A Word About Awards

THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLE by John Cheever   Award: National Book Winner 1958   Date Read: December 22, 2022   Leander Wapshot is the pater familias of the Wapshot family and the chronicler of the tale told therein. A long line of Wapshots have decorated the landscape around St. Botolphs, Massachusetts since God was a boy. Their name is well-known throughout the town. His Aunt Honore lives in a bungalow on the same property as Leander and his family – wife Sarah and sons Moses and Coverly.    From the time Leander was a child through to his sons heading out on their own to find their fortunes, we experience the lives of this quirky family – sometimes sad, sometimes humorous, always real. The character of Coverly was largely informed by Cheever’s own experiences as he was growing up.   Moses is set out into the world at the behest of Honore, who caught him having sex with a house guest, and it pissed her off. She made connections for him in Washington DC so that ...

BY LOVE POSSESSED By James Gould Cozzens   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1958   Date Read: November 10, 2022   By Love Possessed is truly about love in every sense of the word. The love between husband and wife. The love between parents and children. The agape love between male and female friends, although not many female friendships were represented here. And, finally, the love between the devoted and their God. My previous foray with Cozzens wasn’t as successful as this. Perhaps it’s because I respond better to the subject of love than war. Love is, after all, the entire reason for our being (IMHO).   The protagonist of this novel is Arthur Winner, with a name that evokes his character. Arthur is a good man, good husband, good father and even better attorney. He is generous with his time and his opinions and always tries to live a noble life, much in his father’s image. Yet even the venerable Arthur is prone to fallacy, as all humans are.   Arthur and his...

THE FIELD OF VISION by Wright Morris   Award: National Book Winner 1957   Date Read: September 15, 2022   The Field Of Vision was considered a high modernist style of writing when it debuted in 1956 and went on to win the National Book Award in 1957. The novel is character driven, rather than plot driven, digging deeper under the layers of each of the characters, their pasts, their motivations, their life choices and present desires.   Scanlon is the great-grandfather of the present clan who have all traveled, by car no less, to Mexico for vacation. We find them watching a bull fight, which is so objectionable today that it boggles my mind they used to actually do this. Nevertheless, the family are being entertained by killing bulls. Scanlon reminisces about his days on the wagon trail, pushing for westward expansion and how harrowing the journey was. Scanlon ultimately settled in Lone Tree, Texas and as modernism approached, he let it go on by, preferring the ways a...

A SINGLE PEBBLE by John Hersey   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1957   Date Read: August 25, 2022   A young American engineer is sent to China to assess the possibility of building a dam somewhere along the Yangtze River to improve farm irrigation and to make the journey upriver safer and faster. Although we never learn the name of our narrator, he spends considerable time preparing for his journey by learning the language and customs of his host country.   Upon arrival, the actual sights, sounds and smells of the junk upon the river are nothing like what he expected. Our engineer is shocked that the Chinese men operating the junk seem complacent, with no real drive to arrive or succeed or progress beyond their means. This is in direct opposition to the entire mission of our narrator, who is exclusively focused on the engineering project for which he was sent and which he hopes will establish his career.   One worker on the junk particularly stands out to hi...

FAITHFUL ARE THE WOUNDS by May Sarton   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1956   Date Read: March 25, 2022   The setting is Harvard during the 1950s, what would have been an idyllic setting for a professor with strongly held political beliefs. Edward Cavan has been fighting the good fight his entire life, standing by his principles and never wavering from his beliefs. But he sees those around him wavering, if not abandoning, their principles due to pressure from every direction – faculty, government, society at large.   Under this realization, an overall depressive personality and the perception that his idealism is slipping away, Edward commits suicide one day, horrifically throwing himself under a train. His death has ripple effects throughout Harvard and his entire circle of friends. Although he has always kept to himself, a loner in modern terms, his life has an impact on his students and those who share his political beliefs.   Isabel, Edward’s sister, fli...

BAND OF ANGELS by Robert Penn Warren   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1956   Date Read: March 6, 2022   Band Of Angels follows the life of Manty Starr, considered a slave because her mother was a slave. The only thing is she can pass as white and had done so up until her father’s untimely death. She didn’t know the full truth until she went back south for his funeral and the sheriff showed up to arrest her for back debt her father owed. She was utterly gobsmacked, not having a clue.   A complete mind-shift occurs now understanding herself to be “owned.” Although she was against slavery previously, she now had a front-row seat as to how it actually felt to be sold on the auction block and having no say about her future or whereabouts. Being as white skinned as she was, however, she never experienced the truly brutal truths of slavery as others did. Nevertheless, being sold to Hamish Bond, a slave-owner with a kinder heart than most owners, was still a humiliating ...

THE VIEW FROM POMPEY’S HEAD by Hamilton Basso   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1955   Date Read: February 19, 2022   Basso has created a world in Pompey’s Head, a fictional southern town, where he explores the uniqueness of southern values and the “Shintoism” of the South, a somewhat flawed but compelling analogy. Anson, having escaped Pompey’s Head some 15 years prior, arguing heartbreak and humiliation, is forced to return to resolve a rather complicated client matter. With his long absence, he is able to see the social mores, taxing relationships and social climbing with fresh eyes.   Anson has created a comfortable life for himself in New York. He has is an up-and-coming young attorney, has a wife Meg and the requisite two children. He often counts himself lucky to have escaped the insularity of Pompey’s Head when he did. So many of his old friends were not as lucky.   One uneventful day, Anson is summoned to a partner’s conference where he is made aware...

SWEET THURSDAY by John Steinbeck   Award: Nobel Prize 1955   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1955   Date Read: February 8, 2022   Doc has returned to Cannery Row from the war but everyone in Cannery Row agrees that he’s just not his old self. Most of his old friends think he needs a wife and they devise ways of finding him one. With Suzy being a newcomer to Cannery Row, she becomes the one and only candidate.   As far as Doc’s work is concerned, he’s absolutely stuck. He realizes that to write the kind of paper that could be presented at the Academy of Sciences, he needs a $400 microscope, an unobtainable fortune at that time. The members of the flop house, however, get together to raffle off their building, fixing the raffle so that Doc wins. They know that Doc is too involved in his research to worry about collecting rent and paying property taxes on the building and the money they raise will all be put towards the microscope.   Fauna, who does everyon...

THE TRAVELS OF JAIMIE MCPHEETERS by Robert Lewis Taylor   Award: Pulitzer Winner 1959   Date Read: February 6, 2022   The Travels Of Jaimie McPheeters is a fabulous adventure story of the McPheeter father and son making their way west to join the California Gold Rush. The father, Sardius McPheeters, is a well-intentioned doctor, but a dreamer, an adventurer and a ne’er-do-well in the best sense. Jaimie is allowed to accompany his father on his journey at the age of 13 and as a curious and fearless teenager, finds himself in many precarious situations that would cow any adult.   In a nutshell: Jaimie falls overboard on a ferry but manages to hang onto a gold pouch of a man who had died on the ferry. He stumbles onto a farmhouse where the occupants plot to sell him as an indentured servant. He is then found by a terrifying trio of highwaymen, with a kidnapped girl in tow. When commenting on Jennie’s sour mood, one of the men reply, “She’s likely got something in the ov...

PICTURES FROM AN INSTITUTION by Randall Jarrell   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1955   Date Read: January 23, 2022   Randall Jarrell seems to have perfected the art of campus satire, however, I wish I had enjoyed it more. At fictitious Benson College, an all-female institution, visiting novelist and lecturer Gertrude Johnson arrives with her husband/lap-dog Sydney Bacon and rattles the windows of all the faculty from the president down to the secretaries.   Gertrude from the first moment she steps foot on the Benson campus is a force to be reckoned with. She has no verbal filter and literally blurts out exactly what’s on her mind, regardless of repercussions, other’s perceptions of her and injurious or not.   The unnamed narrator, an anonymous member of the English department, walks us through the semester she upends all the pretentions and self-descriptions often insidious in institutions of higher learning. For example, it is early noted that Americans ha...

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER by Davis Grubb   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1955   Date Read: January 6, 2022   “I declare, this Goddamned depression has turned up the undersides of some mighty respectable folks, Bart!”   And so begins the tale of a family besieged by the serial killer Harry Powell. Desperation and the Depression cause Ben Harper to rob a bank. Being a complete novice, Harper ends up shooting two bank employees. He is able to flee before his arrest and brings hope the fateful $10,000 and has John and Pearl, his two children, help him to hide it before he is arrested. Ben is housed with Harry Powell “The Preacher” in prison and Harry is unrelenting in trying to find out what Ben did with the money. Ben, lock-lipped, is ultimately hung.   Once Harry is released from prison, he heads to Virginia, where Ben’s widow, Willa, and his two children are. He romances Willa with his sermonizing and promises of redemption. John, however, knows what Harry is ...

THE LAST HUNT by Milton Lott   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1955   Date Read: December 27, 2021   The Last Hunt is a fictional recounting of the decimation of the last buffalo to roam the prairies of America. Sandy and Charlie are a mismatched team of buffalo hunters, killing buffalo for the profit of their skins. While Sandy is measured and calm, going about his business with a level-head and sense of purpose, Charlie is hot-headed, easily triggered and a generally unlikeable sort.   What will remain memorable for me is that all the participants in these buffalo hunts know what the outcome of their excess will be. They are fully cognizant of the fact that at some point, with their rate of unprecedented killing, that the buffalo will eventually become extinct. And yet, like all humans that are aware of the outcome, they continue anyway, killing even more buffalo than they can skin.   Around the campfire, the hunters acknowledge that there may not be any bu...

THE HUGE SEASON by Wright Morris   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1955   Date Read: December 16, 2021   I’ll open by saying this is the most expensive Kindle book I’ve ever purchased. At $23.75, it should come with a compliment or a massage. Sheesh.   The Huge Season explores the ideals of four young men as they hold up against the test of time. We see three men in particular, Lawrence, Foley and Proctor, with Lawrence’s friend Dickie popping in and out at times. They all met at a west coast college and found themselves as roommates, each with distinct personalities, goals and passions. The narrator, Foley, recaps their college shenanigans and the real world that was waiting for them during an era of great social upheaval.   Charles Lawrence, a tennis star, an intellectually lazy student with a penchant for danger, dies after committing suicide after being gored by a bull in his nether-region, most likely diminishing his manhood. It is largely Charles’ death...

THE DOLLMAKER by Harriette Simpson Arnow   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1955   Date Read: December 7, 2021   Gertie Nevels is a survivor. She will do anything for her family – to keep them alive, to keep them safe. From the first pages, we see her not taking no for an answer when she’s trying to save her son Amos. I instantly respected her.   And then she caved. I still can’t understand why. Although she’s a grown woman with children of her own, she can’t seem to please her mother regardless of what she does and she ends up bowing to the will of her mother and husband. Just as she’s about to fulfill a lifelong dream, owning a farm of her own, her mother insists she move her and the kids to Detroit to be with her husband, Clovis. Clovis has moved to Detroit to make some good money at the steel mills that are churning out machinery for WWII. Gertie acquiesces and it would be an irreversible decision.   Detroit is filthy, unkind, noisy and corrupt. The neighb...

WINDS OF MORNING By H.L. Davis   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1953   Date Read: December 2, 2021   First of all, this book caught my attention from the first page because one of the main characters is named Busick, which is the original version of my last name. But I digress…   Busick, a foreman for a wealthy landowner who manages the more unsavory projects, accidentally shoots and kills Piute Charlie, a well-known Indian on the frontier. This killing launches a cascade of misadventures for young lawman Amos Clarke. The arrest of Busick forces Clarke to move a herd of wild horses that were in Busick’s possession. Almost immediately he meets up with Pop Hendricks, a salty horse herder who is skilled in all the old ways of the frontier.   Along the way, they resolve a murder of a wealthy landowner, herd the horses across the frontier, keep their young Mexican hand from being arrested and help Busick’s young daughter. One situation leads to the next in a seri...

JEFFERSON SELLECK by Carl Jonas   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1953   Date Read: November 3, 2021   Jefferson Selleck, in diary form, is the self-chronicle of a man recovering from a heart-attack. This attack finds him in middle age, 55 to be exact, and with a doctor’s demand that he be bed-ridden for at least 6 months. A doer, this bed rest is quite a blow and his memoirs are a way for Selleck to occupy his time while he recovers. Speaking into a tape recorder, he begins to examine the life he has lived to this point.   Selleck’s life spans some very interesting times, including Prohibition and its subsequent end, fighting in WWI, requesting to serve during WWII but denied, starting his own company, marrying and raising two children and the general business of day-to-day living.   Of course, this character, facing historic events during the 20’s and 30’s rendered many issues with which to disagree. He believes in top-down economics, which has resulted in ...

THE BUILD-UP by William Carlos Williams   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1953   Date Read: October 28, 2021   Having not read the previous two books in the Stecher trilogy, I was concerned It wouldn’t fully follow this novel. It turned out not to matter a bit. I was able to fall in love with this family just from this single dose. Joe and Gurlie are European immigrants looking for their piece of the American dream. While Gurlie is terse and abrupt, shattering any uncomfortable remarks with a hearty laugh, Joe is more mild-mannered and bends to Gurlie’s will more often than not.   Their daughters, Lottie and Flossie, are diametrically opposed. Not particularly close but not enemies either they both go about the business of growing up in their own unique ways. From an early age, Lottie shows clear promise as a musician, while Flossie is a typical little girl, running around with her friends and getting into minor trouble.  In their mid-teens, Gurlie decid...

A SHOWER OF SUMMER DAYS by May Sarton   Nomination: National Book Finalist 1953   Date Read: October 10, 2021   Charles and Violet, a childless couple who remain very much in love, return to the mansion Violet grew up in in Ireland. They have been gone for quite some time as Charles completed a diplomatic mission in Burma. The house harkens to a time long-gone by and is itself an imposing structure, worn down by time and neglect.   Just as Charles and Violet are getting settled, Violet’s sister insists on sending her niece, Sally, over. She has fallen hopelessly in love with Ian, an actor deemed unworthy of Sally’s love. The hope is that distance will put their relationship in perspective and cool the feelings Sally is swept up in. But being 21, Sally is capable of intense feeling for everyone, even with a determination to maintain her distance until she is able to leave.   Sally’s presence adds an element of drama where there was once peace. She finds herself a...