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Arts & Entertainment

Author Dorothea Benton Frank Talks About Her Popular Summer Read at Book Signing

"Folly Beach" is the story of past and future in South Carolina.

Author Dorothea Benton Frank engaged an audience of about 40 people at a book signing for her book “Folly Beach” on July 20 at the Spring Lake Library.

Attendees consisted of mostly women from the area who were no strangers to Frank and her books, many having had read more than one of them. 

“I read this (Folly Beach) a couple of weeks ago. It was a nice summer read. I’ve enjoyed every one of her books. Plantation is my favorite but they are all very good. Every time I read one of her books I wish I lived in South Carolina and was her neighbor,” said Terry DePasquale, Manasquan.

"I don't know how she creates these characters in her mind. Her mind must be so fertile. I've read several of her books," said Ross Hess of Wall.

“I’m thrilled to be here. If I had known there were this many women in Spring Lake who ever read a book of mine, I would have been here every year,” said Benton Frank as she began her speech.

“Everyone always asks me -- how do I get my ideas for my books? I serve on the boards for the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League and The South Carolina Historical Society,” said Benton Frank.

After she gave her introduction she went on to discuss “Folly Beach,” and her inspiration for it.

Last summer she went to the South Carolina Historical Society and read the papers of Dorothy and DuBose Heyward.

“I thought it was DuBose who wrote “Porgy and Bess” with George Gershwin on Folly Beach during the summer of 1934,” said Benton Frank.

She soon learned in the boxes she went through filled with photos and letters that Dorothy adapted DuBose’s book “Porgy” and turned it into a play. Dorothy was very humble and allowed DuBose to take the credit.

“It was made clear that she loved him very dearly, almost as much as he loved himself,” said Benton Frank.

“Dorothy was a wealthy woman from Ohio and smart. She ended up at Columbia University and took playwright classes at Harvard. We knew Dorothy had an incredible education for a woman of her day,” said Benton Frank.

Then there was DuBose, a high school drop out who had grown up having little to nothing.

“He goes to work at a hardware store and had a big opinion of himself. He didn't have an education but he did have an ear for poetry. In 1920 he formed an insurance company and he hated it. The same year he also formed the South Carolina Poetry company, when he met Dorothy," said Benton Frank.

“Porgy and Bess” is an opera from the 1930s that has music by Gershwin. It tells the tale of African American life in Catfish row, a fictitious town in Charleston, South Carolina in the 1920s.

In “Folly Beach,” a woman returns to her past to find her future. Folly Beach is home to Cate Cooper’s childhood. Cate returns to her childhood town when her husband died and left her broke. She discovers something so unexpected when she ends up in a small cottage named the Porgy House. “Folly Beach” alternates between Cate’s journey and flashbacks into the lives of the Heywards.

In an interview after the book signing, Benton Frank said, “The story is fiction but surrounds the Heywards which is a true reenactment.”

Benton Frank is very grateful for the people who read her books.

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