PRAISE FOR

The Problem with Murmur Lee

“The Problem with Murmur Lee is a brave and beautiful book. It might be called a mystery, but the questions it asks are not who killed or even how or why. The questions Fowler asks are the ones we all ask: What is the meaning of one human life? How do we cope with loss, sorrow, or with our deepest fears? Where she takes us is not to mourning but to celebration. I loved Murmur Lee and will never forget her.”

—Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina

“A powerful book full of mysticism and wisdom about life, the life ever after, and the wonder of it all.”

—Southern Living

“The verdict: Heartbreaking and hilarious. . . . If Fowler’s characters are guilty of anything, they’re guilty of living as close to the edge of heartbreak as they can. Fowler puts into everyday language the notes and chords of Welch and Hooker, along with Lucinda Williams and Edith Piaf. It’s a moving, lyrical feast.”

—Atlanta Journal Constitution

“Fowler portrays small-town Florida life in all its gritty energy—with lyricism, humor, and an obvious love for the people and place. This skillful piece of writing . . . will please Fowler’s fans and entertain devotees of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones and Alice Hoffman’s novels.”

—Booklist

“Fowler has created a touching story of death, family, love, and the power of friendship.”

—Library Journal

“This elegiac novel, chronicling the life and death of idiosyncratic Murmur Lee Harp, showcases Fowler’s easy, loose-limbed prose and sympathetic eye for human fallibility . . . beautifully craft[ed].”

—Publishers Weekly

“Like the poetry of Baudelaire, or later, Wallace Stevens, Fowler’s lyrical novel uses the nuts and bolts of the everyday world as a way to ruminate about the very nature of consciousness.”

—Orlando Sentinel

“A new Southern novel loaded with eccentrics may sound like well-traveled literary territory…They also cavort across the pages of Connie May Fowler’s new novel. But the more you read, the more it becomes clear that Fowler has reclaimed the unofficial state bird—the Florida cuckoo—for her own universe, with wonderful results.”

—Miami Herald

“Fowler tells a story that’s far more reassuring than mysterious, which shows where her real strengths as a writer lie. She’s at her best pondering human fallibility and the possibilities for unconditional love.”

—St. Petersburg Times

“Never sentimental, highly original, it’s a treatise of love and death, on how sorrow can turn into hope and hope into action. With language that is both languid and energized and characters who are not only self-aware but endearingly unique, Fowler’s writing vibrates with good storytelling. More importantly, she shows how one life and one character . . . can leave an impression that is lasting and hauntingly truthful.”

—Nashville Scene

“Fowler did not assign herself an easy task in the creation of this, her latest of five novels, but the result of her literary labor goes down as warm and smooth as good bourbon on a chilly Mantanzas River night.”

—St. Augustine Record