Now in November by Josephine Johnson

(Posted for Ann Roberts)

Continuing with my effort to read more Missouri authors, I checked out a book with great promise, as it gleaned a Pulitzer Prize in 1935 for 24-year-old Josephine Johnson, a Missouri native.  Johnson wrote the novel while living in her mother’s attic in Webster Groves.  Remarkable!  She also wrote poetry, short stories and eventually her memoir, which I would also like to read.  Now in November is the story of a poor family, struggling to make ends meet on mortgaged land during the Depression and a great drought. Compared to Ethan Frome and The Grapes of Wrath, Johnson is able to evoke the drudgery and hardship of the day-to-day struggle of farming during extreme drought and economic Depression.  The family consists of three daughters, mother and father, and the hired man, Grant, around whom much of the story unfolds.  The oldest of the three sisters, Kerrin, is mentally ill and tends toward anger and violence and becomes increasingly erratic in her behavior as Grant does not return her affections. Margret, the middle child, and narrator of the story, loves the land, beauty in nature, and Grant, too, and Merle, the youngest is high spirited and oblivious to the fact that Grant fancies her.  The story unfolds, as they work side-by-side to plant and tend the crops and animals on the farm. Written in beautiful prose, Now in November should be recommended reading for all Missouri students of literature.  It is a tragic, yet hopeful story, beautifully written.  231 pages, hardcover