Saturday, June 21, 2008

Now in November by Josephine Johnson, 1935


This story reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It is a very bleak story of burden, desperation and tragedy, woven with a thread of hope, of a farming family in the dustbowl days of the Great Depression. Marget tells the story of her two sisters, Kerrin and Merle, and her parents, and the farm-hand, Grant in a ten-year span starting in her early teen years. Battling debts, drought, unrequited love among other challenges over this time period, the characters never prevail but never completely lose their sense of hope. A raw and gritty novel that deserves a read.

2 comments:

Bybee said...

I think I read somewhere that she wrote this at a very young age...she might be the youngest Pulitzer fiction recipient...or am I mixing her up with someone else?

Andrea said...

She was 24. I don't know if she is the youngest recipient, but my guess is she is.