The Dollmaker

by Harriette Arnow

Paperback, 1965

Status

Available

Call number

813.52

Genres

Collection

Collection: Lower Price Hill Community School

Publication

Collier Books

Description

The Dollmaker was originally published in 1954 to immediate success and critical acclaim. In unadorned and powerful prose, Harriette Arnow tells the unforgettable and heartbreaking story of the Nevels family and their quest to preserve their deep-rooted values amidst the turmoil of war and industrialization. When Gertie Nevels, a strong and self-reliant matriarch, follows her husband to Detroit from their countryside home in Kentucky, she learns she will have to fight desperately to keep her family together. A sprawling book full of vividly drawn characters and masterful scenes, The Dollmaker is a passionate tribute to a woman's love for her children and the land.

User reviews

LibraryThing member delphica

(#28 in the 2007 book challenge)

This book was depressing, didactic, full of despair and in parts, disturbingly graphic (and this review is brought to you by the letter D). That said, it was an amazing book and I can't believe I made it to this advanced age without reading it. A Kentucky farmwoman

and her children reluctantly follow her husband to Detroit during WWII, where he works at one of the auto factories for the war effort. No kidding, these people can outJoad the Joads any day of the week, and twice on Sundays. Everything about the rural experience is good, and everything about the urban experience is poisonous. Plus, all the dialogue is written out in Kentucky hill dialect. I am sure my encouraging description is making people want to read this, but seriously, it was one of those books that I couldn't put down. By rights, it should be too heavy-handed to enjoy, but the writing was breathtaking and it really succeeds in making you feel like you are right there, suffering through Detroit winters and lock-outs and war department telegrams and debt and agony.

Grade: A++
Recommended: To people who might enjoy wallowing in a dismal family saga, people who like lots of domestic detail about homefront experiences, and especially to anyone interested in the rural emigration sparked by WWII, which I always feel you don't hear nearly enough about. Reconstruction and the Depression hog all the rural exodus stuff, I think.

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LibraryThing member sunqueen

This was an excellent book about simple people from Kentucky who move to Detroit to work in the factories during WW2.
As I had just recently finished viewing "The War" by Ken Burns, I found it interesting to compare the patriotic theme from the movie with a more realistic view told through the eyes

of the exploited working class and thier families. Compelling. Written in 1954 but still timely.

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LibraryThing member jfslone

This is one of the most impressive works to ever come out of the Appalachian genre. Arnow manages to breathe life into her characters, and the reader feels just how desperate they are to adjust to their new lives in Detroit. Until the very last page of the very last chapter, I found myself

anxiously rooting for this family, and horrified at the horrors they had been subjected to in their lives. The interactions between the characters are so real that you nearly feel guilty for eavesdropping on their private discussions! Heart wrenching and realistic to its core!

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LibraryThing member ldeem

American Wife lent me a new perpesctive of the public figure. I found many insights into the complexities of being a first lady in this novel that I probably would not have come up with on my own. Being a lefty, dare I say that I could at many times empathize with the Blackwells? Other times I

found myself muttering obscenities. Whatever one's political view, the book is great!

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LibraryThing member CatieN

This is American fiction at its best. The main character, Gertie Nevels, is the strongest, most independent woman and mother I have ever "met" in a book, and I use quotes, but this is such a well-written story, with the author using the regional dialiect when the characters were speaking, that I

feel like I did meet Gertie. World War II is raging, and Gertie and her husband and five children live in the hills of Kentucky farming on rented land, but Gertie's dream is to buy her own farm, and she has been saving for that day for many years, not even telling her own husband Clovis because she is afraid he will requisition the money for a new truck. Soon after Clovis heads off to join the Army, Gertie receives a windfall from her beloved brother who died serving in the war. But just as she is about to purchase her farm, circumstances and guilt (due to a, I suspect, mentally ill mother but that's another story within the story) force her to join Clovis in Detroit. The Army chose not to take him, so he found a job in a factory. What follows is a harsh life for Gertie interspersed with tragedy. Detroit was a boom city then but did not hold much appeal for a country girl from Kentucky, and Gertie faces many hardships: harsh weather, debt, lack of food, prejudice against "hillbillies," corruption, violence. The children also face numerous challenges going from the backwoods life to city life. Gertie is a survivor though and fights hard for her family and remains hopeful for the future. This was an excellent read and also a good history lesson that left me grateful for all the luxuries we have in America today.

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LibraryThing member KimSalyers

came in the mail yesterday. it is really a good book to read. a must read for everyone

LibraryThing member KimSalyers

came in the mail yesterday. it is really a good book to read. a must read for everyone

LibraryThing member TheLibraryAnn

I read this as a teen, and I have thought of it so many times through the years, about a woman at the mercy of cruel circumstances, trying to retain her dignity and strength through a creative act. She is always last after caring for others. I finally searched it out and added it here, to remind me

to look for a copy to reread. I will update my review then. For now, I'm giving it a 5 star rating, because it has stuck with me all these years, while some "classics" fade in my memory.

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