He was twice the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction: in 1919
for The Magnificent Ambersons and in 1922 for Alice Adams. His play
Clarence launched Alfred Lunt on his distinguished career and
provided Helen Hayes with an early successful role. His Penrod
books continued the American boy-story tradition which started with
the works of Mark Twain. Early in this century, through his novel
The Turmoil, he warned of sacrificing the environment to industrial
growth. Yet, since his death in 1946, Booth Tarkington-this writer
from the Midwest who accomplished so much-has faded from the memory
of the reading public, and many of his works are out of print. But
his memory is fresh and vivid in the mind of his grandniece Susanah
Mayberry, and her recollections of him leap from the pages of her
book. She recalls that as a small child, before she was aware of
her uncle's fame as a writer, he emerged as the one figure whose
outline was clear among the blur of forms that made up her large
family. "No one who met Booth Tarkington ever forgot him," says his
great-niece. So, she introduces the reader to this multifaceted
individual: the young man-about-town, the prankster, the writer of
humorous letters (who drew caricatures in the margins), the
bereaved father, the inspiration of the affection of three women
(simultaneously), and the lover and collector of art objects and
portraits. The author of this volume draws primarily upon her own
personal experiences, family lore, and letters (some never
published before) to portray her amiable uncle. She tells of the
pleasure it gave him to entertain his young nephews and nieces at
his Tudor-style winter home in Indianapolis - where they played a
spirited form of charades. She recalls vacations which she, as a
college student, spent at his light-filled summer home in
Kennebunkport, Maine - where she met his famous neighbors. During
all of those times, Uncle Booth was the keen observer of youth, who
created Penrod and friends from his observations, and the teacher o
f youth, who transmitted his own love of art to his young
relations. While recapturing memories of the unforgettable
Tarkington, Mayberry recreates an era of elegant and leisurely
living, when on the dining table "in the fingerbowls . . . were
nosegays of sweet peas and lemon verbena or geranium leaves."
Susanah Mayberry shares with the reader a treasure of family
photographs including Tarkington at various ages; interiors and
exteriors of his homes; her father and uncles as children (the
models of Penrod); the writer's indomitable sister who championed
his early work; and his devoted second wife, a "gentle dragon," who
kept his day-to-day life running smoothly. Indiana residents will
feel "at home" with the frequent references to the state and its
people. Indianapolis of the late nineteenth through the
mid-twentieth centuries influenced Tarkington and his work. The
city was his birthplace and his death place. He spent a year at
Purdue University where he met such "brilliancies" as George Ade
and John McCutcheon. Other famous and not-so-famous Hoosiers became
a part of Tarkington's life, and they-along with international
literary, theatrical, and political luminaries-reappear in Susanah
Mayberry's recollections of her amiable uncle.
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