Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Suckow was born in Iowa in 1892, and died in 1960 after a lifetime of honing her craft. And these representative stories are crafted. Their seeming slightness is deceptive in the same way all Midwestern beauty, trapped by the immensity and similarity of the expanse, is deceptive. Her 'postage-stamp' is small town and rural Midwestern life, and her subjects are the women and men who are trapped by it, reduced by it, restrained by it. Each of her characters ends in realized or unrealized isolation, standing lonesome like a cragged tree in an Iowa farmer's field. But there is victory here, too, the victory of the human soul as it reaches across space to try to encounter another soul, also isolated, also alone. These stories are good. Suckow has been largely forgotten by America. But like Willa Gather she transcends, at her best, the limitations of place and era, and speaks to us, as yet another contemporary of hers, Faulkner, did, from the depths of the human heart. Suckow is much more than a 'local-color artist'—she's an artist. Highly recommended." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Table of Contents
Ruth Suckow / by Clarence A. Andrews -- Susan and the doctor -- Home coming -- A part of the institution -- Visiting -- The crick -- What have I? -- A great Mollie -- Three, counting the cat -- Midwest primitive -- The little girl from town -- The man of the family.