Lee Smith

Lee Smith (born November 1, 1944, Grundy, Virginia, U.S.) is an American author of fiction about her native southeastern United States.

Smith was educated at Hollins College, Roanoke, Virginia (B.A., 1967), and the Sorbonne in Paris; she taught at the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University. Her first novel, The Last Day the Dogbushes Bloomed (1968), was written while she was in college. She typically wrote stories that are set in the contemporary South and, eschewing the gothic and grotesque, are filled with the details of everyday life. Her widely admired fourth novel, Black Mountain Breakdown, and her short-story collection Cakewalk were both published in 1980. Critics noted her powerful characterizations of rural Southerners in the novel Oral History (1983), which presents a century of fictional family history.

Later books include Family Linens (1985), Fair and Tender Ladies (1988), The Devil’s Dream (1992), Saving Grace (1995), The Last Girls (2002), and Guests on Earth (2013). Among her short-story collections are Me and My Baby View the Eclipse (1990), News of the Spirit (1997), and Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger (2010). Dimestore: A Writer’s Life (2016) is a memoir.