Customer Reviews

Whistle Stop

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I discovered a lovingly-preserved copy of Whistle Stop in the basement sale of the Boonton Public Library in Boonton, NJ, and frankly, my life has never been the same since. Maritta Wolff wrote this, her masterwork, in college, and it emerged from her pen almost utterly flawless, written with an artless candor perhaps only possible at her unaffected age.

It's the story of a down-at-the heels family in a sleepy farm town in Michigan, and how they endure fate, and how they tempt it. Some are in pain, some are violent, some are ambitious, or selfish, and some have given up. Descriptively, you smell the sun-baked overgrown grass, you hear the creak of dilapidated floorboards, you hear and feel each taunt and jeer, and you feel their love and hate as if it is your own. Everyone is flawed and desperate, but everyone is alive in a way people don't seem to be anymore.

After you invite these characters into your home, they won't ever move out, which is for the best, because each one is a touchstone to a facet of your soul.

I am a big fan of American literature of the early 20th century and liked this book very much for several reasons. I think Wolff does a fine job depicting the lives of the Veeches, their many small triumphs and big tragedies. I did find the list of characters a bit overwhelming at times, but got used to it after awhile. When one considers how young Wolff was at the time, then the book is even more an amazing feat. It is definitely worth the time reading; the 1946 film version, which I saw online, is not, unfortunately. The movie wastes the talents of George Raft (Kenny) and Ava Gardner (Mary) and distorts the novel's plotline beyond recognition. The only thing worth watching the film for is Ava Gardner, who is -- at 24 -- amazingly beautiful in every frame of this film.

Back to the book. I would say that Wolff reminds me of Dawn Powell a bit and strives to achieve the realism of Theodore Dreiser or Sinclair Lewis, or even Willa Cather. Cather is the master novelist; Wolff falls short. She does not even reach the level of Dawn Powell, the great and relatively unknown author of very powerful novels of New York in the forties and fifties, as well as Ohio in the twenties. I am a fanatical Cather reader; a devoted Powell fan. Maritta Wolff has my appreciation and admiration, if not the emotional allegiance of Cather and Powell.

I do recommend this book, however. It's a good story; the characters are believable and interesting. I am contemplating even reading more of Wolff, and commend this book to others with the caveat that there are better eye-witnesses to life in the forties and better books out there to be read and considered.