child of her cemetery caretaker parents, pulled a pot of boiling water down on herself, scalding her face, neck, and one arm, an accident that caused her terrible physical and psychic pain and drove her poor mother to an early grave. Considered monstrously ugly, Finch has been a recluse ever since, except for her communion with "The Dead." Yes, Finch talks to the residents of her graveyard and is privy to the work of The Mediator, a ghostly being who helps the dead get used to their new form of existence. In Reynolds' imagined cosmos, the dead do the work of nature; they "control the seasons" and "everything depends on them," from snakes shedding their skins to rain showers. But there is much unfinished business associated with the dead--particularly William Blott, a cross-dresser, and a beauty queen turned stripper who has renamed herself Lucy Armageddon--and Finch becomes instrumental in resolving various tragedies, efforts that finally break the spell of her terrible loneliness. A gawky, well-intentioned fantasy, full of some charm and too much silliness. Donna Seaman


From Kirkus Reviews
Reynolds again hits pay dirt with a third novel, after Bitterroot Landing (1995) and The Rapture of Canaan (1996)--the latter, as everyone knows, a recent selection of Oprah's Book Club and now enjoying its fifth week at the top of the bestseller lists. As a four-year-old, Finch Nobles pulled boiling water off the stove onto herself; as a result, she's badly scarred, and her appearance makes her a kind of outcast in her small southern town. Her father tended the graveyard, and following his death and her mother's, Finch has inherited the job of gravekeeper, with all its solemn duties. Unsurprisingly, the wise Finch begins welcoming and chatting with the newly planted, whose spirits rise and respond. There's beauty queen Lucy Armour, who escapes the confines of the town but dies mysteriously and is shipped home. Did she commit suicide? There's also William Parker Blott, who left his family, became a filthy, sore-ridden street-bum, but later returned home to money and a mausoleum. As Finch sees it, in a passage that resounds with Francis Phelan's view into his dead son's grave in Ironweed, The Dead possess unique powers and knowledge: ``The Dead control the seasons. Everything depends on them. In June, The Dead tunnel earthworms, crack the shells of bird eggs, poke the croaks from frogs. The ones who died children make play of their work, blowing bugs from weed to weed, aerating fields with their cartwheels. They thump the bees and send them out to pollinate gardenias.'' When The Dead lighten up enough, by learning to let the past go, The Mediator allows them to rise to a level past Finch's knowing. But Marcus, the Mayor's baby, who died of ``failure to thrive,'' can't stop bawling. The slender plot hinges on the story of his death and Finch's loving attempts to free his spirit. A southern tearjerker with some nice surprises--and likely to be a swift success. (First printing of 300,000) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Reynolds is a wonderful storyteller and master of pastoral Imagery."
--New York Times Book Review

"Mesmerizing . . . Reynolds's earthly insights make for a redemptive finale--but not before some satisfying storms of retribution."
--Entertainment Weekly

"A Gracious Plenty is a triumph of story, voice, and character. The afflicted and unforgettable Finch, whose longings inspire in equal measure love and awe and pity who seeks to understand the difference between the kind of suffering brought upon us and the kind we bring upon ourselves, defies mortality. Stunning and authentic . . . this is a beautiful book."
--Janet Peery, Author of The River Beyond

"--an imaginative tour de force--. Pushing beyond the boundaries of her earlier work, Ms. Reynolds has created a life-affirming novel that gathers the joy and pain of. living into a celebration of what it means to be
human."
--Richmond Times Dispatch


Review
"Reynolds is a wonderful storyteller and master of pastoral Imagery."
--New York Times Book Review

"Mesmerizing . . . Reynolds's earthly insights make for a redemptive finale--but not before some satisfying storms of retribution."
--Entertainment Weekly

"A Gracious Plenty is a triumph of story, voice, and character. The afflicted and unforgettable Finch, whose longings inspire in equal measure love and awe and pity who seeks to understand the difference between the kind of suffering brought upon us and the kind we bring upon ourselves, defies mortality. Stunning and authentic . . . this is a beautiful book."
--Janet Peery, Author of The River Beyond

"--an imaginative tour de force--. Pushing beyond the boundaries of her earlier work, Ms. Reynolds has created a life-affirming novel that gathers the joy and pain of. living into a celebration of what it means to be
human."
--Richmond Times Dispatch


Book Description
Badly burned in a household accident when she was a child, Finch Nobles grows into a courageous and feisty loner who eschews the pity of her hometown and discovers that she can hear the voices of the people buried in her father's cemetery. Finally, when she speaks to them, they answer, telling their stories in a remarkable chorus of regrets, expla-nations, and insights. A Gracious Plenty is like an extraordinary amalgam of Steinbeck and Faulkner, Spoon River Anthology and Our Town. It is a reading experience that you will not soon forget.


From the Inside Flap
Badly burned in a household accident when she was a child, Finch Nobles grows into a courageous and feisty loner who eschews the pity of her hometown and discovers that she can hear the voices of the people buried in her father's cemetery. Finally, when she speaks to them, they answer, telling their stories in a remarkable chorus of regrets, expla-nations, and insights.  A Gracious Plenty is like an extraordinary amalgam of Steinbeck and Faulkner,  Spoon River Anthology and Our Town. It is a reading experience that you will not soon forget.


From the Back Cover
"Reynolds is a wonderful storyteller and master of pastoral Imagery."
--New York Times Book Review

"Mesmerizing . . . Reynolds's earthly insights make for a redemptive finale--but not before some satisfying storms of retribution."
--Entertainment Weekly"A Gracious Plenty is a triumph of story, voice, and character. The afflicted and unforgettable Finch, whose longings inspire in equal measure love and awe and pity who seeks to understand the difference between the kind of suffering brought upon us and the kind we bring upon ourselves, defies mortality. Stunning and authentic . . . this is a beautiful book."
--Janet Peery, Author of The River Beyond "--an imaginative tour de force--. Pushing beyond the boundaries of her earlier work, Ms. Reynolds has created a life-affirming novel that gathers the joy and pain of. living into a celebration of what it means to be
human."
--Richmond Times Dispatch


About the Author
Sheri Reynolds teaches at Old Dominion University in Virginia. Her previous novels are Bitteroot Landing and The Rapture of Canaan.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In the lush and isolated cemetery of a small Southern town, Finch Nobles, the narrator of this inventive novel, tends to the flowers and shrubs that surround the monuments of people who were not known to her while they lived but who in death have become her lifeline. Badly burned in a household accident when she was just four, Finch grows into a courageous and feisty loner. She eschews the pity and awkward stares of the people of her hometown and discovers that if she listens closely enough, she can hear the voices of those who have gone before. Finally, when she speaks, they answer back, telling their stories in a remarkable chorus of regrets, explanations, and insights. But the infant Marcus, son of the town's mayor, died before he learned to speak and can only wail away the hours. The roots of his anguish are revealed in a crescendo of lasting resonance that ties together the outcast Finch, her dead friends, and the living community outside the cemetery's gates.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times Book Review

Sheri Reynolds is a wonderful storyteller.

Richmond Times Dispatch

An imaginative tour de force..a life-affirming novel that gathers the joy and pain of living into a celebration of what it means to be human.

Publishers Weekly

Character, story and metaphor are skillfully intertwined as bestselling novelist Reynolds (The Rapture of Canaan) again creates a courageous young heroine who triumphs over grueling odds. Severely burned as a child on her face and upper body, narrator Finch Nobles has stuck close to home for most of her life. After the deaths of her parents, she tends the cemetery on her family's land. Since the living shun her (children call her "witch" and "Uhg-leee"), her society is the dead, who speak to her as they perform their afterlife duties: controlling the seasons, cracking the shells of bird eggs, directing the winds and keeping the rivers flowing. Two of the dead emerge as fully developed characters: a young, rebellious beauty queen who fled her mother's control and returned to her home town in a body bag, and a reclusive alcoholic from a wealthy family who became the pet project of the local do-gooder, portrayed in scathing caricature. Though Finch remains the focus of the novel, Reynolds also traces the story of local policeman Leonard Livingston, a disappointment to his father, the mayor. Leonard is sure that his father would have preferred his younger brotherwho died in infancy under circumstances that remain mysterious until the end of the novel. A climactic storm rather betrays the book's realism (even with the active dead), turning the subtle sense of menace into the atmosphere of a contrived, ghostly murder-mystery. But Reynolds's lyricism and the gentle voice of her heroine carry this poignant but redemptive story of an emotionally and physically scarred woman who finds her way out of the land of the dead and into the land of the living. 300,000 first printing. (Sept.)

AudioFile - Rachel Astarte Piccione

Finch Nobles is the reclusive victim of a childhood scalding that has left her badly scarred. After her parents￯﾿ﾽ death, she becomes caretaker of the graveyard in the small Southern town where she grew up. Despite its odd setting, Reynolds makes quite real the fantastic connections Finch has with the souls of the buried. While she appears lonely and isolated to the townsfolk, Finch actually develops a deep sense of community through her private communication with members of the town who have been laid to rest. Diane Ladd￯﾿ﾽs incredible insight into these characters living and dead comes across in her thoughtful rendering of each voice. Her Southern drawl is soft enough to color her reading without jarring listeners out of the story. A Gracious Plenty is just that: a pleasure in both listening and literature. R.A.P. Winner of AUDIOFILE￯﾿ﾽs Earphones Award ￯﾿ﾽAudioFile, Portland, Maine

Entertainment Weekly

Mesmerizing.Read all 9 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Janet Peery