Girls, How Come This Book Was Never Optioned For The Screen?????????????

                                     To think, darlings, this novel is twenty years old, which means Ann Patchett has been at it  for quite awhile, and look at what she has accomplished--I mean "Bel Canto?"  Oh, my God!!!!!!!
And the issues it examines!

                                      Written from three perspectives, the reader follows Rose,  a young, California wife, married to one Thomas Clinton.  Pregnant with their first child, she departs on her own, shortly after discovering this, and ends up in Habit, Kentucky, at Saint Elizabeth's Home For Unwed Mothers.  This takes place in the 1960's, when places such as these still existed , but were on their way out because the times, they were a changin'.  Even in the novel, St. Elizabeth's is often mentioned as the last of its kind.  Rose, assisted by Sister Evangeline, becomes the Head Cook at the home, even after her daughter Cecilia, has been born, and she marries Son (real  name Wilson Abbot), a caretaker on the place.

                                         Son picks up the story from here, and we learn about his background, and the adolescent tragedy that causes him to so strenuously object to Rose naming the baby Cecilia.  At first an uninteresting character, once Son lets us into his story, he becomes compelling and humane.

                                          Cecilia, having reached adolescence, picks up things from here, and gives insight on what it is like growing up in such a strange place, her unusual relationship with her mother, and close, loving one with her father (who is not really her father, though she does not know that).  Things eventually come full circle, when Thomas Clinton, Rose's first husband, shows up, as Rose's mother has recently passed on.  What is interesting here is what the readers and Son know--that Cecilia and Thomas are actually father and daughter--and it is fascinating to see how Patchett handles this.

                                          The gorgeous, lyrical prose style, evokes such a sense of time and place, and the characters are so developmentally drawn, I cannot believe no one ever thought of making a film of this.  It is so adaptable, and, with the right cast and director, could follow in the tradition of things like "The Help," or "Fried Green Tomatoes," though this novel is better written than those.

                                           I loved this novel so much I devoured the last 200 pages in a single sitting. I just  had to see how it ended.  It left me satisfied and dewy-eyed, with even more admiration for Ann Patchett than I had before!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                          And I have just GOT to play the role of Sister Evangeline.  I could sit in the kitchen, telling those cooks what to do.   You better believe it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!