A Word About Awards

GUARD OF HONOR by James Gould Cozzens Award: Pulitzer Winner 1949 Date Read: September 27, 2019 I wanted so much to like this novel, but I found the entire experience excruciating. Set over three days during WWII, I found there wasn't a single driving plot but many subplots that needed to be ironed out. Perhaps because the time frame for these events was so narrow, each detail was painstakingly described. Without a single narrator, the focus continued to shit among each character, none of which I admired or respected. Guard Of Honor, in the end, describes the honors given fallen soldiers and the debate among the central characters on whether an officer that committed suicide deserved to be honored by graveside military rites. Some argued he should; some argued he shouldn't. I didn't really care either way. The Air Force military life described throughout is run by white men, an unsurprising fact considering when this novel was written. I found the side focus of...

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY by Richard Llewellyn Award: National Book Winner 1940 Date Read: August 22, 2019 How Green Was My Valley is a lovely coming-of-age story of Huw Morgan who is growing up in a mining community in Wales. He learns the harsh realities of life and work, all while being embraced by his expansive family. In the green hills that surround his family home, he comes to learn the meaning of love, work, commitment and courage. In these hills he learns to fight, has his first kiss, disappoints himself and his family and experiences love and loyalty. The Morgan family are hard-working coal miners who are initially blessed by a decent wage for a hard days' work. I once again marvel at how simple humans' desires truly are - to be with family, feed them well and work and live with dignity. Once greed is introduced, dignity is tossed aside and it's an immediate race to the bottom. Huw's brothers experience this almost as soon as they join their father in...

ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren Award: Pulitzer 1947 Date Read: March 4, 2010 & August 8, 2019 All The King's Men is a magnificent novel that follows the rise of southern politician, Willie Stark, and the reporter, Jack Burden, who becomes his right-hand man. The reason, I believe, this novel is so famous and has withstood the test of time is its sweeping snapshot of southern life and politics, providing a road map from the past to the present. The political intrigue that occurs here is no different that what plays out today on the national stage. Willie's burgeoning political career begins with so much earnestness and sincerity, truly wanting to not just learn, but KNOW law, and true wanting voters to understand the minutiae involved in policy proposals. In one dramatic day, he realizes that not only is he being scandalously used by the opposition, but that voters tuned him out when he crawled through the weeds. Voters still just want to be made to ...

HOLD AUTUMN IN YOUR HAND by George Sessions Perry Award: National Book 1941 Date Read: May 23, 2019 From the moment I began reading, this novel reminded me of The Grapes Of Wrath, with that endless desperation to put food on the table for your family. This poor family doesn't seem to be really living but simply existing, at least until they get to Ruston's property by the river. Hold Autumn In Your Hand depicts a life of struggle and poverty and the creative ways employed to stave off hunger and want. For as poor as the Tucker family is, they support each other and work as a team (well, excluding Granny) and Sam is relentless in his efforts to provide for his family - hunting, fishing, honey gathering. He is a man of endless resource, even able to sew a coat for his daughter out of an old blanket. The title of this novel refers to the Tucker family's efforts to escape the vitamin deprivation of the spring by canning a garden. Time and again, those efforts are t...

JOURNEY IN THE DARK by Martin Flavin Award: Pulitzer 1944 Date Read: March 2, 2019 I thoroughly adored this novel by Martin Flavin, savoring the glimpse it provided into a past world that is long gone by and yet startlingly familiar. Sam Braden, being raised by a ne'er-do-well father, sets his sights on the wealthy family in town, the Wyatts, as an example of what he wants so desperately to attain - wealth, influence, respect. And attain he does. Braden achieves wealth beyond his wildest dreams and eventually weds the woman he had pined for his entire life, Eileen Wyatt. I felt that while Braden was working so hard at his business affairs, he failed to carve out a life for himself that was ultimately worth living. His marriage to Eileen is never one of passion, depth or feeling and it was a relief when it ended - for the reader and for Sam. His relationship to his siblings is more fatherly than brotherly and all of them turn out to be ne'er-do-wells like their ...

DRAGON'S TEETH by Upton Sinclair Award: Pulitzer Winner 1943 Date Read: February 8, 2019 Lanny Budd is a wealthy, well-travelled man with a wife, Irma, a wealthy heiress, and a newly born daughter. Lanny and Irma travel extensively through Europe prior to WWII, their daughter being raised in France by a nanny. Lanny's brother-in-law, Hansi, is a famous violinist and Lanny and Irma become close with Hansi's family. As Hitler rises to power and the Jews are put under increasing pressure, Hansi's family is swept up by the Nazis and put in concentration camps. Lanny negotiates Johannes's release (Hansi's father) only by pledging his entire wealth to the Nazis. The remainder of the novel is consumed by Lanny attempting to negotiate the release of the last member of Hansi's family.  Dragon's Teeth is an excellent inside look at the rise of Hitler and Germany succumbing to Nazi fervor. Lanny engaged in a chess match with the Nazi elite to negotiate...

IN THIS OUR LIFE by Ellen Glasgow Award: Pulitzer Winner 1942 Date Read: January 17, 2019 In This Our Life was somewhat shocking to me, venturing pretty deep into the adultery category, while exploring the themes of kinship and duty. The story is told through the lens of Asa, the pater familias of the Timberlake family and father to Roy and Stanley. I never did get used to their male names. Both tend to have odd relationships with men and are generally unhappy, yet are unclear as to how to fix this. In an act of complete selfishness, Stanley runs off with Peter, her sister Roy's husband, and jilting her fiancé. After Peter kills himself, her parents allow Stanley to move back into the house, which I found absolutely shocking. Eventually, Stanley kills a pedestrian with the family car and blames it on Parry, a black up-and-comer with a promising future. Stanley finally admits she falsely accused Parry and Asa proceeds to sort out the mess she created. I honestly got tir...

THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck Awards: National Book Winner 1939, Nobel Prize Winner 1939, Pulitzer Winner 1940 Dates Read: February 2, 2003 & June 17, 2017 Few writers get me all hot and bothered and Steinbeck is one of them. He is one of my favorite authors of all time and I am so glad he won the Nobel Prize. I vividly recall the first time I read this novel and how the ending stuck with me. A second reading recently highlights for me this novel's staying power, particularly in light of our current political climate. The Grapes Of Wrath follows the Joad family as they try their best to make their way in this world. All they truly desire is enough money to feed their family and have a modest home, yet even these basics are nearly impossible to achieve. Escaping Oklahoma's Dust Bowl, bank foreclosures and agricultural consolidation, they set their sights on the promised land of California. Risking it all on a car that's about to gasp it's last br...

TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC by James Michener Award: Pulitzer Winner 1948 Date Read: June 2, 2017 Tales Of The South Pacific, as it's title implies, is another war novel and although I don't generally enjoy the genre, I appreciated this novel and why Michener won the Pulitzer. Tales Of The South Pacific is a  compilation of stories about the men and women stationed in the South Pacific Islands during WWII. The young Marine who falls madly in love with a beautiful Tonkinese girl. Nurse Nellie and her French planter, Emile De Becque. The soldiers, sailors, and nurses playing at war and waiting for love in a tropic paradise. Through these mini-dramas, the reader is exposed to the flaws and strengths of character that make up the randomness of those you find yourself fighting alongside. Tales Of The South Pacific was so popular, it was adapted for the stage by Rodgers and Hammerstein, which was subsequently made into a film for television. 

A BELL FOR ADANO by John Hersey Award: Pulitzer Winner 1945 Date Read: March 17, 2016 While I found A Bell For Adano charming overall, I am not a huge fan of the war genre. This novel tells the story of an American officer in occupied Sicily who helps the town find a replacement for a bell that was melted down for weapons during WWII. In addition to helping them replace their beloved bell, the heartbeat of the town prior to the destruction of war, Major Joppolo becomes an advocate for the town in general by procuring food and other necessities and allowing the fishermen to resume fishing without paying bribes. All of this is done to the chagrin of his superiors, who are more concerned with the functioning of the army than restoring the town's morale and normal functioning. While many war novels I have read for this project portray the army in both positive and negative lights, this novel in particular paints the army as heroes, coming to the rescue of a small town and pl...

THE PEARL by John Steinbeck   Award: Nobel Prize Winner 1947   Date Read: July 10, 2001   Kirkus Reviews: “Steinbeck's peculiarly intense simplicity of technique is admirably displayed in this vignette — a simple, tragic tale of Mexican little people, a story retold by the pearl divers of a fishing hamlet until it has the quality of folk legend. A young couple content with the humble living allowed them by the syndicate which controls the sale of the mediocre pearls ordinarily found, find their happiness shattered when their baby boy is stung by a scorpion. They dare brave the terrors of a foreign doctor, only to be turned away when all they can offer in payment is spurned. Then comes the miracle. Kino find a great pearl. The future looks bright again. The baby is responding to the treatment his mother had given. But with the pearl, evil enters the hearts of men:- ambition beyond his station emboldens Kino to turn down the price offered by the dealers- he determines to go...

CANNERY ROW by John Steinbeck   Award: Nobel Prize Winner 1945   Date Read: October 21, 1998   Kirkus Review: “I loved it — and to my mind — it fits admirably an immediate need in our season's lists, — the need for a richly patterned story spun out of another layer of that peculiar underworld with which Steinbeck is at his best. Once again, as in Tortilla Flat, he makes no effort to stress "social significance". To be sure, one can strain at his underlying meanings and say that such people should not exist in today's plenty — but no one can argue that they wouldn't exist again tomorrow if eliminated today. Flotsam and jetsam of humanity, — the gang of boys who could get jobs but didn't except when emergency demanded — and then quit when the emergency passed. Lee's felicitous acquiescence to their thinly veiled urging that they become caretakers of his newly acquired shack; their neighbors in the deserted lot; Doc, high mogul of the marine laboratory, docto...