Book Review: My Summer of Southern Discomfort

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

My Summer of Southern Discomfort     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Stephanie Gayle
Class/Genre:   Fiction   Mystery   Legal Setting
Morrow, Jul 2007, $23.95

Natalie Goldberg shocks her parents when she flees Manhattan to accept the position of prosecutor in Bibb County, Georgia. Her reason for heading south is much less altruistic than her being renowned for championing civil rights causes parents would appreciate. Natalie is forced to leave town as she is the fall girl for a major legal error by a full partner Henry Tate at the New York firm they worked; Tate was her lover until he used her.

Natalie struggles to adjust to the southern rusticate slower paced life style of Bibb County. She especially finds herself amused and angry often at the same time when she and prosecutor Ben Maddox, whose connections prove the old south still runs the county, argue the merits of a case or how to save the world, NRA style. However her biggest adjustment is capital punishment, which she opposes on moral grounds, but as a Georgia prosecutor she must prosecute these cases with fervor; that is what she is working on as she finds herself increasingly enjoying life in Bibb County, Georgia.

MY SUMMER OF SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT is a superb character study that uses the setting of a legal thriller (although thriller seems a bit too strong) to look deep at the adjustments and adaptability of a person totally changing professional and personal lifestyles. The well written story line focuses on Natalie’s struggles to adapt from sophisticated Manhattanite to working with and for ignorant rednecks; over time she concludes the locals are much deeper than just dumb hicks as she first thought. Readers will enjoy the New Yorker’s southern comfort transformation (though this reviewer admits a strong bias as a former borough resident who moved to Atlanta).

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner