Empress Orchid - Anchee Min

The beloved classic that turned Carson McCullers into an overnight literary sensation and one of the Modern Library's top 20 novels of the twentieth century. n nI love this book! It's a great, great read and not hard at all.

-- Oprah Winfrey n nIn a Georgia mill town during the 1930s, an enigmatic deaf-mute, John Singer, draws out the haunted confessions of an itinerant worker, a doctor, a widowed café owner, and a young girl. Each yearns for escape from small town life, but the young girl, Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. n nWonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated--and, through Mick, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.

n nFeatured in Oprah's Book Club 2004