Now in November [Paperback]

Josephine W. Johnson (Author), Nancy Hoffman (Afterword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1558610359 | ISBN-13: 978-1558610354 | Publication Date: January 1, 1993

   Brilliant, evocative, poetic, savage, this Pulitzer Prize-winning first novel (1934) depicts a white, middle-class urban family that is turned into dirt-poor farmers by the Depression and the great drought of the thirties. The novel moves through a single year and, at the same time, a decade of years, from the spring arrival of the family at their mortgaged farm to the winter 10 years later, when the ravages of drought, fire, and personal anguish have led to the deaths of two of the five. Like Ethan Frome, the relatively brief, intense story evokes the torment possible among people isolated and driven by strong feelings of love and hate that, unexpressed, lead inevitably to doom. Reviewers in the thirties praised the novel, calling its prose "profoundly moving music," expressing incredulity "that this mature style and this mature point of view are those of a young women in her twenties," comparing the book to "the luminous work of Willa Cather," and, with prescience, suggesting that it "has that rare quality of timelessness which is the mark of first-rate fiction."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Johnson's (1910-1990) Pulitzer Prize-winning first novel, a combination of social protest and naturalism originally published in 1934, is narrated by the second of three daughters in a farming family impoverished by the Depression. no pw review/pk

Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

In 1934, Josephine Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize for her first novel, Now in November. A bleak and beautiful work, it tells the story of a Midwestern farming family and their desperate efforts to make a living. Like John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (published several years later), it portrays the unrelenting harshness of hard work and drought set against the life-giving beauty of the land and the fierce determination of its people. Margret, the narrator of Now in November, and her family come to the farm when she is a young girl; ten years later she tells of her family's fight to pay off their mortgage and keep their land: "There was a bitterness in sowing and reaping, no matter how good the crop might be... when all that it meant was the privilege of doing this over again and nothing to show but a little mark on paper." Always struggling, always tired, never secure, they still hear the constant refrain from outsiders: "You farmers have got stuff to eat anyway. That's something, ent it?" -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY (January 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558610359
• ISBN-13: 978-1558610354
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #396,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobly Poetic Novel, August 9, 2004

By 

Polkadotty (Mountains of Western North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Now in November (Hardcover)

Josephine Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize for 'Now In November' in 1935 at the age of 24. This was her first novel. It is a shortish work, running all of 231 pages, but what fills these pages is astonishing. Powerful and wise, wrenchingly real, 'Now In November' immerses the reader into a world harsh and unforgiving during a time of trial and drought, rendered through a poetic prose that cuts to the quick.

The narrator is Marget, a quiet soul who sees all and feels deeply yet cannot utter what fills her mind and her heart ~ and therein lies her fatal flaw. Marget seeks solace in the woods and hills and the small beauties of nature, finding loveliness where she can even as the world around her agonises from lack of rain. Despite the drought, work on the farm is unrelenting, rounds of planting and milking and incessant hoping for rain ... and always, always running beneath this a continuous fear and worry to make the mortgage and meet the debts.

Adding to the worries of farm and weather is eldest daughter Kerrin, beautiful but dangerously insane. Her erratic behaviour hones a razor edge to all that the family endures. Everything comes to a head when a hired man arrives and falls in love with the youngest daughter, Merle. Merle is the most resilient of the three sisters ~ hearty, jolly, loud and opinioned, the antithesis of her sister Marget.

Kerrin immediately sets her twisted sights on Grant in a wildly unhinged manner which proves her complete undoing. Behind the scenes, scarcely noticed, Marget loves Grant with a hopeless, mute, soul-cracking love; she can only stand by helplessly as Grant suffers from his own unrequited love. Merle does not love Grant, she loves the land and her mother and her father and her sense of duty; there's no room in her heart for more. Marget has the room, she'd welcome Grant unreservedly, but dares not suggest her feelings to him as she understands she'd never fill Grant's emptiness ~ the void that only Merle would satisfy.

One night a fire starts on the farm, ravishing more than land and crops. The mother is mortally injured, and Kerrin finally succumbs to the dark demons in her mind. Grant, cast adrift amongst the wreckage, arrives to a final, permanent decision. After that nothing is the same.

Yet, the land remains, and the farm, and the debt. And Merle, to bear her burdens and work like a man. And Marget, who in the end loses the most but must endure, refusing to believe that this is the end. She says as much. 'And if this is the consolation of a heart in its necessity, or that easy faith born of despair, it does not matter, since it gives us courage somehow to face the mornings. Which is as much as the heart can ask at times.'

Almost breathtaking in its honesty, this is a truly remarkable novel written by a genuine talent.

Johnson attended Washington University from 1926 to 1931. In 1955, Washington University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. She was actively interested in the problems of contemporary society and was a member of various organizations that deal with inequality and poverty, including the St. Louis Urban League, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Cooperative Consumers of St. Louis.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why isn't this work on an English Class reading list?, November 5, 2000

By 

Patricia (Pasadena, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Now in November (Paperback)

One of the great experiences of my life was reading this book for the first time. It breaks my heart that English teachers are wasting time on second tier works, or repeating the same novels each year for decades, when there is a work of exquisite literary beauty full of strange and ambivalent revelations languishing and underappreciated. Please, if you are an English teacher, read it and recognize its perfection. Three sisters... a dirt farm... the depression... language that shimmers before your eyes on every page. Introduce this American masterwork back into the high school literary canon!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Depresssion Era Portrait, March 18, 2004

By 

Jerry Kelley (Riverside, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Now in November (Paperback)

Josephine Johnson captures the spirit of life of so many dirt-poor farmers of the economic depression of the 1930's. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of 1935 was published at the very depth of this sad time. I was transported by the magic of her writing to the point I found it difficult to put the book aside until I had read it all. I recommend this book as reading for all who want to feel the anguish of the people living and struggling in this difficult era. This is not a light-hearted tale but rather an all-too-real portrait of life at the edge of hope.