Eden's Outcasts

Eden's Outcasts by John Matteson

2008 Pulitzer for Biography

Eden's Outcasts is the story of the lives of Louisa May Alcott and her father Bronson Alcott. Bronson was a teacher and writer. He was a philosopher and abolitionist. He tried to run schools and utopias. But he wasn't very good at supporting his family. Of course, after Louisa started writing things got better for the family. But Louisa had no choice in becoming an intellectual. Bronson ran with the likes of Hawthorne, Emerson and Thoreau.

Eden's Outcasts was a good book. I learned a lot about someone whose books I've always loved. And I learned about a fascinating man I'd never heard of. One who deserves to be remembered.

The Short Stories of John Cheever

The Stories of John Cheever

1979 Pulitzer

This was my first foray into short stories (except for Stephen King) and I loved them. There are 61 stories in the order he wrote them. The earliest are set around WWI and the later stories are in the 70's. It was interesting to watch the changes in society as they occurred.

Most of the stories are filled with sadness and disappointment. Some are full of anger, crime, adultery, and all kinds of dubious behavior. Others deal with the randomness of fate.

I've become a fan of short stories with this one book. I'll never overlook the genre again.

Eleanor and Franklin

Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph Lash

1972 Pulitzer for Biography

I read this with Pulitzer_literature on Yahoo. Or tried to. Only a couple of us went past the point of pain and no one was able to finish it. Joseph Lash was a friend of Eleanor's. He was a reporter she met through a youth organization. So the book is 90% hero worship of Eleanor. And since it was written by a reporter it reads like a newspaper article...a looong article. It's full of names, dates and places but there isn't much personality.

About halfway through the book I skipped about a chapter and a half by accident and didn't even know it. So about 3/4's of the way in I realized it when someone asked Eleanor about Franklin's polio. I didn't know he had it yet. I'd read a quarter of the book and Lash mentioned crutches once but I thought he was talking figuratively.
You'd assume polio would have a greater influence on their lives than Lash indicated.

This book was a waste of time.

Cloudsplitter

Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks

"Cloudsplitter" is the story of abolitionist John Brown as told from his son Owen's point of view. Owen is writing a letter to a reporter who had tried to interview him about his father. Feeling remorse for being rude, Owen decides to cooperate with a written statement. He follows his life with John Brown through childhood through the raid on Harper's Ferry.

The book is very long-winded. Owen repeatedly spends pages writing about his fathers philosophy and influence on other people. He comes across as a little awestruck by John.

Banks straight-out tells you it's a work of fiction. He changes facts, adds events and changes the sequence of events to fit his literary needs. Personally, I felt there was too much fiction. I think you should be able to learn a little something with books. But with "Cloudsplitter" you need to read the book with an encyclopedia nearby to separate fact from fiction. I've read too many fictionalized stories to think you have to rewrite someones life so completely. Either use the life as a basis for a fictional book or write a fictitious original character. Don't try to mix the two.

Killer Angels

Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

1975 Pulitzer

"The Killer Angels" is a fictionalized account of the Battle of Gettysburg. The story switches back and forth between different people from both sides and helps explain the reasons both had for fighting.

I liked this book much more than I thought I would. The story was well written and turned something I thought I knew into something new. For a well-known historical event, the book brought a little page turning wonder to it.

The Keepers of the House

The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau

1965 Pulitzer

The Howland family have lived on the old homestead since the early 1800's. In 1965 the current occupant is Abigail. Her grandfather, William, had brought home a young black woman named Margaret to help take care of Abigail. But Margaret also became his mistress and had children by him.

Abigail's husband is a budding politician. So William and Margaret's secret is a devastating blow to his campaign. And to the community at large.

"The Keepers of the House" is a powerful book about race relations and hyprococy in the south. It asks the question "Do you say what you mean or say what you think people want to hear." It's pertinant in todays PC dominated world.

American Pastoral

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

1998 Pulitzer

Swede Levov is trying to live the American dream. He marries a beauty queen and buys a house he's loved since his youth. But during the 60's his daughter becomes a war militant. Merry plants a bomb that kills a man and then goes into hiding. Levov's life sowly begins to unravel.

Tree of Smoke

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

"Tree of Smoke" is a story about the people who fought in the Viet Nam was. Skip is an undercover CIA agent engaged in psychological warfare. His only contact is his maybe crazy colonel uncle. The book is full of the twists and turns that go with was. It's a big book, but it's fast reading. And it covers all the pertinent elements of war- spies, friends, enemies, battles, family. All of it. It's an incredible novel with so many threads that are easy to keep tract it. A must read for all war story fans.

Ironweed

Ironweed by William Kennedy
1984 Pulitzer Prize

Francis Phelan has blood on his hands. He killed a scab during a strike. Then he accidentally dropped his infant son and killed him. Then while living the hoboes life, he kills another bum in self-defense. Now he has returned to Albany with his girl-friend Helen, who is an alcholic as is he. He's trying to come to terms with his past. Helen is trying to self-destruct.

Ironweed is set in the back alleys and two bit dives that most people never see. It's about the way life can conquer some people before they even get started.

The Optimist's Daughter

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty

1973 Pulitzer

"The Optimist's Daughter" follows Laurel McKelva Hand as she copes with the death of her father. Laurel was raised in the South but moved to Chicago to follow an art career. Laurel and her young step-mother take her father to Mississippi for burial.
In her fathers old house, Laurel must come to terms with the past.

It's a simple little story, but it has a big emotional impact if you've lost a parent.

The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Nathan Price has taken his family to live in a remote, primitive village in the Congo. He is fanatical and can't meet the natives halfway. He refuses to give an inch to their ways, insisting that only his way is right. His wife was once a fun-loving girl who has slowly become passive to her husband. And she's beginning to realize the Congo is no place for her family.

The story switches back and forth between the 4 girls in the family and told by their individual prospectives flavored by their personalities. As the political climate changes, life around them changes also.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

2008 Pulitzer Prize

Oscar is a nerd. He's fat. He lives in the typical teen-age boy's genre of sci fi, fantasy and comics. And his biggest goal in life is to loose his virginity.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the story of a Dominican family who are living in the US. Oscar's mother was the daughter of a rich man who fell afoul of the dictator Trujillo. The family fortunes were lost and a safer home was sought in the US.

The book skips around in time telling the story of Beli's life in the DR and her children's, Oscar and Lola in New Jersey. It's language is flowing with alot of Spanglish scattered in. Even the footnotes are interesting and sometimes funny.

Beloved

Beloved by Toni Morrison
1988 Pulitzer Prize

Sethe is a former slave who escaped with her children to her mother-in-law's home in Ohio. Shortly after arriving, slave hunters track them down. Sethe performs a desperate act to protect her children from slavery.

Years later, Sethe's sons have run away, her mother-in-law has died and the town has ostracized Sethe and her remaining daughter Denver. And there's a ghost in the house. A former fellow slave shows up. Sethe hasn't seen Paul D. since she left the plantation but the two decide to try to build a life together. But coming home from a carnival one day, they find the mysterious Beloved sleeping in their yard. And Beloved slowly begins to control the household.

"Beloved" is a story about ghosts. Ghosts in the house, ghosts in the soul and ghosts of the past.

Angle of Repose

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

1972 Pulitzer Prize

Lyman Ward is suffering from a bone disease. He has recently separated from his wife and has moved into his grandparents old house. Lyman acquires old letters his grandmother, Susan, had written to her friend. These letters lead him to write a biography about his grandmother.

Susan Ward had been a writer and artist but marriage to Oliver had led her to the old west. Oliver was an engineer. But problems on jobs usually forced them to move on to other jobs. Sometimes Susan had to return east while Oliver took particularly difficult jobs.

Angle of Repose simultaneously tells the story of Susan and Lyman. Susan has difficulty adapting to the west where her desire for culture is in short supply. And Lyman is trying to come to terms with the drastic changes in his life that have come on so suddenly.

So Big

So Big By Edna Ferber

1925 Pulitzer Prize

Selina Peake had been living with her father in Chicago. He was a gambler. When he won, they lived high off the hog. When he lost...well, Selina learned to roll with the tide. But Simon gets shot in a bar by a woman aiming at someone else. So, at the age of 19, Selina has to earn her own living or return to two maiden aunts, a destiny she refuses to contemplate. She's accepted as teacher for the Dutch school at High Prairie. She boards with the Poole family.

Selina eventually marries farmer Purvis DeJong and the have a son, Dirk, to whom she gives the nickname So Big. But 8 years later Purvis dies and Selina is left alone to raise the boy and work the farm. Selina is determined that So Big will grow up to appreciate beauty.

The Magnificent Ambersons

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

1918 Pulitzer Prize

"The Magnificent Ambersons" are a fading family in the Midwest. Once very rich, they were the cream of society. Now, two generations later, their glory is being forgotten as the modern world comes to life.

As life and the town around him changes, young George feels his place is to be a gentleman of leisure.

I loved this book. I hadn't heard of it until Yahoo's Pulitzer_literature group voted to read it. I wasn't looking forward to it. But I was captivated somewhere around the third chapter.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

1928 Pulitzer Prize

Brother Juniper is a monk who witnesses the collapse of the rope bridge between Lima and Cuzco broke and plunged five people to death in the gorge below. He immediately wonders why the disaster happened to that particular five people. He sets out on an investigation into their lives to try to find out if they deserved their fate.

I enjoyed the book, but I didn't get what the big Pulitzer whoopty-do was about.

Mr. Ives' Christmas

Mr. Ives' Christmas
by Oscar Hijuelos

"Mr. Ives' Christmas" is about a father mourning the loss of his son. The boy was 17 and about to enter the priesthood when he is shot by a 14 year old boy as he is leaving choir practice.

The book follows Mr. Ives through decades from his adoption in the 1920's until he's in his 70's. The main focus of the book is his attempts to come to terms with the death of his son. Since he is a good-hearted man, he even has a brief correspondence with the killer. But as the years go by, he is becoming more withdrawn from the life he has. But he hods on to his spirituality. He knows it's the only thing that will get him through to the end.

I thought this was a very good book. It makes the point that compassion is desperately needed in our lives.

The Good Earth

The Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck

Wang Lung is an extremely poor farmer in pre-revolutionary China. The book opens on his wedding day to a slave girl.

Wang Lung has a deep love for the land he works. But drought brings on famine and Wang Lung must take his family to the city to find work and food. But riots send them back home again.

This is a story about the ups and downs of one man. "The Good Earth" tells of Wang Lungs hard times and his good times and how he changes with each.

Middlesex

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

"Middlesex" is the story of a family. From the grandparents' early life in Asia Minor to the sexually misidentified Cal/Callie born in Detroit. The grandparents were siblings who fell in love. After fleeing a war, they moved to Detroit where a cousin lived. Free of the people who knew them, they married. The cousin had secrets of her own and kept theirs.

Because of a genetic defect, Cal/Callie is intersexed and must figure out which sex is the best fit.