Josephine Winslow Johnson (1910–1990)

This relatively short, exquisitely crafted novel set on a failing farm in the Great Depression won the Pulitzer Prize several years before Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath tackled the same subject in more epic fashion with the same result. Johnson's novel is both more intense and less melodramatic; it has no "sweep", but rather penetrates deep into the hearts and psyches of a farm family in an unspecified part of the drought stricken mid-West as they toil through year after unprofitable year, making no headway against their mortgage debt. Even as they watch their neighbors pack up and move on...somewhere...there is never a suggestion that the Haldmarne family will think about giving in. Next year...next year will surely be better. The prose is full of evocative poetic nuggets-- "The wild cherries were in bloom. It was hot still, and ink-blotter clouds messed up the sky but brought no rain. The spring green was like green sunlight or green fire--something, anyway, more lovely than just leaves..."--but not always pretty ones--"The wires lay down across the field with the charred posts left at intervals like burned crows caught between the barbs." As others have pointed out in several excellent on-site reviews of this novel, it is incredible to contemplate that it was written by a 24-year-old woman, and despite the enthusiasm of its contemporary reception, including that Pulitzer Prize, it has now become a work that needs to be sought after, unlike the GAN that seems to have completely overshadowed it. My recommendation: Find it. Read it. Weep.… (més)

[b:Now in November|267115|Now in November|Josephine Winslow Johnson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390983337l/267115._SY75_.jpg|258987] is [a:Josephine Winslow Johnson|736298|Josephine Winslow Johnson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1371513942p2/736298.jpg]’s novel of a depression era farming family, caught up in the everyday hardness of the farm and the growing darkness of a world in financial crisis. The drought that overtakes Marget and her family, is more than a drought of the land, it is a drought of the soul.

The interpersonal relationships described by Marget are those of people caught in an eddy that drags them deeper and deeper into themselves and separates them further and further from one another. There is a genuine sense of desperation in each of the three daughters, Kerrin, Marget, and Merle, and there is a shadow of unavoidable failure that encompasses the father, who must try to keep a farm alive in the absence of sons.

although I was quick to hate him when he would turn on us suddenly and shout out, “eat your dinner, you girls, stop messing with your food!” But all the time I would feel us there on his shoulders, heavy as stone on his mind--all four of our lives to carry everywhere. And no money.

While the book is about the depression and the struggle to survive against nature and obligation, it is also about what it is to love, or at least to seek love, hopelessly.

Hate is always easier to speak of than love. How can I make love go through the sieve of words and come out something besides a pulp?

It is about how to survive, or at least how to keep moving forward, against a headwind that never diminishes.

I was afraid though and prayed--Lord make me satisfied with small things. Make me content to live on the outside of life. God make me love the rind!

Finally, it is about loss, looking back, finding that the days you thought hard were the closest you would get to days of joy and lightness.

Once I thought there were words for all things except love and intolerable beauty. Now I know that there is a third thing beyond expression--the sense of loss. There are no words for death.

When you put this book into the perspective of being the debut work of a 24 year old writer and then consider that it won the Pulitzer Prize for 1935, you realize just how remarkable a work of fiction it truly is. I felt akin to these people and wrapped up in their travails and their fates, and a bit hopeless in the face of their sorrows.… (més)