Customer Reviews

Herbs and Apples

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Helen Hooven Santmyer became somewhat of a cult heroine in the '80's when her book "And the Ladies of the Club" was published during her old age. Knowing that makes this book, her first published in 1925, even more poignant. "Herbs and Apples" is semi-autobigraphical and while the story revolves around its main character, Derrick, it is narrated by one of her best friends, Sue. Derrick is from a rather well-to-do family in the small fictional town of Tecumseh, Ohio. She is a bright girl and is always the nominal leader among her group of friends. They look up to her because of her intelligence and philosophical view of life as well as her writing talent. She and her college friends proclaim their motto to be "Down with Matrimony, up with Art, Fame before Forty or bust. These idealistic women all plan to become famous or important for something, but, as Derrick discovers, Life has a few surprises in store and reality does not always allow a person to follow her dreams. Although the book seems to be about a simpler time, the struggles and attempts to find one's self are certainly as serious and difficult as any in our current time. This book is full of beautiful language and descriptions of Derrick's world, both internal and external. It is a wonderful read for those who like to contemplate life and purpose.

This book is well worth reading, especially if you liked ...And Ladies of the Club. It's a less amibitious book, but a finely wrought one. It takes all the cliches of the coming-of-age novel and transcends them at the same time as it sheds a new light on them. The main character is entirely believable, as is the resolution of her dilemma.

Derrick Thornton, a girl growing up in a small Ohio town before the First World War, swears to herself that one day she'll be a great writer. Encouraged by a mother who sacrificed her own budding artistic career to bear and rear a family, young Derrick goes off to college - moves, with several of her chums, into a New York City apartment - and goes to work for a newspaper. As the War to End All Wars rages, she publishes her first poems, works on a play, and discovers that she's in love (despite her best intentions otherwise) with a childhood friend.

All that sounds tame, doesn't it? A typical coming of age novel, feminine style. Yet in reading this first novel by the author of ...And Ladies of the Club, I found myself reminded over and over again of just how much social upheaval my grandmother's generation (which happens to also be Derrick's generation) created during its young adult years. While I don't agree with Santmyer's generalizations about women's ambitions vs. those of men, her characterizations are vivid and the story she tells is compelling. First published in 1925, this book stands the test of time very well indeed.

Herbs and Apples was the first novel by Helen Hooven Santmyer. It was originally written in 1925 and, after the success of "...And Ladies of the Club" in 1984, was reprinted sixty years later. The story is autobiographical, and tells the story of a girl named Derrick, who believes she is destined for literary greatness.

Santmyer's entire oeuvre uses Xenia, Ohio as its base and this novel planted the seed for her autobiographical fiction. As with Ohio Town, her nonfiction history of Xenia, the characters and events in Herbs and Apples foreshadow and mirror what would be developed in her colossal literary masterpiece, "...And Ladies of the Club".

Herbs and Apples did not draw me in as the prior two Santmyer books I read. Had I embarked on reading Santmyer's works in chronological order, I would have given up after this book. Herbs and Apples was a chore to get through; it doesn't normally take me two weeks to finish a 330-page novel. Granted, many evenings at home were spent watching Winter Olympics coverage yet I had no drive to grab this book and read it other than during my lunch or dinner hours at work. The story did not interest me until halfway through, after Derrick and her friends move from Tecumseh, Ohio to New York City to find jobs as well as themselves. Santmyer excels in her intimate depictions of a young person's psyche. She captured most vividly the desires and insecurities of her, mostly female, characters. She brought this skill back to life inside every character's mind fifty-seven years later when she wrote "...And Ladies of the Club".

Derrick is an aspiring playwright and poet and Santmyer, when she wrote this novel at the age of thirty, was already an award-winning poet. She intersperses poems, especially lengthy sonnets, throughout the novel. The poetry seemed gratuitous, boring and a blight on the flow of the story. I am not a fan of poetry, yet did not want to read the sonnets just to get them over with (although as sure as you know what I just wanted to skip them). I forced myself to reread them many times over, including the three pages at the beginning of the book, in an attempt to understand them and their relevance to the story. This made the reading experience feel like an English literature class and ruined the "pleasure reading" experience whenever I encountered another poem.

The English language from the mid-twenties probably regarded words such as "anyone" and "someone" as two words. These words, as well as many others, are spelled as two throughout the book. This gave the reading eye a sudden and abrupt interruption, which ruined the flow. I concede that this might not have been so jarring a reading experience in 1925. Also, Santmyer spells words with ligatures, such as æ as in "mænad" or oe as in "manoeuvring". This in itself is not a problem, but whenever a ligature is used the printer used a different font, which made the words look ridiculous. A second fault with the printing I found is the kerning. Maybe I am being too picky or maybe there are others who will agree, but this was the most extremely kerned typeface I have ever read. A punctuation mark that followed a lowercase y was practically swallowed by the y's descending tail. I could not tell if the mark after a y was a period or a comma. The kerning resembled my first attempts at typing while still in primary school, when I didn't know any better to put a space after a comma or if I was too obsessed with cramming a word onto a single line that I squished the letters all together.

Herbs and Apples was not a joy to read, however Santmyer would certainly develop into a writer deserved of her New York Times #1-bestseller status. Read this novel to see where her great American novel first took seed.