SOURCE: Benedict, Pinckney. “Good Country People.” Washington Post Book World (5 September 1993): 5.

In the following review, Benedict identifies the strengths and weaknesses of Feather Crowns.

In Feather Crowns, Bobbie Ann Mason once again proves her mastery over the world of specific physical detail. Her previous fiction, both stories and novels, has made frequent unabashed use of brand-name commodities to limn symbolically the narrow dimensions of her characters' lives. Her fascination with mercantile additions to the language—Doritos, Coca-Cola, Pampers, Kleenex—often takes on an incantatory quality, as though the gaudy organization of the supermarket shelf has subsumed the role of religious liturgy, or of poetry.

This latest novel, set for the most part on a tobacco farm in western Kentucky in 1900, invokes a litany of the brand names of that era, but to substantially different effect. Scott's Carbolated Salve, Vegetine Blood purifier, Turkish Pile Ointment, Dr. Koenig's Hamburg Breast...