Swan Book

By the #1 bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun, Bella Tuscany and In Tuscany, Swan is a haunting novel set in the deep South -- a resonant tale of long-buried family secrets and mysteries brought suddenly to light.

Book Magazine

This fiction debut attempts to be all things to all readers: a romance, a murder mystery, a literary novel. There's even a bumbling Episcopal priest running around town. Mayes, author of five books of poetry, three memoirs and a fine book on reading and writing poetry, depends here on numerous literary references and eccentric characters. Primarily set during a week in July 1975, the book focuses on a pair of sensitive and brooding siblings: J.J. is a thirty-three year old with commitment problems; his sister, Ginger, is a thirty-one-year-old archeologist specializing in Etruscan digs and Italian men. Along with numerous friends, townspeople and Southern grotesques (including the one-legged postmaster), J.J. and Ginger investigate the desecration of their mother's grave. The body of Catherine, who presumably committed suicide, has been turned out of the coffin, revealing that she was murdered. In this book about the deep South, caricature, literary cliché and purple prose overshadow character development and setting.