The architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks: A novel [Hardcover]

Donald Harington (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1975

The Ingledew saga follows six generations through 140 years of abundant living and prodigal loving in a book that was praised as one of the year's best novels by the American Library Association. Drawings by the Author

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Harington follows the fortunes of the brothers IngledewJacob and Noah and their descendants, founders and proud citizens of Stay More, Ark., for 150 years. PW praised Harington's "lyric tongue-in-cheek satire."
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Harington has succeeded in creating one of the finest novels in recent years. -- Library Journal

You don't have to be from Arkansas to to appreciate this robust and rollicking novel... -- Columbus Dispatch --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown; 1st edition (1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316346411
• ISBN-13: 978-0316346412
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,870,414 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Donald Harington was one of America's greatest writers of fiction. His fifteen novels have been called jubilant, lyrical, foxy, captivating, delicate, bawdy, playful, reckless, joyful, courageous. Set in the fictional hamlet of Stay More, Arkansas, Harington's stories blend myth, dreamscape and sharply observed speech and manners to depict a rich, eccentric, rural society. All fifteen novels--from the classic Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, to the redemptive Choiring of the Trees, the love story With and the concluding novel Enduring, published just two months before Mr. Harington's death-- are now available as The Complete Novels of Donald Harington, a must-have collection for all those who wish to read the very best, authentic, contemporary American writing.

"The quirkiest, most original body of work in contemporary US letters." -Boston Globe

"Harington is hooked into the deepest traditions of storytelling, dipping his buckets directly into the well it all comes from, pursuing a literature dedicated not to documentation or self-expression, but to fascination, to lifting us out of ourselves and the dailiness of our lives -- to making our world again wondrous and large." --Los Angeles Times

"Totally satisfying... Harington reveres the most ordinary aspects of the lives of unexceptional people...he makes his joy infectious." --Time Magazine

Donald Harington (1935 -2009) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and spent nearly all of his childhood summers in the Ozark mountain hamlet of Drakes Creek, his mother's hometown, where his grandparents operated the general store and post office. There, before he lost his hearing to meningitis at the age of twelve, he listened carefully to the vanishing Ozark dialect and the old tales told by local storytellers. He published his first novel in 1965, and fourteen more for a total of fifteen, most of them set in the Ozark hamlet of his own creation, Stay More, loosely based on Drakes Creek. Acclaimed by critics as "an undiscovered continent," "America's Chaucer," and "one of the most powerful, subtle and inventive novelists in America," Harington was the recipient of the Robert Penn Warren Award, the Porter Prize, the Heasley Prize, and the Oxford American Lifetime Achievement Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best Unknown Books, May 10, 2000

By 

Adam Roberts - See all my reviews

This review is from: Architecture Of The Arkansas Ozarks (Paperback)

The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks is a sprawling epic. It spans at least five generations and it all takes place in the Arkansas Ozarks in a town called Stay More (the residents of which are called "Stay Morons.") It begins when Jacob Ingledew and his brother Noah arrive and are greeted by the only remaining Native American: Fanshaw (who lives with his wife in a bigeminal hut that resemble large and pointy breasts). This is where the story begins and it doesn't stop...never losing momentum...the plot always moving forward...and as the plot moves forward so does the setting, and this book is as much a history lesson as it is a character study. We experience, through these marvelous characters, The Civil War, World War I, the Depression, World War II and all the PROG RESS that comes in between.

It is also important here to point out the book's greatest virtue: it's humor. This book is absolutely hysterical. I found myself laughing out loud all throughout. There isn't a page where you won't smile either externally or internally. The humor is the best sort of humor you can find in a novel---the type of humor where it won't be funny unless it's in the context of the book. Harington creates a world and the humor he finds in it are all "inside" jokes that you, the intrigued reader, get to be a part of. And the narrator himself is a fascinating presence--omniscient, but a real part of the story. The last few chapters will absolutely blow your mind.

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ozarkian epic, November 19, 2005

By 

S. M. Robertson "Gallynipper" (Fayetteville) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks (Paperback)

As an Arkansas native and as one who has spent decades living and working in the Ozarks I felt qualified to add a few comments. The area he describes as "Stay More" is an area I have covered on foot doing research and recreation. Some of my best friends are from that region, Murray, Swain, Edwards Junction, and Deer, so it really "hits home".

When Harrington writes about ,"Stay More" he is inspired but when he strays from this less than idylic community the inspiration thins. Regardless, I would reccommend this book to anyone and am proud that an Arkansas author has picked up the torch that was once carried by Vance Randolph. Oustanding!

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An architect who can write!, April 17, 2000

By 

Gail Cornell (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Architecture Of The Arkansas Ozarks (Paperback)

I was drawn to this book because I am an architectural historian and avid reader of historical novels. I was unprepared for the book's incredible creativity and humor. The author's genuine love and compassion for the simplest of his characters is heartwarming. And best of all, this is a shaggy-dog story to end all shaggy-dog stories. PS I learned a lot about architecture along the way!