DOWNTOWN audiobook

I loved the excitement Smoky felt about her first real job and the glamour of Atlanta at the beginning of this book. I could relate. I remember my first “real” job and how exciting it was to work “downtown”. And that song played through my head as I read the book. Siddons has been known to add a dark side to her novels, however, this one did not have it. It is an early work. Siddons sometimes gets a little too wordy and this was no exception. So, I just skimmed through some of the detail. I think this was an exceptional work by Siddons. I felt like I went back in time and was right in the middle of the hoppin’ southern city of Atlanta. She did a fantastic job describing what was happening at this time during the 60’s. I was fascinated. The story was about Smoky. She gets a job in Atlanta working for a magazine called “Downtown”. She is an Irish Catholic girl who was brought up with the strict rules of the Catholic Church. Her life is ahead and at first she is controlled by her upbringing. But the changing times of the 60’s seem to change her and the life she is excited about living. And the magazine is a part of the change. She is right in the middle of Atlanta during one of the most radical times of the century. I remember reading some of this author’s earlier works and fell in love with them. This was another great one with a somewhat surprising ending. I highly recommend this author!

Re-visiting “Downtown” after many years reminds me, as if I need reminding, just how good a writer Anne Rivers Siddons is. This 1994 novel is her towering tribute to the city of Atlanta, to its famous city magazine and the editor and staff that made it landmark publication of the turbulent 60s in the South.“Downtown” is fiction though, as is the magazine of the same name, its editor and staff, and her female protagonist, “Smoky” O’Donnell from Savannah. Smoky escapes the Irish enclave of her home town to venture to Atlanta in her mid-twenties, excited at the opportunity to become one of legendary editor Matt Comfort’s “people”.It is the people, experienced through Smoky’s eyes, that make this novel so special – along with its wonderful recreation of a special place and pivotal time in 2Oth century history. The Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War are polarizing opinions all over the country – to read “Downtown” is to relive those times through the lens of the writers and photographers who recorded them.This is such a satisfying book, one of Siddon’s very best – and she’s written some great ones.Kerry Heningan7 April 2018

When I first started reading Anne Rivers Siddons (a long time ago) this book stood out as my very favorite! The central character is wonderful! It is her "coming of age" story and I found it to be lovely and heartwarming.

Downtown is, yet again, another Anne Rivers Siddons classic. In my mind, she's incapable of writing anything less. Masterfully and vividly set in mid-nineties sixties Atlanta, Siddons parallels the rise of the Southern city as it grows into its own through turbulent times, with the budding career of new arrival, journalist Smoky O'Donnell, who hails from an insular, Catholic community, among the Irish working-class of Corkie, which rests along the waterfront of Savannah, Georgia. Smoky is twenty seven, wide-eyed and bursting at the seams to join the vibrant world beyond her hometown, and when she fortuitously lands a job in Atlanta, at Downtown Magazine, her life finally shifts into gear. It is a swift and fascinating evolution replete with sixties music, miniskirts, free love, and social unrest. Smoky's position with Downtown Magazine places her at the core of it all, working beside an eccentric boss and a group of creatives who come to be her city family. Through the eyes of a reporter, the reader learns about upper-crust, Atlanta society as well as its desperate underbelly. Amongst roiling tides, the civil rights movement is seen up close and at first hand. In language both personal and confessional, Smoky tells her version of a life on the rise, in a town that shapes destinies, in a voice sympathetic to all sides of the changing times. This is a book to educate anyone not living in the pivotal sixties of America. That it is set in the South gives the reader a particular, advantageous spin from a very critical vantage point. It portrays a search for identity, a search for purpose, new love, and the shaping of a young woman from innocence into the life-altering placement of a sustained open mind.

This novel started slowly, but grew on me, and was most insightful by the conclusion. What started as a piece of fluff novel about a young girl starting her journalism career, also described perfectly the early days of the Civil Rights Movement as it changed and the turbulence of an entire decade of social change swept the nation. Soon all the figures at the magazine were engaged in more and more important issues as events changed. The story was set in 1966-69 Atlanta at a new start up magazine publication. It's an intimate character study of two the main protagonists, Smokey O'Donnell and Matthew Comfort: Smokey a young developing writer and Matt the editor and prime mover of the magazine "Downtown". Using Pet Clark's iconic song as an ongoing metaphor, the characters became more affected by national events. At times the novel took on a flirty " Mary Tyler Moore goes to Atlanta" vibe which hurt the historical gravitas of the events. There were love affairs, drinking and partying and additional characters: photographers, business tycoons, Atlanta socialites etc. It wasn't until the Epilogue that the characters themselves saw the deeper more subtle meanings of what they lived through. Maybe that was Anne Rivers Siddons point, we can't always know the final or overall importance of events in our lives until we emerge from them as we grow, change and age. It's hard to see the forest through the trees as we live day by day. I think the book flirted with truly profound realizations....they just took some added reflection to find.

I really related personally to this book. My first job out of college was in Atlanta in 1973... I even did a summer internship at the Constitution and Georgia State, so I knew the excitement of the specific places and the thrills and chills of being on your own for the first time. My mother was a journalist, so I related to that. The Vietnam Nam War was over by then and Civil Rights bill had been passed, but I knew those struggles from high school. I liked the complexity of the characters and the way Siddons peeled back the layers of the Atlanta culture. Like Smoky, Atlanta seems so overwhelming today...not the relatable place that I remember so fondly. I loved the song Downtown by Petula Clark when I was in 7th grade, but I think that motif went a bit too far...it got stuck in my head!

While I thought the ending (epilogue) was a bit abrupt after all the detail of the larger story, I enjoyed reading this and had a hard time putting it down. Characters- Smoky, Brad, Luke, Matt Comfort, John Howard, Teddie and others- set in the 1960s in Atlanta. Smoky is a new editor at a magazine covering the city, and there is a lot about the civil rights movement and the rise of the Black Panthers due to frustration with the slow progress.

The BestI have read most of Anne Rivers Siddons' books and fully enjoyed them, but Downtown is my favorite one. She totally recreates the 60s in Atlanta. It was a time like no other and she does a great job of winding a good story around it.

Beautiful writing as always!

Yes! A "Rebecca" reference.

The year is 1966, a time of innocence, possibility, and freedom. And for the city of Atlanta, Georgia, the country, and one woman making her way in a changing world, nothing will ever be the same. After an airless childhood in Savannah, Maureen 'Smoky' O'Donnell arrives in Atlanta, a naive young woman, dazzled and chastened by this hectic young city on the rise. Even though Smoky has to literally earn her wings as a female reporter on the staff of the male-dominated magazine, she gains membership into an intimate family of dedicated staff members headed by Matt Comfort, a flamboyant and charismatic editor who is known everywhere in the city. Her new job as a writer with the city's Downtown magazine introduces her to many unforgettable people and propels her into the center of momentous events that will irrevocably alter her heart, her career, and her world.More than any of her previous novels, Downtown mirrors the facts of Anne Rivers Siddons' own life. She got her start as a writer for Atlanta magazine - one of America's first city magazines. Atlanta magazine was founded by Jim Townsend - a revered mentor to an entire generation of writers. The magazine was just coming to life during the exciting decade of the '60s, when Atlanta was emerging as a political center for the civil rights movement and redefining itself as the metropolis of the future. Downtown captures the energy of the city at this amazing turning point in history.While I did enjoy this book very much, I found that it started off sort of slow for me. Although, it picked up immensely about halfway through the story and I was really drawn into the plot. However, to be totally honest, I thought that the book was about 100 to 150 pages longer than it needed to be. Overall though, Downtown was really good and I give it an A!

On the recommendation of a friend and because Siddons is fast becoming a favorite author of mine, I checked this 1994 book out of the library. It has a different tone than some of her other books, but the storytelling is no less captivating.Petula Clark's catchy pop song of the same title will resound through the reader's mind as Siddons rolls out a story of a scrappy bunch of journalists who make a name for themselves and Atlanta's Downtown magazine at the height of the Civil Rights movement. The upheaval and change they experience while pursuing their careers between 1967 and 1968 become a metaphor for the turmoil faced by the entire nation during that time period. Civil rights, gay liberation, burgeoning feminism and, of course, Vietnam are all covered by Siddons in this coming of age tale that ends with a not-so-surprising epilogue.

This was a different type of book for this author - at least it seemed so to me. Set in Atlanta during the 60's, a time of cultural upheaval, it is a coming of age story that really spoke to me. It so poignantly captured the hero worship of youth, the searching after a family of the heart when one's biological family seems unsatisfactory, that shining time when all comes together and one rides the wave in triumph and glory, and the inevitable change, passing and end of it all. As I grew older I realized that life is really a series of intervals and while each interval seems permanent at the time none of it is. But the first time it happens is a shock, and a blow, and one either grows up at that time or spends the remainder of life like a child clutching at happiness. I really liked this book.

I've attempted to read a couple of Siddons's books that I just could not get into. I also started and finished Peachtree Road a few years back, but I found it unnecessarily long and horribly depressing. But Downtown was far better. It's supposed to be about Smoky, but I really thought the city of Atlanta was the real lead character of this book. I loved the journalism setting and I also loved the 1960s era. I do find Siddons to be too wordy, but that didn't take away from the story. It was still a good book.