Just Doll

by Janice Daugharty

Book Overview

She is only seventeen when she marries into a world of privilege, mystery, heartache and passion . . . Doll Baxter is barely grown when she weds wealthy older landowner Daniel Staten in order to save... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1880909723
• ISBN13: 9781880909720
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Hushion House Publishing
• Length: 266 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.6" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Teeth on edge

Being a Southerner makes appreciating Southern literature harder. Any wrong word or inaccurate description or wrong racial interaction sets our teeth on edge. Janice Daugharty knows the words, the place and the people. "Just Doll" was a pleasure to read.

A BEAUTIFUL BOOK FROM AN EXTRAORDINARY WRITER

The characters in Janice Daugharty's JUST DOLL negotiate the quaking terrain of their individual heartbreaks and integrity with the same attractive humanity that they apply to meeting the daily challenges of life in the rural South of years past. Daugharty's brave modern journey into the sweeping ebb and flow of southern women's lives began with her seductively brilliant novel DARK OF MOON in 1994 and readers have been humming to the rhythm of her keyboard ever since. The bad news about JUST DOLL is that it ends at only 266 pages. The far better news is that this is only the first volume of a trilogy. As in her previous works, these pages sing with the miraculous voice of an angelic solitary witness as dedicated to truth and beauty as any writer in modern letters. The song at times burns with barely endurable unrepentant pain but the reward of listening is never anything less than healing joy. With 7 novels and a collection of short stories under her belt (or should one say skirt?) Daugharty is a writer with whom one can spend long summer days and cool cozy winter nights falling in love over and over again. Aberjhani author of ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE and STRENGTH TO CARRY ON

A kinder, gentler Daugharty

Just Doll takes place in rural Georgia in the late 1800s, as the South picks up the pieces of its shattered way of life. Seventeen-year-old Doll Baxter lives on the family farm with her sister, Bathsheba (who goes by Sheba) and their mother, and the three women struggle to keep the homestead from being repossessed by the bank. At 17, Doll already knows that she's coveted by the men of the county - most significantly by Daniel Staten, the region's most eligible bachelor who's rich and twice her age. When Daniel tells Doll he wants to marry her, she scoffs - but he sweetens the deal by offering to pay off the mortgage on the family farm. Doll eventually marries Daniel, who whisks her off to his Staten Bay Plantation. It's only 30 miles away, but by the end of the horse-drawn carriage ride, even the readers have dust in their mouths are frankly suffering from some motion sickness. For it's here that Janice Daugharty is at her best, giving us long descriptive passages that place us at the scene: Ancient live oaks on the other side of the road were hung with smoky tatters of moss, sheer as lace in the afterlight of sundown. It's indicative of a love affair of sorts - Daugharty's relationship with this place where she was born and raised. Nothing pleases her more than to pay it homage, and her ability to do so has the effect of making her a scene-painter for her very own literary production. But it's not the book's only love story. Doll begins to fall for her dashing husband - it doesn't take her long to grow fond of the consummation part - but faces disappointment and fury when he refuses to curb his single-guy ways. Will she still love him? Will he love her back? Do his muscles ripple when he stands naked in front of the glowing fireplace? Okay, this is the romance part - and while the characters of Just Doll aren't nearly as complex as those in her other novels, they're no less intriguing, particularly the stubborn and beautiful Doll, who refuses to be any man's fool. Daugharty based Doll on her own grandmother, a fact that deepens the novels relevance. Romance novels can be fun escapist literature - but to consider that the stories are rooted in history and reflect human experiences of the time lends them a significant credibility.Just Doll is labeled as the first of the Staten Bay Trilogy. The next two novels, Daugharty says, will take us into modern times - but she has a history of demonstrating that the more things change, the more they stay the same. A hundred years may pass, but folks still offer guests iced tea on the front porch, the full moon still casts long lonesome shadows on the dirt roads, and stubborn young girls still make choices that shape the direction of their lives.

Janice Daugharty's Best Work Yet

This novel begins in 1887 in South Georgia. Doll Baxter, a feisty young woman, is seventeen years old when she meets and marries Daniel Staten, a well-off land-owner, to save her family's homeplace. The story ends around the turn of the century; Teddy Roosevelt has just gone to "put an end to the Spanish-American War." Both Dolly and Daniel are strong, fully developed characters. Much of the action has to do with the tension between them. They reminded me a little of Jane Austin's Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in their verbal fencing but not in their attitudes about the world around them. Both of these characters are grounded in the Georgia soil, and Doll never forgets what it means to be poor. They grow and change and become better, wiser people. The plot, which has many interesting and sometimes unexpected twists and turns, is, nevertheless, totally believable and often very moving. (This novel would make a fine movie if done right.)In addition to Doll and Daniel, there are many other complex characters here-- Maureen, for instance, along with Mrs. Baxter and Estelle. And Ms. Daugharty, a white Southerner, is as gutsy as her heroine Doll. She is not afraid to tackle race and has created three-dimensional, sympathetic black characters.The language in JUST DOLL is both accurate for the time and place and poetic. I had not seen the word "davenport" since my grandmother used it many years ago. These characters say "Howdy do" and "I suspicion" and "bless her heart." "Pretty is as pretty does." Daniel is "Santy Claus" at Christmas; and people, when asked about their health, are "fair to middling." Collard greens are "sobbing" in grease. A woman stirs clothes in a pot of water like a "stiff batter of a fruit cake." Shadows are paisleyed." Ms. Daugharty sent me to the dictionary several times; I now know what "cerise" means and have learned several other new words as well.There are many beautiful passages here: "It seemed that people were just passing through only long enough for you to get to loving them, then gone as if they never were, or were somebody you had dreamed up for the sole purpose of bringing suffering. Love was dangerous suddenly; a child or husband might be with you one day and gone the next and leave you gnawing on the corner of your pillow to keep from crying out questions in the middle of the night. Then morning, there was always morning." This is about as good as good writing gets. JUST DOLL is Ms. Daugharty's best novel yet.

Daugharty?s Finest Literary Work

Meet Doll Baxter: a feisty, full of spunk, spirit, and charm, 17-year-old woman who sets out to save her family's farm and ends up with more than she bargained for. Doll, the title character of Janice Daugharty's latest novel, must deal with her new surroundings at Staten Plantation after she agrees to marry the dashing, daring, and most eligible bachelor Daniel Staten. The skillful Daugharty with her masterful paintbrush pen captures the essence of the rural South in this historical fiction set in South Georgia shortly after "The War." The novel captures with breathtaking vitality the young married life of Doll and Daniel Staten, all the while unraveling one of the finest Southern family sagas and creating stunning narrative voices. This novel is Daugharty's finest literary work and sure to be the first of a highly acclaimed trilogy.