by Mary Timbes

Fairhope, Alabama, is a small city harboring more than one paradox. On one hand, it is a unique little town—just a dot on the map—which was founded by a group of nineteenth-century idealists who were certain that they could change the world. On the other, it is a prosperous, elegant, and sophisticated community with an aggregate of expensive shops and upscale homes. Meet Me at the Butterfly Tree opens the curtain on a very different Fairhope. It reveals the town in a simpler day, mid-twentieth-century, when eccentrics lived cheek by jowl with intellectuals, artists, and ordinary citizens. Over a hundred years after its founding as a Single Tax Utopia, Fairhope's appeal has not diminished, although its mission has been clouded by conflict and time itself. This book, conceived as an instrument of renewal of the town's original spirit, includes letters between the author and Robert E. Bell, whose 1959 novel The Butterfly Tree was set in Fairhope, and includes essays, character sketches, and anecdotes by both authors. The combined memories reveal an extraordinary past in a very special place