If, as Anne Rivers Siddons insinuates in the opening lines of this novel, the South killed Lucy Bondurant, then no one need ever take responsibility for their bizarre actions and dysfunctional behavior. Just blame it on your hometown. Hogwash, Ms. Siddons! You have given us much better than this cop-out.

Lucy and her mother, brother, and sister are seemingly abandoned by Lucy's father and this fact haunts her for her entire life as she searches for a father figure everywhere. When her family takes up residence with wealthy relatives, she forms a bond of love and hate with her cousin Shep. The fact that she ruins his life while destroying every chance at happiness he ever has, the fact that she is amoral, self-centered, and totally without real love for anyone cannot be blamed so easily on the fact that Atlanta emerged from a sleepy Southern hamlet to become one of the country's greatest metropolitan areas. There were too many other abandoned children (and worse) who turned into fine, upstanding adults in spite of early misfortunes.

In addition to Lucy being totally unlikeable as a heroine, it was the narrator Shep who made me sick with his pushover personality. He enables Lucy every page of the novel and, amazingly, never sees her for the troublesome, demented woman she becomes. Poor Shep the doormat.

Despite two highly unlikeable characters taking center stage in this novel, the story might be interesting since it is set in a pivotal time-frame of American history and one which today's aging baby boomers are very familiar with---Camelot, the assassination of JFK, the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King's dream, etc. However, it slogs painfully along for about 400 pages before things really begin to happen. Where were the editors on this one?

As I moved into the final 200 of 800+ pages, I began to think that maybe this was a pretty good book after all. That's before the author knocked the wind out of me by ending with such ambiguity that I'm not sure what really happened. So now I am desperately searching for friends, enemies, anyone who read this book and begging them to enlighten me as to what *really* happened in the last two paragraphs.

I've thoroughly enjoyed quite a few of Siddons' books but this one didn't absorb me the way some of the others had. The 800+ pages could have easily been edited to about 500 and been a more compelling read. I found myself scanning over pages of repetitive narrative. I was, however, fascinated by seeing the change in culture throughout the "golden age" of this little hamlet. I was never able to feel much sympathy for the self-centered and destructive Lucy Bondurant and was often disgusted with the weak-willed main character, Shep Bondurant who allowed her to destroy his life. It was hard to believe that all the woes of Lucy Bondurant were due to "the south" rather than her own self-destructive impulses and mental illness.

Like only this author can be. Lucy and Shep Bondurant are cousins that are clearly headed on a path to destruction from the opening chapter of this book. When Lucy comes to live in the Atlanta house with Gibbs's family she takes his heart and breath away. From this meeting of two lonely children a strong lifelong bond grows, one that will go beyond words and even death.

Siddons writes with a style of her own, beautiful, rambling, expressive prose that leaves you feeling the heat and charm of Atlanta and it's nobility. Her characters are not always likable but they are intensely human, making them more than just cardboard cut heroes and heroines. I enjoy the incredible way this author puts the reader in the scene.

I have enjoyed several of this authors book's. My favorite, and the jewel in her crown, as my friend Rachel once put it, is COLONY a book that will warm your heart for years to come. Kelsana 5/26/02