Liberty Blue Press, 2024
Hardcover: $29.99
Genre: Nonfiction, Travel
Reviewed by Suzanne Hudson
If election season left you pessimistic and deflated by so much snark, name-calling, us-against-them angst, and mean spiritedness; if seemingly hopeless division has you considering anti-depressants—or maybe even electroshock therapy; if you have the urge to put your fingers in your ears to “la-la-la-la-la-la” away all the noise, then look no further than Leslie Ann Tarabella’s delightfully Southern-Comforty confection We Don’t Push in Fairhope, her nonfictional love note to her favorite place on the planet: Fairhope, Alabama.
There’s lots of heart blessing, heartwarming, and heart affirming packed into this short-chaptered, fast-paced read as Tarabella dishes up vignettes about the denizens and doings in the once-upon-a-founding Utopia on Mobile Bay. Sure, she acknowledges that, like any place, there are some dark corners within and not-so-nice things about Fairhope, but this simply ain’t the time or place to get into any of that.
This here catalog of tales and tellings is all about looking on the uplifting side of life, complete with giggles and belly laughs, tears of joy, and tears of bittersweet sadness and regret. After all, as she points out in her trademark folksy way, “Deviled eggs taste better with a drizzling of salty tears” when served (on a deviled egg platter, of course; presentation matters) at the post-funeral feast. Tarabella has a way with southern turns of phrases.
“Lemon eater” is one of my favorites of her sayings, a term that refers to a sour, dour, bossy-wossy, pushy-wushy woman (or man, I suppose) whose harsh frown lines are etched in derma-stone for lack of use of facial smile muscles. It was just such a woman who, after The Lighting of the Trees (a seasonal Fairhope ceremony to kick off the holidays for Thanksgiving and Christmas through Mardi Gras) urged the sardine-packed, unmoving crowd to “Everybody, just push! PUSH!” Eliciting this admonishing, teacherly response from Tarabella: “We don’t push in Fairhope.” The incident became a Tarabella blog post that evening and became news stories in the following weeks, feeding the original blog post more views, making it virally read and remarked upon. Every writer’s dream.
As for the folks betwixt her pages, it didn’t hurt none that she included many of my most favorite people, such as: lady of all ladies Ms. Jule Moon, born during the pandemic of 1919 and still going strong at age 105, post-COVID; John and Krystal, a special couple, their specially romantical love story, and the generosity it continues to inspire; Ricky Trione, a local artist who, blinded in one and then both eyes, was coaxed back into painting by my old partner-in-education-crime Vicky Nix Cook; another fellow educator and author/historian (specialty: ghost stories) Harriet Outlaw; the always funny and/or provocative political cartoonist JD Crowe; and scores of others.
Do I wish she had showcased more diversity, such as it is, in our mostly Wonder Bread, White Beckystan world? Yes. Is the flavor a bit more Junior League than River Rat (my palate’s preference)? A lot. But six different resident writers would have written it six different ways, likely less than accurately. The Tarabella flavor nails it.
She stated her mission, to show that: “Fairhope, Alabama . . . is a very real place, just like heaven.” Mission accomplished—with verve, optimism, sincere decorum, and sparkling whimsy. Whether eccentrically unique, comically entertaining, genuinely kind, or sentimentally touching, these little tales of humanity—the good side of it—will have you appreciating, marveling at, and, yes, longing for a return to decency, courtesy, and the common bonds that have always held us together as a society.
Who couldn’t use a huge dose of positivity, community, warm and humorous affirmations about common causes, and home sweet home right about now?
The glass is half full.
Suzanne Hudson’s new anthology Deep Water, Dark Horizons, contains her stories, essays, and novel excerpts to commemorate her selection as the 2025 Truman Capote Prize winner.
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