An early Pulitzer winner

Now in November by Josephine W. Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is the latest step in my quest to read all of the winners of the Pulitzer Prize for novel or fiction. This book is the first novel for Josephine W. Johnson, published in 1933 when she was just 24 years old. The novel tells the story of a family struggling to keep their small dairy farm alive during the dust bowl year of the Great Depression.

The book is told from the point of view of Marget, the middle child of three sisters in this farm family, and through her voice readers see her thoughts only. This narrative voice is remarkably restrained emotionally as the family struggles against the brutal weather, the burden of debt, economic conditions, social isolation and each other. As the book progresses, Marget’s philosophy emerges. She sees her family through clear eyes without any rosy optimism. She recognizes both the heroic struggle of her father as she is fully aware of his faults and emotional distance. She seems most aware of her father’s disappointment in fathering only girls rather than a son who he would consider a suitable work partner. This narrator’s voice may be the reasons this book is considered feminist literature.
The book is an interesting read in this plague year. We may be heading into another Great Depression (the first unemployment figures compare) but so far we have only had to deal with the social isolation. Hopefully, Mother Nature will not turn on us as it did those in 1932. These characters endured though really tough times and this can provide us some valuable perspective.

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