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The "Mitford" series
Jan Karon
Recommended by Lady Page
No 1: At Home in Mitford
No 2: A Light in the Window
No 3: These High, Green Hills
No 4: Out to Canaan
No 5: A New Song
No 6: A Common Life
No 7: The Mitford Snowmen (A Christmas Story) (October 2001)
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
There are still places in the world where life is sweet. Where flowers grow on Main Street, and the Town Festival is an occasion to bring the family and make a day of it. Where people take care of their own. Jan Karon invites us there in her Mitford series of books.
The series follows the Rev. Timothy Kavanaugh, pastor of The Chapel of Our Lord and Savior, as he's adopted by a black dog the size of a Buick, deals with his opinionated secretary, has his life turned upside-down by an 11-year-old mountain boy who's old beyond his years, and bewitched, bothered and bewildered by his lovely new neighbor! It's quite a lot to handle for this self-proclaimed "stick-in-the-mud."
Father Tim is the friend everyone would love to have. He loves 18th-century poets, gardening, and lunch at the Main Street Grill. When he suddenly finds his life becoming, well, exciting, we follow along for the ride of his life.
Along the way we get to meet and grow to love Father Tim's friends and neighbors in Mitford. There's Esther Bolick and her famous orange marmalade cake.... Dooley Barlowe, the boy who comes from truly horrible circumstances to find a place in Father Tim's heart... Miss Sadie Baxter, the sweet little old lady who lives above Mitford in her home, Fernbank, and is Father Tim's favorite parishoner... Emma Garrett, his secretary, who suddenly dyes her hair red and "goes back to bein’ a Baptist".... Puny Bradshaw, his househelp, who informs him that his "underwear looks like it's been in a cat fight".... and the regulars at the Grill: Percy, Mule and J.C.
And then there's Father Tim's new neighbor, Cynthia Coppersmith. When they meet, it's at the hedge separating their properties, and Father Tim's dog is chasing Cynthia's cat. Suddenly Father Tim is wondering if he needs to buy a new blazer and worrying about how his hair looks. Pretty bewildering for a sixty-something lifelong bachelor!
Jan Karon's writing sweeps you up and deposits you in the heart of Mitford. It's the town you wish you'd grown up in, and the town you wish you could live in now. Mayor Esther Cunningham's platform is "Mitford Takes Care of Its Own" and the town does just that.
There's no sex in the books, no questionable language, and the most exciting thing that happens in the first book is a far-away jewel theft in England. But these books are anything but boring. Reading them is like snuggling into a down feather bed with Grandma's quilts tucked around you.
But what's amazing is that Mitford is a real place. Jan Karon has based her fictional town on her hometown of Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Her descriptions are so vivid that you can smell the lilacs, feel the snow in your face, and breathe in the clean mountain air.
The series continues to follow Father Tim as he ponders retirement, sends Dooley to prep school, and deals with a $5 million building project. Not to mention a hotly contested mayoral race. The last book published is "A Common Life", and it should really have been published as the fourth. It's a wedding story with all the love and laughter that weddings bring.
These books really captured my heart, because I think everyone knows people like the ones in Mitford: Fancy Skinner, the beautician who talks continually without taking a breath; Winnie Ivey, the lovable widow who owns the Sweet Stuff Bakery; Buck Leeper, the hard-drinking construction foreman with a painful secret from his past; Uncle Billy and Miss Rose Watson, who live in poverty while their once grand home falls to pieces around them; Dr. Hoppy Harper, who overcomes the grief of his wife's death to find love again, only to discover a heart-breaking truth.
Mitford's real. And you'll want to visit again and again and again.
See also
Ladies of Lallybroch - Contemporary Fiction Recommended Reading
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