Matron of Honor

As in her pre­vi­ous nov­els, Bingham con­cerns her­self with fam­ily rela­tion­ships, and in many ways revis­its the ten­sions of her own well-known Kentucky clan, which she chron­i­cled in the non­fic­tion Passion and Prejudice . This muted yet pow­er­ful nar­ra­tive is her best yet, as she cap­tures a promi­nent Kentucky fam­ily, the Masons, at their most vulnerable.

Headstrong 19-year-old Apple Mason is about to marry Billy Long, a poor but respectable and shrewdly ambi­tious employee of her father’s hard­ware com­pany. The whirl­wind wed­ding prepa­ra­tions have put gen­teel Mrs. Mason on edge, and the unex­pected arrival of Apple’s sis­ter Cory, who has just left her hus­band, stirs up the dis­qui­et­ing under­cur­rents beneath the family’s thin sur­face of restraint and polite­ness. As each char­ac­ter looks back from the present (the early 1970s) to offer his or her per­spec­tive on the rigid clan, a dis­turb­ing pat­tern emerges: the ener­getic, intel­li­gent young Mason women have always been kept firmly in their place; denied a role in the fam­ily busi­ness, they are prized, like Kentucky thor­ough­breds, for their breed­ing and blood­line, but they must be tamed and bro­ken. Billy is only too anx­ious to take charge, and Apple is already ambiva­lent about their mar­riage. With a deft touch, Bingham evokes dis­tinc­tive moments–a ride along the Ohio River at sun­set, a quiet yet totally reveal­ing lunch between Apple’s father and his sister–with grace and acuity.

From Publishers Weekly

Reviews

“Matron of Honor” is a gem of story-telling, oblique, finely drawn, keenly intel­li­gent.”
— The Boston Globe

“Apple is about to marry Billy Long, an employee of Apple’s father. A cool climber with occa­sional night­mares. Billy sizes up Apple as one with “bloodlines…You see the class.” Apple’s sis­ter Cory arrives unex­pect­edly the day before the wed­ding, and Apple imme­di­ately installs her as Matron of Honor, demot­ing Billy’s sis­ter. The wed­ding draws closer, rawer emo­tions sur­face, and Billy smells vul­ner­a­bil­ity in the “rich folks”…”
— Kirkus Review

“Gradually we see Cory’s trans­for­ma­tion from covert o overt rebel.”
— The New York Times

“This muted yet pow­er­ful nar­ra­tive is her best yet.”
— Publishers Weekly

Book Excerpt

“You will ask, How? So quick? Just the way Mother and Lila did later when I told them. I guess the best I can do by way of expla­na­tion is to say that there comes a time and a place and the girl sort of drops into them. I know that doesn’t sound too flat­ter­ing to Apple, but I don’t mean it that way…. I’d run through quite a few girls in my time, run through them pretty literally—Mother used to accuse me of that when they started call­ing at all hours of the night—but I didn’t care about that kind of thing any­more. I mean, it had got­ten to the point where I could tell when—and I mean exactly when—a new girl was going to let me put my tongue in her mouth (usu­ally at the end of the first date) and when she was going to let me get my hands inside her blouse (usu­ally at the end of the sec­ond date). Where is the fun in that?”

View all of Sallie's online writing in her archives.