Sterling Silver and Dollar Stores by Ann Currie Williams

My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

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About the Book:
The story is the memoir of the author's Mama, a true southern lady, well educated, with a passion for sterling silver and a tendency to shop at Dollar Stores. It is a comical, sometimes tragic story of this strong woman who conquered an addiction to alcohol that almost took her life and everything she had to rise again for second act. 

This a story of growing up with an alcoholic who never lost her deep southern roots. It is the tale of a lady who loved and lost but, against all odds, rose again for a second act and the story of the author's relationship with her mother through it all. Some readers may call this Southern Lit with the eccentric characters, southern ways, and a bit of sibling rivalry. Others may see the compelling story of the relationship between a mother and daughter over a span of more than fifty years. Anyone growing up southern can relate to parts of this story. It is an amusing yet, at times, heart wrenching tale of a well educated proper southern woman who survives to have another chance at life and takes nothing for granted. 

What can you say about a woman who valued her sterling silver, her family, and her bridge clubs but never saw a Dollar Store she didn't like. The narrative covers more than fifty years of the her life. The story shows that no one's life follows a straight path and we should never give up on someone we love. She was a survivor and after she sobered up, she appreciated every day she lived. As a young newly wed, fresh out of Wake Forest, she was a social worker trying to help the children and elderly on the sea islands off South Carolina. After she got her life straight she continued that work, not professionally, but on a personal level helping addicts get sober and aiding the elderly who needed assistance and companionship. 

Once she got her life straight, she was never bitter about what she had lost. Rather, she moved forward with a lust for life, realizing every day was a gift. She was talented and smart, but she was also quirky and sometimes a little difficult. She was truly a character, well loved by her family and friends, but a force to be reckoned with none the less - all four feet eight inches of her.

Excerpt:

Supper at my grandparents’ was always a lively occasion. Both of my mother's parents enjoyed fun debates with my father. Those banters could range from politics to idle gossip to the economy to farm issues to sports. Although my grandparents were not 

"drinkers" per se, when my parents arrived with the liquor bag, everyone had a little nip. Dinner was never a passive affair.

Granddaddy had been a big tobacco farmer and had sold the farm and bought my grandmother her dream home in town. He had always promised it to her and he came through in style. 

Although all of us loved the old farmhouse, this one was more formal and we knew how much Grandmama loved it. 

Supper was always served in the dining room with Granddaddy at the head of the table and my grandmother seated at the other end. Unlike Christmas suppers when my brother and I were relegated to the kids’ table in the kitchen, this particular evening we were seated at the dining room table (i.e. the “Big table”), a status I did not achieve during the holidays until I brought my  husband to meet the family. 

Anyway, my brother and I were seated at the dining room table with my parents and my grandparents. My Aunt J'Nelle was in and out of the dining room bringing the serving dishes to the table. The conversation had started with football and had somehow worked its way to how drugs were going to be the downfall of this young generation. My brother quietly took a piece of fried chicken and passed the platter to me, both of us lying low with fear that we would be dragged into this discussion. I could tell from the look in his eyes that he, too, wanted to join me as part of the wallpaper.

My father was just commenting that he had read in one of his pharmacy journals that marijuana was as dangerous as heroin when my aunt entered the room with the bowls of rice and gravy. As she placed them on the table in front of my grandfather, she looked at my father and nonchalantly said, "I don't know how you can say that. I smoked marijuana and I didn't find it that dangerous." 

With that, my Aunt J’Nelle turned on her heels and went back to the kitchen to get the beans. All conversation at the table 

suddenly stopped.

My Thoughts:

I was really excited to read this memoir! Memoirs are a type of nonfiction that really speaks to me and I more often than not find myself really enjoying them. So, to combine that with the fact that, being a southern girl myself, I also really love reading about life here in the south so a memoir about the life of a southern woman certainly caught my attention. 

This memoir is a lot different than most I've read--it doesn't really go in chronological order. At first, and I'm going to be honest, I was a little put off by that. Then, however, I got to thinking. This book is about the life of a woman through the eyes of her daughter, from a young age. So, of course the author is not going to remember everything in just the right order. So, if she'd attempted to write it chronologically I feel it would be a little stilted, and as I read on I found myself really liking the way that she did write it. Basically, each chapter covered a category(so to speak) and it often contained some sort of wisdom from her mother. Such as the fact that she felt everyone should have a good set of real silver tableware and that you should use it for every meal. Sort of reminded me, in fact, of my grandmother's talk of silver when I was a young girl. Before to long, the author developed a voice that had me getting swept into each chapter's story, I found them to most all be interesting, and the little tidbits within made each one like a little short story.

In this book you get to read through the good times and the bad, about a woman who was so against divorce, but then ended up getting one. About a woman who that, although sometimes she wasn't always in the right frame of mind and didn't always do the absolute right things, really did want the best for her family. I found myself to greatly admire this woman and the daughter that cared enough about her mother to tell the world her story. I highly recommend for fans of a good memoir because, despite being different, I don't think this one will disappoint.
*I received this book for review from the author, but this in no way affected my thoughts expressed in this review*

About the Author:

Ann Currie and her husband live in South Carolina. They have two daughters. When not writing she enjoys photography and collecting antique sterling flatware. Some apples don't fall far from the tree.