|
Showing 1 - 3 of
3 matches in All Departments
|
The Quarry (Paperback)
Mildred Walker; Introduction by Ripley Hugo
|
R505
R425
Discovery Miles 4 250
Save R80 (16%)
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
In this family saga, generations mine the Vermont earth and come to
rest in it. Lyman Converse is too young to fight in the Civil War,
but he lives to see his own son enlist in World War I. Through all
the years his closest friend is Easy, an escaped black slave who
took refuge in his father’s house. Everything Converse values
most is gradually lost to time, including the family-owned
soapstone quarry. The Quarry invites readers to escape into private
lives worth caring about—and to feel the national history that
they could not escape. Originally published in 1947 and
considered one of Mildred Walker’s richest novels, The Quarry is
introduced by Ripley Hugo, Walker’s daughter. Hugo edited, with
James Welch, The Real West Marginal Way: A Poet’s Autobiography
by Richard Hugo.
"You are either a Mildred Walker enthusiast," as the "Philadelphia
Inquirer" once declared, "or you are missing one of the best
writers on the American scene." As Mildred Walker's daughter,
Ripley Hugo was in the latter category. This biography of the
author of thirteen celebrated novels is also Hugo's search for the
writing life of a mother known to her children as a socially
correct middle-class doctor's wife rather than as the ambitious,
imaginative, often struggling novelist she was as well. Drawing on
family memories, letters, diaries, reviews, and, in particular, the
notebooks that Mildred Walker (1905-1998) kept for each novel, Hugo
fashions an absorbing account of how her mother's characters
emerged in the landscapes that she visited again and again:
Vermont, the Midwest, and, most frequently, Montana, the setting
for the classic "Winter Wheat." Alongside this developing picture
of a writer at work--shaping her contribution to western America's
literary history over half a century--Hugo shows us the proper
mother and social creature as carefully and consciously crafted;
between the two lovingly detailed portrayals, we glimpse the depths
of a life thus divided.
At eighty-three Marcia Elder was alert and active but felt insecure
about facing another winter alone, yet she dreaded giving up her
old home and entering a re-tirement facility. So, with great
resourcefulness, she advertised for a companion and eventually
staked out a corner of her own--one with a view. Mildred Walker's
skill as a storyteller never falters in this portrayal of an
elderly woman who won't give up.
|
You may like...
Hampstead
Diane Keaton, Brendan Gleeson, …
DVD
R66
Discovery Miles 660
|