Praise for Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women’s Literary Society “One can feel the immense joy of Amy Hill Hearth’s engagement in her first novel. It radiates through every scene and through every page. Sometimes, an exc eptional writer finds an exc eptional premise, and the result is a truly exc eptional book. Such is the case with Miss Dreamsville . . . The writing is brilliant, especially the dialogue through which the characters are defined.” —Southern Literary Review “Amy Hill Hearth’s first novel is a charming and funny snapshot of life in a tiny Florida town in 1962. It’s also a sweet-tart reminder that those good old days weren’t so good for everybody.” —Tampa Bay Times “Funny, insightful, poignant, and uplifting.” —The Cleveland Plain Dealer “You may already know Hearth’s name—the former journalist wrote the nonfiction book Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years, which was a bestseller and play. Her fictional storytelling is just as captivating.” —The Durham (NC) Sun “Throughout this engaging tale, which swe eps smoothly from humor to touching to horrifying—just as life does—the words of Hearth’s 80-year-old narrator fall as true as a plumb line.” —The Berkshire Eagle “Hearth’s characters are instantly likeable and there for each other as they take bold chances . . . A book that rings with authenticity.” —The Daytona Beach News-Journal “Hearth has done very well with her first work of fiction. The characters are endearing, and she has a good understanding of the American South in the 1960 s. I recommend it.” —Historical Novel Society “Amy Hill Hearth’s delightful first novel is a rollicking, provocative tale about how reading and meeting others who are different can be the most subversive of acts.” —Ruth Pennebaker, author of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough “Amy Hill Hearth honors and humanizes people and their wonderful diversities. She astutely weaves pertinent, factual histories into her debut novel. What a laudable book!” —Camille O. Cosby, Ph D, educator and producer “Segregation, feminism, gays coming out, inter-racial dating, it’s all in Miss Dreamsville, written as it happened in small towns everywhere. And wisdom; you could learn a lot about life from reading this book. Most of all, be daring, be friends, be true to yourself. By the end, I cried and I must say, I wouldn’t mind hearing more about each of the richly painted characters.” —Patricia Harman, author of The Midwife of Hope River “Miss Dreamsville’s cast of characters includes a postmistress, a librarian, a convicted murderer, a northern transplant, a lone African-American girl, and an even lonelier gay man, among others. Set in Naples in the early 1960 s, its local color and plot will surprise Florida natives and visitors alike.” —Enid Shomer, author of The Twelve Rooms of the Nile Thank you for downloading this Atria Books e Book.
Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Atria Books and Simon & Schuster. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP or visit us online to sign up at e Book News. Simonand Schuster. com In loving memory of my niece, Anna Katherine Hill (1980–2012)
Dolores Simpson was a woman with a past. Now, d epending on your age and where you’re from, you might interpret that in a number of ways. Let me assure you, however, that in the southern part of the United States of America, in a certain era, this could mean only one thing: man trouble. This affliction spares few women. Even maiden ladies and great aunties —the ones who smile and nod on the porch, contentedly snappin’ peas— have stories of youthful turmoil and shattered dreams. Dolores Simpson, unfortunately, had what my mama used to call serious man trouble. After leading a questionable life in Tampa, Dolores came back home one summer day in 1939 with all her worldly goods in a satchel under one arm and a brand-new baby boy in the other. Yes, indeed. Serious man trouble. Home, for Dolores, was one hundred and twenty miles south of Tampa in God’s forgotten paradise, Collier County, which is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the edge of the Great Everglades Swamp on the other. In those days, Radio Havana in Cuba was the only station that could be heard on the wireless and alligators outnumbered people by at least ten thousand to one. Dolores’s destination was an abandoned fishing shack that once belonged to her grandfather. The shack sat on stilts on a tidal river which was so wild and forbidding that no one with an ounce of sense would try to live there. Still, it was all Dolores knew. She had failed at city life. She had failed at pretty much everything. The river was a place where she could protect her secrets and nurse her frustration with the world. And there she stayed, alone exc ept for the son she raised, for twenty-five years. • • • I, TOO, HAILED FROM COLLIER County, but instead of the river or swamps I was raised nearby in Naples, an itty-bitty town with a sandy strip of beach on the Gulf. I barely knew Dolores Simpson. She was, shall we say, reclusive to an extreme. My only knowledge of her was that she had once been a stripper but now hunted alligators for a living. If she had been a man she would have been admired as a fearless frontiersman. I wouldn’t have known even this much, nor would I have met her, if not for her son, Robbie-Lee. In the late summer of 1962, he and I became friends when we joined a new book club called the Collier County Women’s Literary Society. To its members, the club provided a sanctuary of sorts. Each of us was a misfit or outcast in town—in my case, because I had come back home after a divorce—but in the book club we discovered a place to belong. It is one of the ironies of life that being part of a group can, in turn, lead you to find strength and ind ependence as an individual. That’s exactly what happened to Robbie-Lee and me. After a year in the book club, we decided it was time to follow our dreams. For Robbie-Lee, who loved the theater, the only place on his mind was New York City. He spoke endlessly of Broadway and was determined to get a job there, even if it meant swe eping sidewalks. Dolores, whose maternal instincts kicked in with a mighty roar at the idea of him leaving Collier County, objected to his planned d eparture, but lost the battle. Robbie-Lee caught a northbound bus on a steamy August morning in 1963. At the same time
Robbie-Lee went north I set off for Mississippi. I was hoping to learn more about my mother, who was born and raised in Jackson. Mama had died without telling me certain things. She never talked about her family, or how she met Daddy, or when and where they got married. All I know is they got hitched at a Methodist church because Mama insisted on having a bona fide preacher conduct the ceremony. They left Mississippi and came to Florida because Naples was Daddy’s hometown. What I hoped to find was kinfolk. An aunt or uncle, perhaps. Or maybe a cousin. Since I was a small child, Mama and I had been on our own. It’s painful to say, but Daddy up and left us. At least I hoped to find out why my name is Eudora Welty Witherspoon—“Dora” for short. I could only guess that Eudora Welty, the famed Mississippi writer, had been a friend of Mama’s when she was growing up. As I said, Mama never told me certain things. I figured I’d go to Jackson for a few weeks or at most several months, but before I knew it I’d been away from Florida for a year. I had made more progress finding out about Mama and her people than I ever could have imagined. All I needed was a little more time to wrap things up and settle them properly. I had a job shelving books at the Jackson Library and I rented a small room in the home of a widow named Mrs. Sheba Conroy. I planned on giving proper notice—I didn’t want to leave anyone in the lurch —then head home to Naples. And then the telegram came.