Jill McCorkle entered the publishing world with a splash, sending her first two books to the press simultaneously. Her latest work, Carolina Moon, revolves around a circle of folks united not so much by their knowledge of one another but by a certain kindred spirit. The setting, as in McCorkle's earlier book July 7th, is a small North Carolina town. There, the charismatic widow Quee Purdy intercedes in the lives of a number of young couples, creating several mysteries, the details of which are disclosed from varying points of view.

From Publishers Weekly
The sad, gritty truths about life have always poked through the graceful prose and smart, funny dialogue of McCorkle's novels and stories (Ferris Beach, Crash Diet, etc.), and here again she illuminates the ways that infidelity, illness, sexual passion and existential desperation can afflict ordinary lives. Her central character, blowsy, outspoken, 60-ish-but-still-sensual Quee Purdy, is a mysterious woman who knows many secret things about her neighbors, and who has a gift, and a mission, for helping those who come to her with their problems. What they don't know about Quee, however, is that, 25 years ago, Cecil Lowe made love to her just before he committed suicide, leaving a wife and toddler son. Bewildered and bereft, Quee has written unsigned, histrionic letters to her departed lover ever since, creating a thick dead letter file in the Fulton, N.C., post office. Meanwhile, Cecil's son grew up to be a skirt-chaser, but his one true love married someone else. Now Quee's goddaughter Denny Parks?who has arrived to work as a message therapist in Quee's newest enterprise, a smoke-enders clinic?falls for Tom. Theirs is not the only romantic liaison that Quee engineers; in fact many different fates?including a well-deserved murder?are played out with Quee's connivance. McCorkle interweaves these plot strands well, but in other respects this novel falters. Quee's letters, though meant to convey her lusty personality, are irritating to read; and too many scenes in the novel seem contrived. While she unleashes some nice surprises and illustrates her theme?that everyone is haunted by the ghosts of their dreams and the legacies of their pasts?McCorkle has not quite succeeded in making the citizens of Fulton as irresistible as those in her earlier books. Author tour. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA. Quee Mary Stutts Purdy, cake decorator, seamstress, masseuse, and therapist, opens a no-smoking clinic as well as her heart to the inhabitants of Fulton, NC. Her clients and her staff have more problems than just nicotine addiction. Denny, Quee's goddaughter, leaves a boring husband whose lot in academic life is researching writers with allergies. Her exit is quite public and self-fulfilling. Aliola is the wife of Jones Jameson, the town's sickening radio personality and habitual womanizer. Missing for several days, he is found in a neighbor's garden?dead. Tom, the helpful hired hand, is trying to deal with his past while contemplating a romance with Denny. These and other characters are lively and lead the way through this novel of humor, mystery, and the hazards of the heart. Readers are drawn into the story by soon-to-be retired postal worker Wallace Johnson. He has collected 25 years worth of letters surrounding the suicide of Tom's father. The story connects the townsfolk's personalities, secrets, and misunderstandings. Absorbing and entertaining?much like the characters whose lives are touched by Quee Pur-Day.?Connie Freeman, Alen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, INCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
What has happened to Jones Jameson, the DJ who is the Howard Stern of Fulton, North Carolina's local radio station? Why does Tom Lowe, the town handyman who lives with his herd of stray dogs in a camper on his property in the middle of Fulton's newest upper-class suburb, drive out to the beach every day at low tide? And who wrote the mysterious letters addressed to "Wayward One" that Fulton post-master Wallace Johnson reads passionately as if they were addressed to him? At the center of these mysteries is Quee Purdy, the proprieter of the town's newest smoking clinic, Smoke-Signals, whose motto is "Put out your butt and bring your butt in." Indeed, Quee is like a spider at the center of her web who has wrapped each character in the silken threads that she has cast out. The New South of Wal-Marts and shopping malls meets the Old South of haunted longings for family order and property in McCorkle's rollicking tale of love, sex, and addiction in a small Southern town. The razor-sharp humorous portrayal of the disintegration of a small town is reminiscent of McCorkle's best early work like July 7th. Highly recommended.Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., OhioCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Jacqueline Carey
Carolina Moon is such a betrayal of Ms. McCorkle's talents ... that it's tempting to blame an evil twin.

From Booklist
McCorkle gives herself over to her stories like a dancer surrenders to music, and, consequently, they flow as naturally across the page as a stream rounds rocks. Each tale in her first collection since Crash Diet (1992) sparkles with mischievous humor and affection and reveals an unabashed fascination with how people cope with the boons and forfeitures of life. Dysfunctional relationships of all kinds figure prominently in each story, including "Life Prerecorded," a sweet and funny chronicle of a pregnancy, and "Last Request," a consideration of marriage. McCorkle's spin on the human condition is gratifyingly inventive, whether she's portraying a guy who prefers listening to his perennial rock-'n'-roll favorites to confronting reality, or a woman so fed up with her married lover that she appeals to his wife in "Your Husband Is Cheating on Us." McCorkle, author, too, of five novels, does tap into her southern roots, but her vision extends far beyond regional parameters, making her a natural choice for fans of Jane Hamilton as well as Lee Smith. Donna Seaman

From Kirkus Reviews
McCorkle's fifth novel (and sixth book, including a fine collection, Crash Diet, 1992) is a narrative gem that emanates dramatic heat, southern-gothic light, and an uncanny emotional wisdom. The sixtysomething heroine, Queen Mary Stutts Purdy, called Quee, has just opened a smoking rehab in her house in Fulton, North Carolina, a little town ``halfway between the river and the ocean.'' This is the latest of Quee's many businesses, and she's assembled the usual motley assortment of helpers: Alicia Jameson, long-suffering wife of the town's loudmouthed, fast-living radio deejay, Jones Jameson, who has disappeared; Tom Lowe, a handsome, kindhearted ne'er-do-well carpenter whose father committed suicide when Tom was ten; and Denny, Quee's 30-something goddaughter, who has fled her elderly, pedantic husband in Virginia and is acting as the rehab therapist. Quee and the gang are developing an enviable record for curing smokers when Alicia's husband's decaying body suddenly washes up from the river and is mysteriously delivered in a load of gardening topsoil to the town's rich, friendless widow, Myra Carter, who is bitter because she suspects that Quee and her deceased husband, Howard, a physician, had an affair. (In fact, together, Quee and Howard were performing abortions for the town's poor girls; Quee was actually having an affair with Tom Lowe's father, and she has been searching for the missing scraps of his suicide note since his death 25 years ago.) As the surprising details of Jones Jameson's murder begin to emerge, the novel's romantic focus shifts to the present: Tom falls in love with Denny; Rob, the sweet but shambling town policeman, begins to court Alicia; Myra falls in love anew with the memory of her husband; and Quee, the benevolent puppeteer and magician in the town's affairs, finally finds Tom's father's suicide note (in Tom's wallet) and revolutionizes her view of her own profoundly engaged life. And everyone who wants to quits smoking. A truly delightful read. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Fulton, North Carolina, gets pretty quiet during the off season. Or at least it seems that way. At the town post office it's so slow the postal clerk haas time to hunt through the dead letter file for entertaining reading. Out at nearby Feris Beach, erosion is turning waterfront properties into underwater properties, wave by wave. At the radio station, the local talk show host is late showing up so they're running the "Swap Shop" show early: "If you've got something you're itching to sell, something you mighta never woulda bought no way, then give us a call ..." And over on the wrong side of the tracks, Quee Purdy is warming up the aromatic massage oil. But this peaceful surface is about to crack wide open. In little Fulton, you see, at least one happily married woman entrusts her illicit love secrets to the dead letter file; at least one underwater property owner wants revenge; at least one radio talk show host is dying to hit the big time. And one energetic, voluptuous, free-spirited entrepreneur, well past sixty, is gearing up yet again to traffic in the "hot commodities" of love and sex. Her focus is on fixing broken hearts and on changing lives - she offers special kinds of repairs and alterations (and massage, too). In the course of this richly detailed novel - which includes six parallel love stories and an unsolved murder mystery - every kind of human problem finds its way to Quee Purdy's doorstep, from the fear of teenagers in trouble to the fallout from adulterous fusions. Quee lures the lost and lonely. She services the unserviceable. And, steadfastly refusing to cure incurable romantics, she savors the scorn of the self-righteous.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

What has happened to Jones Jameson, the DJ who is the Howard Stern of Fulton, North Carolina's local radio station? Why does Tom Lowe, the town handyman who lives with his herd of stray dogs in a camper on his property in the middle of Fulton's newest upper-class suburb, drive out to the beach every day at low tide? And who wrote the mysterious letters addressed to "Wayward One" that Fulton post-master Wallace Johnson reads passionately as if they were addressed to him? At the center of these mysteries is Quee Purdy, the proprieter of the town's newest smoking clinic, Smoke-Signals, whose motto is "Put out your butt and bring your butt in." Indeed, Quee is like a spider at the center of her web who has wrapped each character in the silken threads that she has cast out. The New South of Wal-Marts and shopping malls meets the Old South of haunted longings for family order and property in McCorkle's rollicking tale of love, sex, and addiction in a small Southern town. The razor-sharp humorous portrayal of the disintegration of a small town is reminiscent of McCorkle's best early work like July 7th. Highly recommended.-Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., Ohio

School Library Journal

YA-Quee Mary Stutts Purdy, cake decorator, seamstress, masseuse, and therapist, opens a no-smoking clinic as well as her heart to the inhabitants of Fulton, NC. Her clients and her staff have more problems than just nicotine addiction. Denny, Quee's goddaughter, leaves a boring husband whose lot in academic life is researching writers with allergies. Her exit is quite public and self-fulfilling. Aliola is the wife of Jones Jameson, the town's sickening radio personality and habitual womanizer. Missing for several days, he is found in a neighbor's garden-dead. Tom, the helpful hired hand, is trying to deal with his past while contemplating a romance with Denny. These and other characters are lively and lead the way through this novel of humor, mystery, and the hazards of the heart. Readers are drawn into the story by soon-to-be retired postal worker Wallace Johnson. He has collected 25 years worth of letters surrounding the suicide of Tom's father. The story connects the townsfolk's personalities, secrets, and misunderstandings. Absorbing and entertaining-much like the characters whose lives are touched by Quee Pur-Day.-Connie Freeman, Alen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IN

Kirkus Reviews

McCorkle's fifth novel (and sixth book, including a fine collection, Crash Diet, 1992) is a narrative gem that emanates dramatic heat, southern-gothic light, and an uncanny emotional wisdom.

The sixtysomething heroine, Queen Mary Stutts Purdy, called Quee, has just opened a smoking rehab in her house in Fulton, North Carolina, a little town "halfway between the river and the ocean." This is the latest of Quee's many businesses, and she's assembled the usual motley assortment of helpers: Alicia Jameson, long-suffering wife of the town's loudmouthed, fast-living radio deejay, Jones Jameson, who has disappeared; Tom Lowe, a handsome, kindhearted ne'er-do-well carpenter whose father committed suicide when Tom was ten; and Denny, Quee's 30-something goddaughter, who has fled her elderly, pedantic husband in Virginia and is acting as the rehab therapist. Quee and the gang are developing an enviable record for curing smokers when Alicia's husband's decaying body suddenly washes up from the river and is mysteriously delivered in a load of gardening topsoil to the town's rich, friendless widow, Myra Carter, who is bitter because she suspects that Quee and her deceased husband, Howard, a physician, had an affair. (In fact, together, Quee and Howard were performing abortions for the town's poor girls; Quee was actually having an affair with Tom Lowe's father, and she has been searching for the missing scraps of his suicide note since his death 25 years ago.) As the surprising details of Jones Jameson's murder begin to emerge, the novel's romantic focus shifts to the present: Tom falls in love with Denny; Rob, the sweet but shambling town policeman, begins to court Alicia; Myra falls in love anew with the memory of her husband; and Quee, the benevolent puppeteer and magician in the town's affairs, finally finds Tom's father's suicide note (in Tom's wallet) and revolutionizes her view of her own profoundly engaged life.

And everyone who wants to quits smoking. A truly delightful read.