Whistle Stop: A Novel by Maritta Wolff
My rating: 5/5 cats
okay, it’s time to champion another forgotten author.
it is appalling that i have never written a review for a maritta wolff book before now. thank goodness for paper-writing procrastination, or i wouldn’t even be writing it now!
maritta wolff was the ballsiest writer of her time. and so forgotten that some of her books aren’t even listed here on goodreads.
it is a massive oversight.
this book is one of three re-issued by scribner’s in the early 2000’s, and that is the only way i ever would have heard of her. after i burned through those three, i managed to track down all but one of her other books that had not been reissued. but i am almost afraid to read them because of that thing i have where i will feel cast adrift once i run out of them. (fortunately, the one i don’t have, i have only ever seen for like 300 bux, so until i feel comfortable spending 300 bux on a single book, it will remain my tamerlane)
this one is just perfect, for me and my particular literary themes and needs. it focuses on a poor family in small town michigan with their long-nursed familial resentments, possibly incestuous relationships, their desires too big for their circumstances, and the force of their personalities. it is at once vast and claustrophobic.
her descriptions are amazing. amazing. i haven’t read anyone who made me feel this woeful and downtrodden since steinbeck. but she is this 22-year-old kid writing this in the early 40’s—a woman—writing with such furious envelope-pushing strength about things that most women of her time wouldn’t have ever touched. it’s as though she wasn’t even aware that there was an envelope. like angel clare. (wow. what a bookdorky joke i just made. i don’t know if i am proud or ashamed)
i often compare her to dawn powell, but it is strictly an affective comparison. powell writes about artists struggling in the greatest city in the world, tough-talking and back-stabbing to get ahead. wolff’s characters would be those characters, too, if they could just get to that city. instead, they are trapped in their anonymous towns, infighting and struggling and occasionally gaining ground.
but both she and powell are the most under-read american women of the early twentieth century.
now go and change that. this one and night shift are both readily available and excellent. sudden rain is less good, but anything that sits in a fridge for thirty years is bound to be a little off. yup. that’s where they found it. possibly because her first husband died in a fire, and it was her way of protecting it, but she sat on it for THIRTY YEARS!!! and it’s okay. not great. a little more soap-opera-y than i like. go with the other two. i will let you know when i read my old fragile editions of her earlier stuff that is so old they don’t even have isbns!
and if anyone wants to buy me a copy of the sighing of the heart, i will accept it. i promise.
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