Sumner, Melanie 1964?-

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SUMNER, Melanie 1964?-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1964. Education: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1986 (creative writing); M.A., Boston University.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Berry College, Department of English, Rhetoric, and Writing, P.O. Box 49-0350, Mt. Berry, GA, 30149-0350. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Peace Corps volunteer, Senegal, 1988-90. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, visiting lecturer, 1995; Berry College, Mt. Berry, GA, visiting writer, 2003.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Whiting Award; Fine Arts Work Center fellowship, 1993-95; Maria Thomas Fiction Award, Peace Corps, 1996, for Polite Society.

WRITINGS:

Polite Society (stories), Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995.

The School of Beauty and Charm, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

Melanie Sumner's Polite Society is a collection of stories, the first of which, "The Edge of the Sky," is about the unhappy wife of an American ambassador. It was called "a powerful opener" by a Publishers Weekly reviewer who described the stories as "elegantly written" and the book as "a striking collection from a powerful new voice." Most of the volume consists of episodes in the life of Peace Corps volunteer Darren Parkman, who arrives in Senegal only to find that the school in which she was to teach has been closed because of a labor strike. Darren now has plenty of time on her hands to fuel her alcoholism, take on local lovers, and generally engage in self-destructive behavior.

D. A. Ball wrote in Entertainment Weekly that the author's "brilliant storytelling makes you wish you could reach out and slap Darren on every page." Hudson Review's Gary Krist called "refreshing" the novel's "defiant description of what might be called a reverse coming-of-age story.… She's not a very nice person to begin with, and by the end of the novel, she remains entirely unredeemed. This, it seems to me, is a pretty gutsy choice for a first novelist."

In an Algonkian article, Sumner reveals that she began her first novel, The School of Beauty and Charm, while staying "in a shotgun apartment in Butte, Montana." She wrote with markers on a roll of wallpaper about growing up in Georgia and completed the novel three years later. Booklist's Marlene Chamberlain called the story "both funny and dramatic." Henry, the father of the Pepper family, is the kindly manager of a cardboard manufacturing company, and his high-strung wife Florida, who is originally from the Kentucky hills, works hard at respectability. Roderick is the asthmatic son, and Louise, the narrator, is their hell-raising daughter, addicted to vanilla extract at age nine. The title of the book refers to a makeover Florida arranges for her daughter.

After Roderick dies in a freak accident at age fifteen, Louise's addictions expand to include alcohol, sex, and food. At sixteen she seduces a worker at her father's plant. At eighteen she joins a carnival and marries the Human Dragon. Louise is arrested for drunk driving, which is where the story opens, as she sits in the county jail. A Publishers Weekly contributor described the carnival characters who appear toward the end of the story as "loony and lovable," but noted that "while not without charm and some strong writing, Louise's story reads as if Sumner discovered the tale she should have written hiding in this novel's last hundred pages."

Claire Zulkey, who reviewed The School of Beauty and Charm for PopMatters online, wrote, "Sumner's language is both plain and beautiful, and occasionally she can turn a phrase to take your breath away.… She portrays a Georgia that is often at odds with the modern times and its antebellum traditions and flavors." Shannon Haddock said in a Library Journal review that Sumner "brings a twist to this noteworthy fiction debut that is both disturbing and comic."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Algonkian, fall, 2001, Melanie Sumner, "Lie, Lie, Lie: How I Wrote The School of Beauty and Charm."

Booklist, August, 2001, Marlene Chamberlain, review of The School of Beauty and Charm, p. 2092.

Choice, July-August, 1995, N. Tischler, review of Polite Society, p. 1725.

Entertainment Weekly, June 2, 1995, D. A. Ball, review of Polite Society, p. 53; October 26, 2001, Allyssa Lee, "The Week," p. 114.

Hudson Review, winter, 1996, Gary Krist, "Comedy" (includes a review of Polite Society), pp. 679-686.

Library Journal, March 1, 1995, Starr E. Smith, review of Polite Society, p. 104; September 15, 2001, Shannon Haddock, review of The School of Beauty and Charm, p. 114.

New York Times Book Review, April 16, 1995, Debra Spark, review of Polite Society, p. 13.

Publishers Weekly, February 6, 1995, review of Polite Society, p. 75; August 27, 2001, review of The School of Beauty and Charm, p. 53.

School Library Journal, March, 2002, Joyce Fay Fletcher review of The School of Beauty and Charm, p. 261.