WINNERS OF PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION, 1918-1989
SUMMARIES AND RESOURCES
The following brief summaries of the first sixty-three Pulitzer Prize Winners for Fiction are intended to introduce readers to information about characters and plot lines. Each begins with the first sentence of the work and ends with information about some general themes. They are intentionally neutral (or as neutral as I could make them). In essence, they are meant to whet the appetite, to interest someone enough to want to read the entire work.
Three sources about each work (found in books, articles, or internet sites) appear after each summary. They are meant as initial starting points for further study of any particular work and/or author.
1918 Ernest Poole, His Family
“He was thinking of the town he had known.”
Set in New York City and rural New England between 1912-1915 (with flashbacks), the novel tells the story of Roger Gage, owner of a news-clipping agency, and his three grown daughters. Edith is an ultra-caring wife and mother of several children. Deborah is a teacher and political activist who works in the slums and is leery of marriage. And Laura is a lover of parties and good times with no thoughts of the future. Since each is choosing a different path in a rapidly changing world, Gage, a widower, struggles to understand and act on the words of his late wife: “You will live on in our children’s lives.” The novel touches on the definition of “family,” education, women’s roles, immigration, urbanization and tenements, World War I, the past, and love.
Baldwin, Charles C. “Ernest Poole.” The Men Who Make Our Novels. New York: Dodd
& Mead, 1925. 427-432.
Bragg, Lois. “Ernest Poole.” Dictionary of Literary Biography, 9, Part II: American
Novelists, 1910-1945. 289-293.
Keefer, Truman Frederick. Ernest Poole. Twayne's United States Authors Series 110.
New York: Twayne, 1967.
1919 Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons
“Major Amberson had ‘made a fortune’ in 1873, when other people were losing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then.”
The Ambersons are the wealthiest and most socially prominent family in a small mid-western town, living off the fortune made by Major Amberson in 1873. By 1916, his spoiled teen-age grandson, George Amberson Minifer is lording his position over the “riffraff” at home and at college, guarding his family’s good name. As the money dwindles and the town changes into an industrial city, George holds onto his “ideals.” One day Eugene Morgan, a pioneer in the new automobile industry, returns to town with his beautiful daughter Lucy. George is quite enamored with her, but when Eugene tries to renew his friendship with his mother, Isabel, George acts in ways that change the real fortunes of everyone. The novel touches on family relationships, class, technological change, love, and redemption.
Angelfire Literature Page. “Booth Tarkington: His Life and Contribution.” 23 Jan. 2002
<http://www.angelfire.com/co/pscst/booth.html>.
Fennimore, Keith J. Booth Tarkington. Twayne's United States Authors Series 238. New
York: Twayne 1974.
Indiana Historical Society. “Newton Booth Tarkington: Hoosier Novelist.” 2001. 23 Jan.
2002 <http://www.indianahistory.org/heritage/booth.html>.
1920 No Award
1921 Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
“On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.”
Just before his engagement is announced to May Welland, a member of a prominent family in New York, Newland Archer is introduced to her cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, estranged wife of a Polish aristocrat and black sheep of the family, who has been living in Europe. In the conventional society of the 1870’s, Archer is drawn to the more sophisticated, freer Ellen. As he fights his feelings for her and considers his promises to May and to the larger society, he becomes aware of his world, values, and desires. The novel touches on innocence, experience, family, honor, gender roles, America and Europe, marriage, convention, freedom, and love.
Colquitt, Clare, Susan Goodman, and Candace Waid, eds. A Forward Glance: New
Essays on Edith Wharton. Newark, NJ: U of Delaware P, 1999.
Shidler, Dee. Edith Wharton: An Overview with Biocritical Sources Page. 2001. 24 Jan.
2002 <http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/6741/>.
Mizener, Arthur. “Edith Wharton: The Age of Innocence.” Twelve Great American
Novels. New York: New American Library, 1967. 68-86.
1922 Booth Tarkington, Alice Adams
“The patient, an old-fashioned man, thought the nurse made a mistake in keeping both of the windows open, and her sprightly disregard of his protests added something to his hatred of her.”
Alice Adams is the pretty daughter of a weak father and ambitious mother. Considered a “pushing” sort of girl with a middle-class background in her small mid-western town in the early 1900’s, she is barely tolerated in society and, thus, has developed both theatrical mannerisms and a rich fantasy life to compensate. Her mother, desperate to give her advantages, coerces her sick father into a risky, if not unethical, business venture and prevails upon Alice to bring her new young man, an eligible bachelor who really knows nothing about her, to a dinner on the hottest day of the year. The results are both disastrous and enlightening. The novel touches on ambition, roles for women, business, family, and maturity.
Lovett, Robert Morss. “Alice of the Adamses.” New Republic 29 Jun. 1921: 147-148.
Sarkin, Adam J. “’She Doesn’t Last, Apparently’: A Reconsideration of Booth
Tarkington’s Alice Adams.” American Literature. 46 (1974): 182-199.
Woodress, James Leslie. Booth Tarkington: Gentleman from Indiana. New York:
Lippincott, 1955.
1923 Willa Cather, One of Ours
“Claude Wheeler opened his eyes before the sun was up and vigorously shook his younger brother, who lay in the other half of the same bed.”
At the turn of the century, Claude Wheeler, a tall, well-built, redheaded young man, has grown up as a farmer’s son in Nebraska. While he loves and appreciates the land, he feels that somehow he does not fit in. He yearns for more, but he is not certain what that “more” might be. He attends college for a while, and eventually marries a religious young woman, yet despairs quietly that his life is meaningless. When World War I breaks out in Europe, he does not hesitate. He enlists in the American Expeditionary Force and heads to France. Claude’s experiences while fighting in towns and living in trenches with men much different from him begin to shed light on the “more” he has been searching for. The novel touches on the Midwest, American values, Europe, war, ideals, marriage, and the brotherhood of men.
Gerber, Philip L. Willa Cather. Twayne's United States Authors Series 258. New York:
Twayne, 1995.
Lindhard, Anne. Willa Cather Site. 13 Jan. 2002. 28 Jan. 2002
<http://fp.image.dk/fpemarxlind/>.
Stout, Janis P. Willa Cather: The Writer and Her World. Charlottesville, UP of Virginia,
2000.
1924 Margaret Wilson, The Able McLaughlins
“The prairie lay that afternoon as it had lain for centuries of September afternoons, vast as an ocean; motionless as an ocean coaxed into very little ripples by languid breezes; silent as an ocean where only very little waves slip back into their element.”
Wully McLauglin returns to his family in Iowa after fighting for the Union in the Civil War. Presbyterian Scot, he is the oldest of thirteen children and related to many other families who have settled in this fertile area to farm. After recovering from the hardships of war, he falls in love with Chirstie McNair, the daughter of a neighbor. Reluctant to marry him, Chirstie has a terrible secret involving the son of her Uncle John and Aunt Libby Keith. Wully’s response to the secret and the arrival of Chirstie’s new step-mother from Scotland change their lives as well as those of their families and many others in the community. The novel touches on farm life on the prairie, the “Americanization” of immigrants, the role of women in settling the West, family, love, and forgiveness.
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy. “Wilson, Margaret.” The Feminist
Companion to Literature in English. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1990.
Contemporary Authors Online. “Margaret (Wilhemia) Wilson.” 2002. 29 Jan. 2002
Wilkie, Jr. Everett C. “Margaret (Wilhemina) Wilson.”Dictionary of Literary
Biography, 9, Part II: American Novelists, 1910-1945. 159-166.
1925 Edna Ferber, So Big
“Until he was almost ten the name stuck to him.”
Selina Peake is the daughter of an adventurous man who teaches her about the possibilities and beauty in life. When he dies in 1888, she takes a job as a schoolteacher in a small Dutch farming community north of Chicago, leaving behind her rich friend Julie Hempel and her life as a student at Fisters Select School for Young Ladies. Though New Holland is a staid, conventional, and poor community, nothing can dim her nineteen-year-old optimism and ability to see “the beauty in cabbages” of the truck farmers. Married later to an attractive but slow-thinking farmer, she chaffs against restrictions and plans great things for her son, Dirk DeJong, known as Sobig. Working at what she loves and trying to pass on her values and sensibilities, she sends him to college, believing he will be a successful architect. But it is Dirk who must learn for himself the lessons his mother has been trying to teach him. The novel touches on class, art, conventions, women’s roles, the meaning of life, and love.
Appleton Wisconsin Public Library. The Edna Ferber Homepage. Feb. 1 2000. 30 Jan.
2002 <http://www.apl.org/history/ferber/>.
Brody, Seymour “Sy.” “Edna Ferber.” Jewish Heroes & Heroines of America: 150 True
Stories of American Jewish Heroism. Hollywood, FL: LifeTime Books, 1996. 30
Jan. 2002 <http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/ferber.html>.
Gilbert, Julie Goldsmith. Ferber: A Biography. Garden City, New York: Doubleday,
1978.
1926 Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
“The driver of the wagon swaying through forest and swamp of the Ohio wilderness was a ragged girl of fourteen.”
Martin Arrowsmith, a serious young man from the Midwest, is determined to dedicate his life to “Pure Science.” Studying to be a doctor in the early 1900’s under his mentor Professor Max Gottleib, he spurns the goals of status and economic success that his colleagues, like Angus Duer, strive for. Attracted to Madeline Hinckley, an English major in college, he becomes engaged but begins to lose his way. A chance meeting with Leora Tozer, a student nurse, helps him decide to re-dedicate his life to science. He now spends his time in his laboratory with bacteria, discovering, testing, and retesting, attempting to keep his high ideals about medicine. However, events and people will conspire to test Martin, bringing tragedy as well as knowledge. The novel touches on the pressures of society, love, human weaknesses, the role of the scientist, the definition of ideals, and the progress of humanity.
Books and Writers. (Harry) Sinclair Lewis Page. 2000. 31 Jan. 2002
<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/slewis.htm>.
Griffin, Robert J., ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Arrowsmith: A Collection of
Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968.
Lingeman, Richard R. Sinclair Lewis: Rebel from Main Street. New York: Random, 2002.
1927 Louis Bromfield, Early Autumn
“There was a ball in the old Pentland house, because for the first time in nearly forty years there was a young girl in the family to be introduced to the polite world of Boston and to the elect who had been asked to come on from New York and Philadelphia.”
The Pentland family has lived in Durham, New England, for three hundred years. In the first decade of the 1900’s, the family is relatively small, headed now by John Pentland who believes he must do his duty to keep the family safe and prosperous. He is very fond and appreciative of his daughter-in-law Olivia, “a real lady,” who at thirty-nine is aware of the passage of time in her life. When Sabine Callendar, the black sheep of the family, comes to visit, she stirs up feelings in Olivia and other members of the family. Flouting conventions in general, introducing Olivia to Michael O’Hara, a vigorous Irish politician, and generally out to cause trouble, Sabine becomes a catalyst for events that offer opportunities for change in the lives of members of the traditional Pentland family. The novel touches on family, love, tradition, the past, money, and the roles of women.
Anderson, David D. Louis Bromfield. Twayne's United States Authors Series 55. New
York: Twayne, 1964.
Books and Writers. Louis Bromfield. 2000. 1 Feb. 2002 <http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bromfiel.htm>.
WOSU-TV. The Man Who Had Everything Page. 1999. 1 Feb. 2002
<http://www.wosu.org/bromfield/index.html>.
1928 Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
“On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below.”
Brother Juniper, a Franciscan from Northern Italy sent to Peru to convert Indians, wonders why a long-lived bridge suddenly fails, sending five particular people to their deaths: the Marquesa de Montemayor (a wealthy eccentric obsessed with her daughter), Pepita (her servant), Estaban (an orphan twin), Uncle Pio (a jack of all trades), and Jaime (the son of a famous actress). He plans to examine their secret lives in detail in order to prove that humans either “live by accident and die by accident,” or they live by God’s plan and die by His plan. His inquiry reveals more than he realizes. The novel touches on story/personal history, faith, family, passion, art, the meaning of life, and love.
Burbank, Rex. Thornton Wilder. Twayne United States Author Series 5. New York:
Twayne, 1961.
Parris, Emily. Thornton Wilder Page. 1997. 4 Feb. 2002
<http://www.sky.net/~emily/thornton.html>.
Simpson, Paul. Thornton Wilder Page. 2001. 4 Feb. 2002
<http://www.linkstoliterature.com/wildert.htm>.
1929 Julia Peterkin, Scarlet Sister Mary
“The black people who live in the Quarters at Blue Brook Plantation believe they are far the best black people living on the whole ‘Neck,’ as they call that long, narrow, rich strip of land lying between the sea on one side and the river with its swamps and deserted rice-fields on the other.”
After the Civil War, the freed slaves of Blue Brook Plantation in South Carolina continue to live in the Quarters and thrive. Mary, a healthy, energetic orphan, has been raised by Maum Hannah and her handicapped son Budda Ben. Taken into the church after a vision, she becomes Sister Mary. At fifteen she marries the love of her life against the advice of her family and neighbors. Pregnant before the marriage, she is voted out of the church and seen as Scarlet for her sins. After her baby, Unexpected, is born, her husband July falls under the spell of another woman. The decisions Mary makes to cope with this situation and its consequences change her life and the lives of those around her. The novel touches on African-American culture and traditions, nature, motherhood, grief, forgiveness, faith, and love.
Landess, Tom. Julia Peterkin. Twayne's United States Authors Series 273. New York:
Twayne, 1976.
Local Notables Home Page. Julia Peterkin. 5 Feb. 2002
<http://www.sparklenet.com/1_Visitors_Center/Local_Notables/index.htm?Humanities.htm>.
Williams, Susan Millar. A Devil and a Good Woman, Too: The Lives of Julia Peterkin.
Athens: U of Georgia P, 1997.
1930 Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy
“He was riding the hundred miles from T’o Tlakai to Tsé Lani to attend a dance, or rather, for the horse-racing that would come afterwards.”
Laughing Boy, a Navaho, is a fine silversmith who appreciates beauty and follows traditional ways. While at a dance in 1915, he meets Slim Girl, an unusual looking and behaving young woman. He is enchanted by her, so much so that he asks her to marry him. Although he loses all his money in a gambling game, she agrees--she has her own agenda. They marry against the wishes and advice of his family. They move to her house in a town and, because of her planning and determination, become wealthy. Laughing Boy raises horses, creates jewelry, and learns to drink whiskey. Slim Girl learns how to weave traditional Navaho blankets. Then a secret comes to light which threatens their love and forces them to consider their way of life. The novel touches on Native American culture and traditions, values, race, religion, love, and redemption.
Austin, Mary. “A Navajo Tale.” The Saturday Review of Literature 6 (9 Nov. 1929):
262-263.
Baader, Cecilia. “Oliver La Farge’s Laughing Boy.” Online posting. 8 Jan. 2001.
Roughdraft.com. 6 Feb. 2002
<http://www.roughdraft.org/JDS/JDS.ocon.jan01/0058.html>.
McNickle, D’Arcy William. Indian Man: A Life of Oliver La Farge. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1971.
1931 Margaret Ayer Barnes, Years of Grace
“Little Jane Ward sat at her father’s left hand at the family breakfast table, her sleek, brown pigtailed head bent discretely over her plate.”
At the turn of the century, Jane Ward lives in Chicago in a well-to-do neighborhood with her mother, father, and older sister Isabel. She goes to school and plays with her best friends Flora Furness, Agnes Johnson, and Muriel Lester. At fourteen, Jane falls in love with Andre Duroy, a cosmopolitan Catholic boy her parents find unacceptable. When at seventeen he asks her to marry him, her parents force them to wait, and Andre goes to Europe to study art. They vow to get together again when Jane is twenty-one. As she waits, Jane attends Bryn Mawr with her friend Agnes, an aspiring writer, and gains a larger view of life. When she returns home, she meets Stephen Carver, Flora’s cousin from Boston, who falls in love with her. Jane now has important decisions to make that will affect her life and the lives of those around her. The novel touches on values, friendship, parent/child relations, love, marriage, class, roles of women, wealth, art, and maturity.
Eckley, Grace. “Margaret Ayer Barnes.” Dictionary of Literary Biography, 9, Part II:
American Novelists, 1910-1945. 61-66.
Electronic Garden/NatuRealization. “Chicago’s Literature of Realism.” 7 Feb. 2002
<http://www- art.cfa.cmu.edu/rogala/egarden/ROOTS/literature.html>.
Taylor, Lloyd C., Jr. Margaret Ayer Barnes. Twayne United States Author Series 231.
New York: Twayne, 1974.
1932 Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth
“It was Wang Lung’s marriage day.”
At the turn of the century, Wang Lung, a poor Chinese peasant, marries a slave-girl, O-lan, from the Big House of Hwang in the city outside his village. They both work hard and are blessed with good harvests and two strong sons. A third child is born, a daughter, feeble-minded, called The Fool. At the same time, a famine hits the land, and Wang Lung eventually decides to sell what is not needed and move south to the city. O-lan and the children beg in the street, and Wang Lung runs a rickshaw, making just enough to buy food for a day. When revolution comes to the city, both find themselves in positions to be able to steal money and jewels. They eagerly return to the land and prosperity. The new wealth changes Wang Lung and his children, however, in ways no one expects. The novel touches on permanence, love, values, parent/child relations, and the meaning of life.
Block, Irvin. The Lives of Pearl Buck: A Tale of China and America. Women of America
Series. New York: Crowell, 1973.
Conn, Peter. Pearl S. Buck Page. 1996. 7 Feb. 2002
<http://www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/Buck/>.
Doyle, Paul A. Pearl S. Buck. Twayne's United States Authors Series 85. Boston, MA:
Twayne, 1980.
1933 T. S. Stribling, The Store
“In response to his wife’s uncertain inquiry about the political speaking, Colonel Miltiades Vaiden called back from his gate that he did not think there would be any ladies at the courthouse that evening.”
In 1884, not long after the Civil War has ended, the small town of Florence, Alabama, is struggling to redefine personal relationships within families, in the community, and especially between ex-masters and ex-slaves in a new South. Colonel Miltiades Vaiden, ex-plantation overseer and Klansman, struggles with feelings of bitterness against J. Handback for causing him to lose all his family’s money in a fraudulent cotton deal. It has colored his relationship with his wife Ponny, his ex-fiance, his nephew, other members of his family, and the community itself. In an act of “justice,” Vaiden recoups his losses and establishes a store in town. Gaining success, he refurbishes his old family plantation and prepares living places for ex-slaves to work the land. His actions, however, reveal secrets from the past that have serious repercussions for his immediate family and the town. The novel touches on love, race, tradition, change, violence, law, religion, and the supernatural.
Eckley, Wilton. T. S. Stribling. Twayne's United States Authors Series 255. Boston, MA:
Twayne, 1975.
Foote, Avon Edward. “A Town Remembers Stribling’s Prize.” Presented at the Annual
Birthday Celebration Honoring T. S. Stribling, Florence, AL. 3 Mar. 2002.
Thornwood Internet Services Publishers. 2002. 11 Feb. 2002
<http://www.webcom.com/chotank/astrib.html>.
Oliver, Phillip. T. S. Stribling Page. Mar. 2000. 11 Feb. 2002
<http://www2.una.edu/library/stribling/>.
1934 Caroline Miller, Lamb in His Bosom
“Caen turned and lifted her hand briefly in farewell as she rode away beside Lonzo in the ox-cart.”
In the early 1840’s in the rural, swampy land of southern Georgia, Cean Carver, fifteen, marries Lonzo Smith. He has built a cabin for her some six miles from her family: mother, father, and three brothers. They begin their married lives with best wishes and supplies from all the poor white settlers in the neighborhood. Within a year, Cean, though snake-bitten and made ill, has given birth to the first of fourteen children. She and Lonzo work their land, clearing, planting, and harvesting, all based on the seasons, and beliefs and traditions passed down through generations. Cean’s brothers also find wives, but follow different paths. And the Civil War brings additional changes to this once isolated family. The novel touches on survival, nature, family, love, passion, tradition, and religion.
Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. Afterward. Lamb in His Bosom. By Caroline Miller. Atlanta,
GA: Peachtree, 1960. 347-355.
Rev. of Lamb in His Bosom, by Caroline Miller. Peachtree Publishers, Inc. Page. 1998.
12 Feb. 2002
<http://www.peachtree-online.com/Adults/Catalog/lambbosom.htm>.
Rovin’ and Ravin’ with Mike. “Caroline Miller: A Lamb in the Bosom of Georgia by
Joanne Lott Bishop.” 1999. 12 Feb. 2002
<http://www.peanut.org/users/mike/text/Caroline.htm>.
1935 Josephine Winslow Johnson, Now in November
“Now in November I can see our years as a whole.”
Looking back some ten years, Marget Haldemarne tells the story of her poor family during the Depression. Having lost his job in a lumber factory in Boone, her father, Arnold, moves onto mortgaged land in the southern Midwest in order to farm with his wife, Willa, and their daughters. The oldest is Kerrin, an impulsive, intense young woman. Marget, then a sensitive fourteen, and youngest daughter, Merle, an even-tempered girl, complete the family. The arrival of a new hired man, Grant Koven, and a terrible drought which torments them every day with killing heat and dust bring changes, both tragic and hopeful to the Haldemarnes and their neighbors. The novel touches on gender, nature, love, madness, economics, small farms, and faith.
Gorelick, Richard. “Now in November.” Rev. of Now in November, by Josephine
Johnson. Baltimore City Paper Online. 2001. 13 Feb. 2002
<http://citypaper.com/1999-10-13/specissueimprint14.html>.
Hoffman, Nancy. Afterward. Now in November. By Josephine Johnson. New York:
Feminist P of City U of New York, 1991. 233-274.
Kocks, Dorothee E. Dream a Little: Land and Social Justice in Modern America.
Berkeley: U of California P, 2000.
1936 H.L. Davis, Honey in the Horn
“There was a run-down old tollbridge station in the Shoestring Valley of Southern Oregon where Uncle Preston Shiveley had lived for fifty years, outlasting a wife, two sons, several plagues of grasshoppers, wheat-rust and caterpillars, a couple or three invasions of land-hunting settlers and real-estate speculators, and everybody else except the scattering of old pioneers who had cockleburred themselves onto the country at about the same time he did.”
In the first decade of the 1900’s Clay Calvert, an angry, stubborn sixteen-year-old, is working for Uncle Preston Shiveley, a toll-bridge keeper and writer in Oregon. Persuaded to help break Shiveley’s no-good son, Wade, out of jail, Clay finds himself on the run. Teaming up with an Indian boy he has worked with, the boys hunt deer and find themselves at the cabin of Flem Simmons, a great talker, who waxes poetic about his elaborate meat-preserving system and about pretty much everything else he knows. A family of horse traders comes by, and Clay is attracted to the daughter, Luz. The two boys part company, and Clay continues on with Luz’s family. The trip is anything but simple, and Clay will meet many different people and learn many important lessons. The novel touches on family, love, violence, Western expansion, the land, storytelling, justice, and maturity.
Brunvand, Jan. “Honey in the Horn and ‘Acres of Clams’: The Regional Fiction of H. L.
Davis.” Western American Literature 2 (1967): 135-141.
“H. L. Davis.” A Literary History of the American West. Austen: Texas University
P. 1998. 14 Feb. 2002. <http://www2.tcu.edu/depts/prs/amwest/html/wl0416.html>.
Lewis, Merrill. Introduction. Honey in the Horn by H. L. Lewis. Moscow: U of I
P, 1999. v-xix.
1937 Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
“Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarelton twins were.”
At sixteen, Katie Scarlett O’Hara, oldest daughter of an Irish father and French mother, is the belle of Clayton County in northern Georgia. She tries to learn ladylike and compassionate behaviors from her mother, but her father’s stubbornness, zest for life, and love of land seem to dominate her personality. All the young men in the county vie for her attention, but her heart belongs to Ashley Wilkes, a handsome, intellectual neighbor. At a picnic, she discovers he is planning to marry his cousin Melanie, and she meets Rhett Butler, considered to be “no gentleman” by the aristocratic Southerners. As the Civil War erupts, life changes for everyone, and Scarlett, makes many decisions that affect her and the lives of those around her in very personal ways. The novel touches on the Civil War, slavery, gender, survival, Reconstruction, family, love, death, dreams, and values.
Books and Writers. Margaret Mitchell Page. 2000. 19 Feb. 2002
<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mmitchel.htm>.
Hanson, Elizabeth I. Margaret Mitchell. Twayne's United States Authors Series 566.
Boston, MA: Twayne, 1990.
Pyron, Darden Asbury. Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell. New York:
Oxford UP, 1991.
1938 John P. Marquand, The Late George Apley
“George William Apley was born in the house of his maternal grandfather, William Leeds Hancock, on the steeper part of Mount Vernon Street, on Beacon Hill, on January 25, 1866.”
After George Apley’s death in 1933, his son, John, asks Mr. Willing, a life-long friend and author, to write a “real” and honest biography of his father as a gift to be presented to the immediate family. Mr. Willing reluctantly agrees (wondering what to do about the tiny bit of scandal), and using George’s own letters and journal entries, traces his life. He begins with George Apley’s birth into an old Brahmin family in Boston and his boyhood growing up in a world of privilege and wealth. As every Apley male before him, he attends Harvard where he is popular though not a particularly good student. He falls in love with Mary Monahan, a poor Irish Catholic girl, but the family puts an end to the relationship and sends George to Europe to tour the continent. When he returns, his “life” is waiting for him, and how he lives it is both ordinary and extraordinary. Mr. Willing’s biography of George Apley’s life is perhaps more revealing than he knows. The novel touches upon tradition, class, environment, the past, marriage, Boston, New York, family relationships, gender, values, and the meaning of life.
Birmingham, Stephen. The Late John Marquand: A Biography. Philadelphia, PA:
Lippincott, 1972.
Gross, John J. John P. Marquand. Twayne's United States Authors Series 33. New
York: Twayne, 1963.
"Marquand, J(ohn) P(hillips)." Encyclopedia Brittanica. 20 Feb. 2002
<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=52320>.
1939 Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling
“A column of smoke rose thin and straight from the cabin chimney.”
In the 1870’s, Jody Baxter, a lonely, imaginative twelve-year-old, lives with his parents, Penny and Ora, on rural land called Baxter Island some fifteen miles from Volusia, Florida. Life is both a struggle and a joy for him as he works the farm, hunts with his father, and carries water from a sinkhole for his mother. His two best friends live far away: Fodder-wing, a crippled boy who cares for injured or ill creatures, and Oliver Hutto, a sailor who visits his mother in town when on leave. Jody is both sensitive to and enchanted with the wildlife around him, loving the creatures alive and saddened when they must be killed for food. On one excursion, Penny is bitten by a rattlesnake, and to save himself, kills a doe for the liver and heart to use to suck out the poison. Jody returns to the scene and discovers the doe’s fawn is still alive. To his great joy, he is given permission to keep and raise the fawn. As both Jody and Flag grow and mature into yearlings, problems arise, and they must learn important lessons about life. The novel touches on survival, family, neighbors, life, death, and love.
Bellman, Samuel Irving. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Twayne's United States Authors
Series 241. New York: Twayne, 1974.
Bigelow, Gordon E. Frontier Eden: The Literary Career of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.
Gainesville, U of FL, 1966.
Teach with Movies. Learning Guide to The Yearling Page. 1998 & 2000. 21 Feb. 2002
<http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/yearling.html>.
1940 John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
“To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.”
As soon as Tom Joad is let out of prison, he heads for home in rural Oklahoma. He teams up with Jim Casy, an ex-preacher, and when they arrive, they discover that the members of the Joad family have been evicted from their share-crop land and are set to move to California in order to find work. Tom, Jim, the grandparents, Ma, Pa, Noah, Al, Ruthie, Winfield, and pregnant Rose of Sharon (and her husband Connie) pack up all the belongings they think they will need and dream of green valleys and oranges as they set out. Along Route 66, they encounter hundreds of other “Oakies” who are homeless, poor, and looking for work during the Great Depression. Arriving in California they are met with situations they had never imagined. The novel touches on family, love, politics, economics, nature, violence, community, compassion, and hope.
Ditsky, John, ed. Critical Essays on Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Critical Essays on
American Literature Series. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1989.
Heavilin, Barbara A., ed. The Critical Response to John Steinbeck's The Grapes of
Wrath. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.
San Jose State University, Martha Heasley Cox, Center for Steinbeck Studies Home Page.
Nov. 1999. 25 Feb. 2002 <http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/steinbec/srchome.html>.
1941 No Award
1942 Ellen Glasgow, In This Our Life
“The street was darkened by a smoky sunset, and light had not yet come on in the lamps near the empty house.”
Asa Timberlake and his family live in Queenborough, Virginia in the late 1930’s. He has worked for the Timberlake Tobacco Factory nearly all his life. His wife Lavinia, a hypochondriac, is the niece of William Fitzroy, owner of the Factory. His favorite daughter, Roy, appears to be happily married to Peter Kingsmill, a medical student studying to be an intern. His younger daughter, Stanley, Lavinia’s favorite, is set to marry Craig Fleming, a liberal lawyer. With his daughters settled, Asa dreams of leaving his wife and asking Kate Oliver, a long-time friend who lives in the country, to marry him when suddenly Stanley and Peter run off together. This upsetting event has serious consequences for all members of the family, including Parry, a young Negro boy who aspires to go to college. The novel touches on family, sisters, love, happiness, justice, dreams, and the meaning of life.
“Glasgow, Ellen.” The Columbia Encyclopedia Online. 6th ed. 2001. 27 Feb. 2002
<http://www.bartleby.com/65/gl/GlasgowE.html>.
Goodman, Susan. Ellen Glasgow: A Biography. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP,
1998.
Scura, Dorothy M., ed. Ellen Glasgow: New Perspectives. Tennessee Studies in
Literature 36. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1995.
1943 Upton Sinclair, Dragon’s Teeth
“Lanny Budd was the only occupant of a small-sized reception-room.”
American Lanny Budd fears he is a “waster and parasite” because of his money and his marriage to Irma Barnes, a multi-millionaire, at a time when the Stock Market has crashed and Hitler is gaining power in Germany. Raised in both American and Europe, his family money comes from munitions, and both a life-long friendship and marriages with the Johannes Robins family have tied him to wealthy prominent Jews. His interests include art, music, philosophy, and spiritualism. His political leanings are “pink,” and he has friends who are communist, socialist, and fascist, though his wife remains a loyal American capitalist. As the political turmoil in Germany becomes more complex, darker, and more violent, and Mr. Robins’s son Freddi is captured by the Nazi regime and placed in a concentration camp, Lanny has to decide what kind of a man he is. The novel touches on values, economics, politics, heroism, history, and love.
Bloodworth, William A. Upton Sinclair. Twayne's United States Authors Series 294.
Boston, MA: Twayne, 1977.
Mookerjee, R. N. Art for Social Justice: The Major Novels of Upton Sinclair.
Lanham, MD: Scarecrow P, 1988.
Spartacus Education. Upton Sinclair Page. 3 Jan. 2002. 28 Feb. 2002
<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jupton.htm>.
1944 Martin Flavin, Journey in the Dark
“Sam Braden never talked about his father.”
Sam Braden, born in 1883, grows up poor in the shanty part of Wyattsville, Iowa. The small size of the town allows him to go to school with the rich Wyatt children, and he soon develops what will be a life-long love for Eileen Wyatt and ambivalent feelings for her cousins, Neill and Wayne Wyatt. He remains friends with Mike Hogan, Mitch Ballou, and Grover Bentley throughout his life and cares for his sisters Madge and Nelly and, to a lesser extent, his brother Tom. When Madge makes him aware of being “poor,” he begins on a journey to become a successful businessman, a millionaire. As the country moves through the roaring twenties, Great Depression, and World War II, he has opportunities to re-examine his values and to decide what a man needs to be “for his soul’s sake.” The novel touches on family, maturity, the past, race, anti-Semitism, war, love, conscience, and values.
Adams, Michael. “Martin Flavin.” Dictionary of Literary Biography, 9, Part II: American
Novels, 1910-1945. 18-21.
Contemporary Authors Online. “Martin Flavin.” 2002. 1 Mar. 2002
Stuckey, W. J. “Journey in the Dark.” The Pulitzer Prize Novels: A Critical Backward
Look. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1966. 128-132.
1945 John Hersey, A Bell for Adano
“Invasion had come to the town of Adano.”
Major Victor Joppato, an Italian-American from the Bronx, has been assigned as senior civil affairs officer, Allied Military Government Occupied Territory (Amgot), for the small Italian town of Adano. Leery at first, the townspeople begin to see how good “Mister Major” is as a democratic administrator, especially when he tells the newly-appointed leaders that they serve the people, not the other way around. He tries to respond to their two greatest concerns: the procuring of food and the restoration of their 700-year-old bell. The Major is able to convince Tomasino, the head fisherman, to begin fishing again in the mine-invested waters. Farmers begin to bring in their harvested crops by cart as well, even though an incident occurs which jeopardizes food supplies transported in this way. Getting back the bell presents a different and more difficult problem for the Major. What he accomplishes and at what price teaches everyone something important. The novel touches on the military, community, friendship, war, justice, happiness, compassion, arrogance, power, art, religion, and love.
District 214 Website. Biography of John Hersey Page. 12 Oct. 1999. 4 Mar. 2002
<http://jhhs.dist214.k12.il.us/AboutJHHS/Biography/biography.html>.
Links to Literature. John Hersey Page. 2001. 4 Mar. 2002
<http://www.linkstoliterature.com/hersey.htm>.
Sanders, David. John Hersey Revisited. Twayne's United States Authors Series 569.
Boston. MA: Twayne, 1991.
1946 No Award
1947 Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men
“Mason City. To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new.”
Jack Burden tells the story of Willie Stark’s rise from poor white Southerner to Governor of his state, loved by many people for his programs to help the little guy, and hated by many others for corruption and demagoguery. In 1936, some fourteen years after Burden had first met him, Stark learns that Judge Irwin, Jack’s long-time mentor from his home town, will not support his choice for Senator and sends Burden, now his confidential assistant, to dig up something on the Judge. This is a common job for Burden, who has many black notebooks full of information which helps Stark to do pretty much what he likes. In seven months of research, Burden uncovers secrets that not only affect Stark and his inner circle of Tiny Duffy and Sadie Burke, but also Burden himself as he meets his past. The novel touches on knowledge, human nature, ambition, power, politics, the South, family, redemption, love, and values.
Bohner, Charles H. Robert Penn Warren. Twayne's United States Authors Series 69.
Boston, MA: Twayne, 1981.
Books and Writers. Robert Penn Warren Page. 2000. 5 Mar. 2002
<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/warren.htm>.
Light, James F., comp. The Merrill Studies in All the King's Men. Charles E. Merrill
Program in American Literature. Columbus, OH: Merrill, 1971.
1948 James A. Michener, Tales of the South Pacific
“I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific.”
Nineteen interwoven stories about World War II in the South Pacific are told by a serviceman who, from 1941-1943, island hopped from Tulagi to Tarawa to Bougainville and places in between. He tells of Joe Cable, for example, who falls madly in love with Liat, a Tonkinese woman of color. Nellie Forbush, a young nurse from the American South, has to deal with her feelings for a French planter, Emile De Becque, who has fathered many children with various island women. Luther Billis, covered with many tattoos and jewelry, works his way around the islands finding and providing what is wanted and needed—including shrunken heads. And Tony Fry, who seems to be everywhere, tries to make Christmas a memorable day by flying from island to island, scrounging out whiskey from what appears to be the whole South Pacific. These adventures all take place as Seebees, Navy, and Marines prepare for a massive assault on the island of Kuralei, a step away from Guadalcanal. The novel touches on war, love, race, gender, friendship, values, and understanding.
Day, A. Grove. James Michener. Twayne's United States Authors Series 60.
Boston, MA: Twayne, 1977.
Severson, Marilyn S. James A. Michener: A Critical Companion. Westport, CT:
Greenwood P, 1996.
Wartenberg, Steve. “James A. Michener.” Tales of the Storyteller Page. 6 Mar. 2002
<http://www.jamesmichener.com/michener/michst9.htm>.
1949 James Gould Cozzens, Guard of Honor
“Through the late afternoon they flew southeast, going home to Ocanara at about two hundred miles an hour.”
In 1943 Ocanara Army Air Base in Florida is home to AFORAD, Air Force Operations and Requirements Analysis Division. The officers and enlisted men “push paper” as others fight the “real war.” On a Thursday, Gen. “Bus” Beal, Col. Norman Ross, Lt. Col. Benny Carricker, M/Sgt. Pellerino, Capt. Nathaniel Hicks, S/Lt. Amanda Turck, and T/5 Mortimer McIntyre, Jr, are flying back to the base. Just before they land, Beal and Carricker are engaged in a bit of a power struggle for control of the plane, when another plane cuts in front of them to land. Enraged at this dangerous encounter, Carricker yells at and hits the pilot, a Negro, who is part of a squadron being trained at the base. But over a three day period, this event becomes the catalyst for more serious situations: accusations of segregation at the base when the Negro pilots are denied equal privileges at the Officer’s Club, pressure being brought to bear on fragile Col. Woodman, and an ill-planned airshow. And each of the passengers who were aboard the plane on Thursday must confront both the situations and the complex relationships that exist among them. The novel touches on the workings of the military, war, friendship, flying, love, values, race, gender, and honor.
Bracher, Frederick George. The Novels of James Gould Cozzens. Westport, CT:
Greenwood P, 1972.
“Cozzens, James Gould.” The Columbia Encyclopedia Online. 6th ed. 2001. 8 Mar. 2002
<http://www.bartleby.com/65/co/Cozzens.html>.
Michel, Pierre. James Gould Cozzens. Twayne's United States Authors Series 237. New
York: Twayne, 1974.
1950 A. B. Guthrie, Jr., The Way West
“The day dawned clear, but it had rained the night before, the sudden squally rain of middle March.”
Thirty-five-year-old Lige Evans, his wife Rebecca, and seventeen-year-old son Brownie live near Independence, Missouri in the late 1840’s. Hearing of opportunities in the Willamette Valley, Oregon Territory, they decide to join a wagon train west. Captained by Irvine Tadlock, the pioneers name themselves the On-to-Oregon Outfit, and initially are guided by Tadlock’s notion that time is everything. As pilot, they choose Dick Summers, a former mountain man who hears the siren’s call to return to his old way of life. Among the travelers are the McBee family whose sixteen-year-old daughter Mercy is both beautiful and innocent; Charles Fairman, his wife Judith, and son Tod whose curiosity leads to tragedy; and Curtis Mack, a hothead, and his frigid wife Amanda. The novel touches on love, Native Americans, family, religion, hardship, friendship, group dynamics, leadership, the land, and westward expansion.
Contemporary Authors Online. “A(lfred) B(ertram) Guthrie, Jr.” 2002. 11 Mar. 2002
<http://www.bsu.edu/english/events/iwp/IndianaAuthors/Pages/Guthrie,%20A%20B.html>.
Ford, Thomas W. A. B. Guthrie, Jr. Twayne United States Author Series 396. New
York: Twayne, 1981.
Wyoming Council for the Humanities. A(lfred) B(ertram) Guthrie: The Way
West Page. 11 Mar. 2002 <http://www.uwyo.edu/wch/bdpppww.htm>.
1951 Conrad Richter, The Town
“Sayward awoke this day with the feeling that something had happened to her.”
Sayward Lockett, a self-described “woodsy,” lives in Ohio in the early 1800’s with her husband Portius Wheeler, a “solitary” eccentric, and her nine children. The cabin chopped out of the forest is now surrounded by houses—a town has grown up, originally called Moonshine Church but now changed to Americus. Portius becomes a judge, the boys find work, and the girls find marriage and children, though not without fits and jerks as exemplified in the time a young Huldah, the oldest daughter, appeared naked in the cabin of George Holcomb to hurry things along a bit. The youngest child, Chancey, however, is different. Sickly as a child, he lives in his imagination, not in the boisterous household. His love for and affinity with Rosa Tench, a poor fey girl, cause serious problems as time passes, and he finds refuge in writing, becoming a newspaper editor hostile to tradition and the past. As Sayward moves into old age, she comes to see the land in a new way and finds herself increasingly at odds with the values of her children. The novel touches on family, settlement, growth, love, values, change, politics, and history.
Early Americana. A Conrad Richter Tribute Page. 4 Jun. 2001. 13 Mar. 2002
<http://members.tripod.com/~JCHOMA/richter.html>.
Gaston, Edwin W. Conrad Richter. Twayne's United States Authors Series 81. Boston,
MA: Twayne, 1989.
Johnson, David R. Conrad Richter: A Writer's Life. University Park: Pennsylvania State
UP, 2001.
1952 Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny
“He was of medium height, somewhat chubby, and good looking, with curly red hair and an innocent, gay face, more remarkable for a humorous air about the eyes and large mouth than for any strength of chin or nobility of nose.”
Willie Keith, Princeton graduate and bon vivant piano player, enlists in the Navy in 1942 to avoid being drafted into the Army and becomes a Midshipman despite a problematic relationship with May Wynne, a poor Italian singer. He is assigned to the Caine in 1943, an old minesweeper he characterizes as “a pile of junk in the last hours of decay, manned by hoodlums” under the command of Capt. de Vriess. He comes to admire Tom Keefer, the Communications Officer and novelist, and Steve Maryk, a former fisherman who becomes the Executive Officer. When a new captain, Capt. Queeg, who goes by the book, takes command, Keith is initially happy. But some incidents occur on board which force him to question Queeg’s competency and to wonder about the safety of the ship itself. During a typhoon, matters come to a head with serious consequences for all concerned. The novel touches on command, leadership, war, loyalty, friendship, love, sanity, and values.
Books and Writers. Herman Wouk Page. 2000. 13 Mar. 2002
<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/wouk.htm>.
Book Report, Inc. Herman Wouk Page. 1999. 13 Mar. 2002
<http://www.bookreporter.com/brc/author.asp?author=1833>.
Mazzeno, Laurence W. Herman Wouk. Twayne's United States Authors Series 639.
New York: Twayne, 1994.
1953 Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.”
After eating and talking with the boy Manolin, and provisioned with sardines, water, and faith, Santiago, a poor, old fisherman, leaves to fish the waters off his village near Havana. On this eighty-fifth day of bad luck, he hooks a huge marlin and for three days struggles to bring it to shore. Alone, hungry, hands bleeding and swollen, he battles the elements and then sharks who smell blood and are hungry, too. Santiago thinks and talks to himself about his feelings for The Great Fish, Joe Dimaggio and baseball, and Manolin during the long days and nights as he heads to the haven of his home. The novel touches on nature, commitment, love, struggle, faith, courage, loss, and values.
Burhans, Clinton, Jr. “The Old Man and the Sea: Hemingway’s Tragic Vision of Man.”
American Literature. 31 (Jan. 1960): 446-455.
Donaldson, Scott. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hemingway. Cambridge:Cambridge
UP, 1996.
Dupuis, Kelley. Ernest Hemingway Page. 14 Mar. 2002
<http://www.ernest.hemingway.com/oldman.htm>.
1954 No Award
1955 William Faulkner, A Fable
“Long before the first bugles sounded from the barracks within the city and the cantonments surrounding it, most of the people in the city were already awake.”
In May, 1918, Major General Charles Gragnon is given command of a French regiment of about 3,000 men near Chaulnesmont, France, and ordered to attack the Germans in the trenches across the No Man’s Land. He is also told that the assault will be a failure. Nevertheless, as a military man and officer, he gives the order at dawn. To his astonishment, no man advances. Assuming the Germans will take advantage of the situation, he is further astonished to see that the Germans do nothing. At noon on the same day, all of the French and German troops have stopped fighting, and by 3:00 p.m., the British and Americans have joined what appears to be the abrupt ending of World War I. The General learns that the armistice has been fomented by an unnamed corporal and his twelve followers who believe in peace and love. Especially affected by this event are Gerald Levine, an English pilot who seeks glory in war and the runner, an officer dedicated to his men. When the unnamed corporal and his men are arrested, decisions are made and events occur which eventually start the war back up. The novel touches on the nature of humankind, the nature of war, and the nature of good and evil.
Bassett, John Earl. Vision and Revisions: Essays on Faulkner. West Cornwall, CT:
Locust Hill, 1989.
Butterworth, Nancy. A Fable. Garland Faulkner Annotations Series 7. New York:
Garland, 1990.
Padgett, John. B. William Faulkner Resources Page. 8 Apr. 2001. 19 Mar. 2002
<http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/resources.html>.
1956 MacKinley Kantor, Andersonville
“Sometimes there was a compulsion which drew Ira Claffey from his plantation and sent him to walk the forest.”
In 1863, during the height of the Civil War, a section of Ira Claffey’s land in Georgia is commandeered as a site for a new prison camp for captured Northerners. Claffey, a fifty-year-old lover of nature, has lost three sons in the war. His wife and daughter do the best they can with the dwindling resources. The prison, Camp Sumter but called Andersonville after the nearest town, is built at the whim of the nephew of the commander of prisons in the region, neither of whom has any experience in such matters and both of whom hate the Yankees. In an area smaller than twenty-seven acres, some 30,000 men are crowded with no shelter from the heat or cold, minimal food, no bathroom facilities so that feces foul the water supply, and minimal medical support. The smell reaches for miles. In one day, 127 men die. Responding in different ways to the situation are the prisoners (like Willie Collins, a bully and murderer; Seneca MacBean, a printer; and Nathan Dreyfoos, a well-educated Jew), the reserve Confederate soldiers (like Coral and Floral Tebbs, sons of a local prostitute) the officers (like Capt. Henry Wirz, the super-efficient commander of the stockade, and kind-hearted Surgeon Harry Elkins), and the civilians (like Rev. Mr. Cato Dillard and his wife). The novel touches on the horror of war, love, family, madness, pain, survival, and hope.
Frank, Paluka. “MacKinley Kantor.” Iowa Authors. Iowa City: Friends of the U of Iowa
Libraries, 1967. 180-186.
Hesseltine, William B. “Andersonville Revisited.” The Georgia Review. 10 (Spring 1956):
92-110.
Kantor, Tim. My Father’s Voice. New York: McGraw, 1988.
1957 No Award
1958 James Agee, A Death in the Family
“We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.”
Jay Follet and his wife Mary have two children, Rufus, about six, and Katherine, three. Although of different faiths and backgrounds, they have a good marriage. One evening a phone call summons Jay to the bedside of his very ill father who lives in a town several hours away. Promising to return for dinner that evening, Jay leaves without saying goodbye to his children. On the way home, driving fast in what he doesn’t know is an unsafe car, he has an accident and is killed instantly. Jay’s death affects his wife, children, and his wife’s family in very different ways. Mary looks to her Catholic faith for solace while her brother Andrew’s hatred for the church grows. But it is the children, especially Rufus, too young to fully understand, who must come to grips somehow with the loss. The novel touches on marriage, love, family, faith, death, and grief.
Bergreen, Laurence. James Agee: A Life. New York: Dutton, 1984.
ExxonMobile Masterpiece Theater Book Club. A Death in the Family Page. 2002. 21
Mar. 2002 <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/bookclub/death.html>.
Kramer, Victor A. James Agee. Twayne's United States Authors Series 252. Boston,
MA: Twayne, 1975.
1959 Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters
“On the day when I first learned of my father’s journey, I had come back with two companions from a satisfactory afternoon in the weeds near Kay’s Bell Foundry, shooting a slingshot at new bells, which were lying out in the yard and strung up on rafters.”
Suffering from money problems, optimistic Dr. Sardius McPheeters believes he will strike it rich in the gold mines of California in 1849. Taking his thirteen-year-old son Jaimie with him, he sets out from Louisville, Kentucky, leaving behind his wife Melissa and their two daughters. On the third night out on a boat taking them to St. Louis, Jaimie falls overboard in a freak accident, and his father thinks he is drowned. Thus begins a series of adventures told both by Jaimie and his father. Among the people they encounter are Buck Coulter, leader of a wagontrain; Shep and John, highwaymen and murderers; Jennie, a young woman captured by Shep and John and then freed; Po Pivo, a young Indian woman; Brigham Young; Jim Bridger; Rev. William Ebersohl, a preacher and temperance leader; and Henry Coe, an Englishmen transporting kegs of ginger beer. The novel touches on dreams, optimism, race, gender, history, love, family, endurance, and humor.
Contemporary Authors Online. “Robert Lewis Taylor.” 2002. 1 Apr. 2002
La Farge, Oliver. “Fourteen in ’49.” The Saturday Review 91.16 (19 Apr. 1958): 23+.
Sadler, Geoff, ed. “Robert Lewis Taylor.” Twentieth-Century Western Writers.
Twentieth-Century Writers Series. Detroit: Saint James P, 1991.
1960 Allen Drury, Advise and Consent
“When Bob Munson awoke in his apartment at the Sheraton-Park Hotel at seven thirty-one in the morning he had the feeling it would be a bad day.”
Bob Munson, senior senator from Michigan and Majority Leader of the Senate, learns from the morning newspaper that the President of the United States has nominated Robert Leffingwell to be the new Secretary of State. Leffingwell is a controversial figure, a man who believes that peace (or “appeasement” to his detractors) is a more important goal than standing up to the Russians in the Cold War of the mid-1950’s. Munson is charged with leading the Senate to advise and then consent to the nomination. He has, however, powerful opponents: Seab Cooley, the seventy-five-year-old senior senator from South Carolina, and Orrin Know, senior senator from Illinois, a two-time loser in the run for the Presidency. As information comes to light about Leffingwell’s past, Brigham Anderson, senior senator from Utah and chair of the subcommittee holding hearings on the nomination, is put in a very difficult position as the time to vote nears. Other senators must look to their consciences to decide who best shall lead the United States. The novel touches on the workings of American government, politics, values, honor, diplomacy, and war.
Bratman, David. The Fictional Senate of Allen Drury’s Advise and Consent Page. 4 Mar.
2002. 2 Apr. 2002 <http://www.stanford.edu/~dbratman/drury.html>.
Kaplan, Roger. “Allen Drury and the Washington Novel.” Policy Review of the Hoover
Institute Page. 2 Apr. 2002 <http://www.policyreview.org/oct99/kaplan_print.html>.
Kemme, Tom. Political Fiction, the Spirit of the Age, and Allen Drury. Bowling Green,
OH: Bowling Green State U Popular P, 1987.
1961 Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”
Scout (Jean Louise) Finch tells the story of an important time in her life in Maycomb, Alabama, in the early 1930’s. Her family is small: father Atticus is a lawyer and state senator; brother Jem is four years her senior; and Calpurnia is the colored woman who takes care of them all. Of course, they seem related to just about everyone in this very small town off the beaten track. One summer Dill Harris comes to stay with his Aunt Rachel. The children play many games, but their attention is on the Radley house next door, and Boo Radley, the reclusive second son, in particular. No matter what they do, they cannot tempt him outside, even though little surprises like gum sticks are left in a tree. As time passes, Atticus is appointed counsel to Tom Robinson, a colored man accused of beating and raping Mayella Ewell, daughter of “poor white trash.” Scout, Jem, and Dill all learn important things from the trial and subsequent events as they grow and mature. The novel touches on family, love, racism, gender, being different, the South, the law, and justice.
Books and Writers. (Nelle) Harper Lee Page. 2000. 3 Apr. 2002 <http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/harperle.htm>.
Johnson, Claudia D. Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird: A Student Casebook to
Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994.
O’Neill, Terry, ed. Readings on To Kill a Mockingbird. Greenhaven Press Literary
Companion to American Literature. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven, 2000.
1962 Edwin O’Connor, The Edge of Sadness
“This story at no point becomes my own.”
Father Hugh Kennedy, a fifty-five-year priest and recovering alcoholic, tells the story of his relationship with the Carmody family. After many years of silence, Father Kennedy receives a call from Mr. Carmody with an invitation to his eighty-second birthday party. Here he has an opportunity to renew old friendships, especially with John Carmody, a priest at a much more prestigious parish than Kennedy’s Old St. Paul’s, and Helen Carmody O’Donnell, John’s sister. Also present at the party are Charlie Camody’s other children, Mary and Dan, his grandson Ted and his wife Anne, and two of Charlie’s lifelong friends. Given the personality of Charlie Carmody, an exciting, dramatic, exasperating man, Father Kennedy wonders why he is being invited back into his past life. The answer to that question brings him to the edge of sadness and beyond. The novel touches on faith, family, love, the past, the priesthood, forgiveness, sin, and values.
Kent, Christopher. “Catholic Novelists.” The Tablet: A Weekly Newspaper and Review.
215.6130 (25 Nov. 1961): 1132. 5 Apr. 2002 <http://www.ralphfiennes-
jenniferlash.com/cathrev.htm>.
O’Connell, Shaun. “Irish American’s Red Brick City: Edwin O’Connor’s Boston.”
Imagining Boston. Boston, MA: Beacon P, 1990. 5 Apr. 2002
<http://omega.cc.umb.edu/~irish/boston_irish.htm>.
Rank, Hugh. Edwin O'Connor. Twayne's United States Authors Series 242. New York:
Twayne, 1974.
1963 William Faulkner, The Reivers
“Grandfather said: This is the kind of a man Boon Hogganbeck was.”
Lucius Priest at age sixty-seven tells his grandson about four days in his life when he was eleven years old. Living in Jefferson, Mississippi in 1905, he works for his father on Saturdays at his livery stable along with Boon Hogganbeck, a 6’4” white man, not particularly bright except with machinery, and Ned, a Negro coachman with wild ideas and a clever brain. When Lucius’s grandfather buys a Winton Flyer car, the three friends somehow find themselves “borrowing” it while the rest of the family is away and driving it to Memphis, Tennessee, some eighty miles away in a record twenty-three and a half hours. When they arrive, he is introduced to Miss Corrie, a prostitute with whom Boon is enamored, Otis, a most horrid boy, and other unusual characters. The real adventure starts when Ned trades the car for a horse that has never won a race and then sets up a race with Lucius as the jockey. The novel touches on family, race, honor, gender, love, capitalism, and innocence/experience.
Books and Writers. William (Cuthbert) Faulkner Page. 2000. 8 Apr. 2002
<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/faulkner.htm>.
Kerr, Elizabeth M. “The Reivers: The Golden Book of Yoknapatawpha County.
Modern Fiction Studies. 13 (Dec. 1965): 19-31.
Padget, John B. The Reivers: Bibliography Page. 9 Oct. 2000. 8 Apr. 2002
<http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/b_n_reiv.html>.
1965 Shirley Ann Grau, The Keepers of the House
“November evenings are quiet and still and dry.”
One November evening in the 1950’s Abigail Howland stands on the porch of her ancestral home in the rural South looking outward at the land and inward to the house and the families who have lived in it for generations. She is alone; her children are sleeping. She is at odds with her neighbors. She begins to tell of her people beginning with William Marshall Howland from Tennessee and his wife. Within five generations her grandfather William Howland, trained as a lawyer but a farmer at heart, owns nearly all of Wade County and Madison City. William is important in Abigail’s life as are her mother, the housekeeper Margaret Carmichael, a mulatto, and Margaret’s three children—Robert, Nina, and Crissy. As the country passes through Prohibition, the Depression, and World War II, life for the Howlands centers on the land and on the ghosts which seem to inhabit it and the house. The novel touches on family, nature, land, race, love, violence, the supernatural, history, and values.
Alabamiana. Literary Figures: Shirley Ann Grau Page. 8 Apr. 2002
<http://www.al.com/south/literary2.html>.
Louisianna State University Press. The Keepers of the House: A Novel of Shirley Ann
Grau Page. 8 Apr. 2002 <http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/catalog/Backlist/fal-win-
Schlueter, Paul. Shirley Ann Grau. Twayne's United States Authors Series 382. Boston,
MA: Twayne, 1981.
1966 Katherine Anne Porter, The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
“On the third day after they moved to the country he came walking back from the village carrying a basket of groceries and a twenty-four-yard coil of rope.” (from “Rope”)
The twenty-seven stories published by Katherine Anne Porter from 1923 through 1961 appear in this collection. Many of them feature Miranda, granddaughter of a strong Southern woman who moves to Texas after the death of her husband where she prospers and rules her children. In one story, “The Grave,” Miranda and her brother find treasures buried in the family cemetery. In another, “The Circus,” Miranda is frightened by a clown and has to leave with a servant. An older Miranda works for a newspaper in “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” falls in love with a soldier waiting to be sent to Europe in World War I, and catches the deadly 1918 influenza. In “Noon Wine,” a Mr. Thompson hires a virtually silent Swede to work his farm. After nine years of listening to Mr. Helton play his harmonica and work diligently around the place, Mr. Thompson is visited by a stranger who says he knows something important about this hired man. The stories touch on appearance/reality, the past, gender, religion, values, family, war, and love.
Books and Writers: Katherine Anne Porter Page. 2000. 10 Apr. 2002
<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kaporter.htm>.
Givner, Joan. Katherine Anne Porter: A Life. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1991.
Unrue, Darlene Harbour. Critical Essays on Katherine Anne Porter. New York: G.K. Hall
1997.
1967 Bernard Malamud, The Fixer
“From the small crossed window of his room above the stable in the brickyard, Yakov Bok saw people in their long overcoats running somewhere early that morning, everybody in the same direction.”
In the early 1900’s Yakov Bok decides to leave his small town in Russia for Kiev. His wife has run off with a Gentile, and the work he can find as a handyman, a fixer, is negligible. “Half-educated,” a reader of Spinoza, he believes the big city will provide him with a better job and opportunities to learn and advance. Undeterred by this father-in-law, who warns him that Jews have no better lives in the city, he soon finds work as an overseer in a brickyard. Unfortunately, he has lied by omission about being Jewish and finds himself living in a restricted area. When a twelve-year-old boy is found mutilated and dead in a cave, accusations of Jewish ritual murder run rampant, and Yakov is arrested. His acts of kindness in the past are misinterpreted, and he is imprisoned. In jail, living in appalling conditions, he learns important things about himself, his religion, and his country. The novel touches on anti-Semitism, love, suffering, redemption, and justice.
Abramson, Edward A. Bernard Malamud Revisited. Twayne's United States Authors
Series 601. New York: Twayne, 1993.
American Literature on the Web. Bernard Malamud (1914-86) Page. 12 Jan. 2000. 10
Apr. 2002 <http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/m/malamud21.htm>.
Salzberg, Joel. Critical Essays on Bernard Malamud. Critical Essays on American
Literature Series. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1987.
1968 William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner
“Above the barren, sandy cape where the river joins the sea, there is a promontory or cliff rising straight up hundreds of feet to form the last outpost of land.”
In 1831 Nat Turner, a slave living in Southhampton, Virginia, led an uprising against white slave owners. Some fifty-five men, women, children, and babies were murdered with axes, swords, and guns before armed whites and loyal slaves could kill or capture the band. Nat is now in jail, awaiting trial. He has agreed to give his confession to Mr. T. R. Gray, appointed by the court. This novel merges historical fact and imagination to explore both the external and internal worlds of Nat Turner and speculates upon the reasons why Turner rose up in rebellion and found men to follow him, but killed only one of the whites himself. The novel touches on slavery, religion, love, sex, authority, violence, and justice.
Coale, Samuel. William Styron Revisited. Twayne's United States Authors Series 577.
Boston, MA: Twayne, 1991.
Friedman, Melvin J., and Irving Malin. William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner:
A Critical Handbook. Wadsworth Guides to Literary Study. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, 1970.
PBS American Masters Series. William Styron Page. 11 Apr. 2002
<http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/styron_w.html>.
1969 N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn
“Dypaloh. There was a house made of dawn.”
On July 20, 1945 at Walatowa, Canon de San Diego, an old man named Francisco drives his wagon from his small house on the Indian reservation to the bus station to meet his grandson, Abel, who is returning from the war. Abel is drunk. On July 21, Abel sleeps and dreams about experiences in his young manhood as he learned about his culture and the Eagle Watchers Society. To the town comes Angela St. John, a pregnant white woman. On July 24 Abel begins working for her, cutting wood, on the recommendation of Father Olguin, a priest who cares about the town and is nourished by the old 1888 journals of Fray Nicolas, the priest who baptized Francisco. Seven years later, Abel is silent, sullen, and drinking heavily in Los Angeles. He meets Tosamah, the Priest of the Sun, and Ben Benally, the Night Chanter, and falls in love with Milly, a social worker assigned to help him relocate. He struggles to find a home, a place to rest and to discover who he is. The novel touches on Native American culture, love, values, dislocation, discrimination, and spirit.
Roemer, Kenneth M. Modern Poetry: N. Scott Momaday Page. 12 Apr. 2002
<http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/momaday/momaday.htm>.
Scarberry-García, Susan. Landmarks of Healing: A Study of House Made of Dawn.
Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1990.
Trimble, Martha Scott. N. Scott Momaday. Boise State College Western Writers Series 9.
Boise, ID: Boise State College UP, 1973.
1970 Jean Stafford, The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
“One of the great hardships of my childhood—and there were many, as many, I suppose, as have ever plagued a living creature—was that I could never find a decent place to read.”
(from “A Reading Problem”)
Thirty stories published between 1944 and 1968 appear in this collection, divided into five sections. In the section called Bostonians and the American Scene, in a story entitled “The Bleeding Heart,” Rose Fabrizio, a Westerner, has moved east and become secretary to Miss Talmadge at a girl’s boarding school. Lonely, she wishes for a foster-father and centers on a man she sees at the Samuel Sewall Library. Eventually she meets this man and his invalid mother (who speaks only in nouns and pronouns) whose parrot destroys all the blooms on the bleeding heart plant Rose has delivered from the school. In the section Cowboys and Indians and Magic Mountains, in a story entitled “Bad Characters,