Three nites ago, I was looking through my ten year old TBR pile (that would be books that have been on my TBR pile for at least 8+ years) looking for a book to read. I found books that I had forgotten I had like The Painted Veil by Susan Carroll. I had bought this book, new, strictly because it had the same title as a Somerset Maugham novel (I’m a sucka for Somerset Maugham) and it’s been sitting there in my TBR pile ever since. I found out that I had three Suzanne Simmons novel (I had no idea.) I found out that there is an author named Susan Sizemore that is a different author from Suzanne Simmons (who knew?).
Anyway, I was looking through all these books and I still didnt feel like reading any of them. Then I came across Taken By a Texan (SD#1137) by Lass Small and I thought it would just be what I needed.
If I was asked which romance author, who was no longer writing, that I miss the most, it would be Katherine Sutcliffe* who wrote fabu historical romances in the 1990s. Second place, though, goes to Lass Small whose last book was in 2000. I was reading Lass Small when she was still writing Second Chance At Love books (anyone remember those?) back in the 80s as Callie Hughes. I have a low threshold for humorous books but Small has an incredibly unique, strong, whimsical voice. Lass Small goes her own way and her way is “Sit back. Put up your feet while I tell you a story. I will tell it in my own intermittent style and I will not be rushed.”
I was reminded afresh just by the first page of Taken By a Texan (TBAT). For the first 12 pages of this 176 page story, she follows this dude who is not even the Hero of the story. She follows him as he has a father-to-son talk about the universal question of Men & Women. Small’s men and women have their own sense of logic that they follow. Take, for instance this bit on Page 1:
He knew cars and understood them. Any woman knows on sight that cars are obstinate and male. Men get along with cars. Women get towed.
But finally, Small introduces the Hero and Heroine. She does the bit with the eyelashes, a Small trademark. She does a LOT of narrative from the Hero’s POV, another Small trademark. The Hero is a virgin. Okay, that is NOT a Small trademark, but most of her heroes are Beta, which is another reason I love her.
But there are some new (to me) bits: a Dog plays a big part in the romance and there is a lot from his POV too. Actually, there is so much of the Hero and Dog POV that I have no idea about what is going on with the Heroine. So much is told but very little is felt or done. There is very little plot (another Small trademark). By Page 100, I’m having a hard time trying to finish. I’m thinking “Has Small changed or have I?”
So, I stop and start digging up one of my favorite Smalls — Marry Me Not (HT#197) — which Small wrote 10 years before TBAT. This is an older woman/younger man romance in which the H/H pretty much both fall-in-love during a weekend affair. I start skimming it and I could. not. put. it. down. even though it was 2:00 AM in the morning. It was as good as I remembered. Just very tender and funny which are traits I greatly treasure in romance novels but dont really find as often as I should. The heroine is very skittish because she is aware of the nine year age difference and the hero has to pursue her throughout the story and thus, we get classic bits like this one:
Later, in his darkened room, where they lay naked and entwined in his bed, he told her, “I’m beginning to entertain an affection for you, rather like –” he chose the description carefully “–a creeping fungus.”
Comparing the two books, it looks like Small has even less plot and more meandering detours than in the older book. She is also more repetitive with certain catchwords. In TBAT, it’s “sly”. The Hero is sly. The Dog is sly. Hell, even the Heroine’s eyes are sly. I go back to TBAT and its takes me 2 days just to read 70 pages and the ending is WTF. Absolutely no mention or exchanging of “I love you” and it looks like Small just decided to stop writing on Page 176 just because that was her allotment. The hell?
I just hope that Small was just burnt out toward the end and she will come back to romance writing one day. Despite the fact that TBAT was less than stellar, the romance biz needs mavericks like her.
Taken By A Texan (1998) — D
Marry Me Not (1988) — A-
*Note: Dear Susan Andres (aka Lucia Grahame), I would have picked YOU as the author I missed the most if A) you didnt state in 2000 that you prefer “weeding” to <gasp> writing and B) if you had written more than one novel.
I loved Lass Small. She wrote about those virgins and those TEXANS! but there was something appealing about her viewpoint.
Oh, yes. TEXANS! was always in caps.
I jsut read my first Lass Small. Red Rover. I loved it and so googled her and got here. I recognized some of the things you siad. Not much plot. Towards the end she just stopped writing, got tired of it?
But I still loved the book. The hero is wonderful. Not cliche. And I like the heroine. She cares more about substance then about class, looks, ‘suitablility’, ect. And is rewarded handsomely.
Now I’m going to look for ‘Marry me not’.
I stumbled across this blog during a google search for Lass Small. I have been missing her books and kicking myself for getting rid of my complete collection (amassed over a period of years!) in a mad dash to pack up my house and move to a different state.
I am embarrassed to say I took the entire collection to the drop off site at the Salvation Army!
I wrote to Lass Small and received a warm and wonderful response from her. A few years later, I wrote again and received a response from her daughter. Lass no longer writes due to health reasons.
Thanks for posting this and for giving me some very fond memories.
L 🙂
Leanne,
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I had no idea that Ms. Small retired for health reasons. I greatly miss her on the scene but will always treasures the books that I have by her.
seton
I read in the Fort Wayne (IN) Journal-Gazette that Lass Small had died last week…
fyi…
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/fortwayne/obituary.aspx?n=lass-small&pid=148134917
Lori,
Thank you so much for letting me know of Lass’s passing. I will spread the word to the other fans I know who enjoyed her books as much as I. 😦
I am the middle daughter of Lass Small and I haven’t Googled her name for years. It is so neat to read what others appreciated about her. I’m quite defensive about any criticism, although when I was reading her last books before they were published, I felt frustrated that they weren’t as good. Her publisher was very patient, kind and loyal to her at the end. She published her last book in 2000. Looking back, the effects of Alzheimer’s had come on slowly and she was robbed of speech and writing. In no way was she burned out!
My dad (her husband of 65 years) took care of her until 2004 when it became necessary to put her in a nursing home, where she lived for almost 7 years. My dad died at 92 in January 2010. She died 1 year and 3 days later- this past January.
If you enjoyed her storytelling, you would have loved knowing her. She was a loving mother with a lot of wisdom, great loyalty, and a strong sense of right and wrong. She was smart, funny, talented and creative.
She LOVED writing and was so delighted to be published. She was so disciplined with it. While it disappointed her that it would be unlikely that she could make a living with her art, she always said that writing ended up being better because she still had the story after she sold it, unlike a picture never seen again.
She saved every fan letter she got; they meant so much to her. Mom never thought of them as her “fans” but as individuals who shared a common bond.
Now, back to my defensiveness! No plot?! The love story is the plot! Mom had such a great imagination and a gift for storytelling. I’ve never read this about Mom, but I think another strength was in character development. As a reader, I felt I knew these people. They were believable with quirks and personalities of their own. I always liked them tremendously and never felt her characters were duplicated in other stories. They all had some indefinable (to me) quality that was so Mom, though. As is said, she certainly had a recognizable “voice.” She also had some pet words as we all do. I’d read her parts with a word used over several times and roll my eyes and say, “Moooommm! You can’t say everything is marvelous!” She’d laugh and say, “It’s OK.” (i.e. not up for debate)
I’m sorry this is getting so long. I find this memory so charming (one of her favorite words) and poignant. After she quit writing, Mom mostly read her own books. With hindsight, I understand that it must have been hard for her to follow an unfamiliar story, so this was a way she could read lots of different books (over 60 published.) She knew them so well, she could follow the story. She cracked herself up reading her own words and we would raz her about it. But we thought she was really funny, too.
Thank you for posting. Knowing others loved Mom is salve to my broken heart.
Please go to http://www.leppertmortuary.com and sign the guestbook for Lass Small. I’d love to read any POSITIVE (ha) things you have to say! Liza
Liza –
I’m so grateful that you found my blog. My condolences to you and your siblings.
I love all your remembrances of your mother. I think a great part of her appeal is that you got such a huge sense of her charming personality through her writing. I’m sure she must have been amazing to be around.
I wrote the original post about Lass 4 years ago and it remains to this day one of the more popular posts on this site. I’ve told my friends on Goodreads of Lass’s passing and posted a thread on Amazon (one of the more popular romance forums on the internet) which you can follow here:
http://www.amazon.com/tag/romance/forum/ref=cm_cd_NOREF?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=FxM42D5QN2YZ1D&cdPage=1&newContentNum=8&cdMSG=addedToThread&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx1Q9SNDWAB2N1I&displayType=tagsDetail&newContentID=Mx36TZQDVVZ9834#CustomerDiscussionsNRPB
*warm smile* I was longing for a Lass Small story today and Googled her name. Imagine, three years after posting a comment here, finding another by Lass’s daughter (the same one who replied to a letter I I wrote on her mother’s behalf!).
I knew of Lass’s passing but having Liza flesh out her mother for us made the loss even harder. Coming up on the first anniversary of my own mother’s death, I wish Liza and the rest of her family all the comfort that might be found by reading our fond remembrances of Lass’s work.