Comments on: Seeking some novel recommendations

Question: Seeking some novel recommendations

Countess Elena — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:21:27 -0800

Looking for recommendations for novels, short stories, or character-heavy nonfiction about life as an American adolescent boy or young man during the first half of the 20th century.

I'm looking for books that have either stood the test of time or been well-reviewed recently, and were not particularly written for a YA audience (although in recent years, they might have been). What I want is more insight about what it was like to be that kind of young man. Although I am particularly interested in the 1920s, I would certainly take it up about other years.

I'm a little embarrassed that I can't figure out how to research this myself. Right now, I can think of two examples: Catcher in the Rye and John Updike's "A&P." (And, yes, they were both assigned to me in high school, and I hated both of those boys. That's why this question is about boys, and not girls; I could answer it myself if it were.)

By: MonkeyToes

MonkeyToes — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:33:20 -0800

The name that immediately sprang to mind was Horatio Alger, who turns out to be a little early for your question. Still, I think that plenty of young American boys would have been reading his novels in the early 20th century. It might turn out to be useful to you as a comparison to later depictions of boyhood.

From the Horatio Alger Society: "Horatio Alger, Jr. (January 13, 1832 – July 18, 1899) was a prolific 19th-century American author, best known for his many formulaic juvenile novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of respectable middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty. He wrote over 100 books, and his stories, poems, essays, and songs appeared in countless periodicals. His "rags-to-riches" stories have had a lasting impact on the American culture and many well-known authors were greatly influenced by his works."

By: scratch

scratch — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:39:25 -0800

Try the Studs Lonigan trilogy, by James T. Farrell. It's about an Irish Catholic boy in Chicago in the very early decades of the 20th century. It's a masterpiece of the naturalist school of fiction.

By: scratch

scratch — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:41:46 -0800

Also try Knock on Any Door, by Willard Motley, which takes place during the Depression.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:46:02 -0800

Have you read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay?

By: Uniformitarianism Now!

Uniformitarianism Now! — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:50:04 -0800

The group of stories collected in "The Red Pony," by John Steinbeck, are about a boy's journey into adolescence during the 1930s.

Although it is not primarily about ponies, and much more about the relationships between boys and men, growing up, and the relationships between people and animals in the context of ranch life in the 1930s, the linked stories also contain unsparing depictions of at-home animal health interventions of the era, and some vivid descriptions of animals in distress, if that is something you would find difficult reading.

By: Countess Elena

Countess Elena — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:53:21 -0800

Thanks, guys -- these are great so far. I might add that I'm asking because I'm trying to develop some fictional characters who are 16-18 in the 1920s, and I feel I need more insight.

By: ostro

ostro — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:54:48 -0800

Try This Side of Paradise (F. Scott Fitzgerald's first huge hit, about WWI-era upper-class youth, considered totally zeitgeist-defining by his contemporaries) and Updike's Olinger Stories (very very different from A&P, this is about the only Updike I can stand).

By: willnot

willnot — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:55:49 -0800

The Lacuna starts out in roughly that time period although it follows the main character throughout his life. It also goes back and forth between Mexico and the US with most of his youth spent in Mexico.

By: Bourbonesque

Bourbonesque — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:57:54 -0800

Nonfiction - try Canoeing with the Cree, about a 1930 canoe trip by two high school boys, where they travelled from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay.

By: shibori

shibori — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 10:08:58 -0800

You need Booth Tarkington. Try Seventeen.

By: Decani

Decani — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 10:19:30 -0800

Call it Sleep, by Henry Roth.

By: MonkeyToes

MonkeyToes — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 11:15:15 -0800

Related: Popular American boy names 1920s.

Also, this short piece from Ray Bradbury, on discovering science fiction, contains this marvelous passage (1931): "I memorized all of "John Carter" and "Tarzan," and sat on my grandparents' front lawn repeating the stories to anyone who would sit and listen. I would go out to that lawn on summer nights and reach up to the red light of Mars and say, "Take me home!" I yearned to fly away and land there in the strange dusts that blew over dead-sea bottoms toward the ancient cities."

Many of his works have a wistful nostalgia for his 1920s childhood in Waukegan, Ill. Wikipedia notes: "Perhaps the most definitive usage of the pseudonym for his hometown, in Summer Morning, Summer Night, a collection of short stories and vignettes exclusively about Green Town, Bradbury returns to the signature locale as a look back at the rapidly disappearing small-town world of the American heartland, which was the foundation of his roots." Slightly off your timeframe, but possibly useful.

Do you have a locale in mind?

By: likeso

likeso — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 11:53:43 -0800

Adding a specific to MonkeyToes' piece: Dandelion Wine. Not science fiction (with the possible exception of the chapter about the Happiness Machine - great prescient criticism of American media messaging), it is a completely beautiful evocation of a 12-year-old boy's summer in 1928.

By: anaximander

anaximander — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 12:00:23 -0800

You might want to check out A Separate Peace. It's set in the 1940's, but it would be a good one to try if you're interested in an adult character looking back on his youth.

By: trip and a half

trip and a half — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 12:11:56 -0800

Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing might be of use.

By: trip and a half

trip and a half — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 12:14:29 -0800

Also: yes, Tarkington! Good call, shibori.

By: apparently

apparently — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 12:15:20 -0800

Mark Childress' V is for Victor is dripping with 40s-boy detail and lots of fun to boot.

By: ClaudiaCenter

ClaudiaCenter — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 12:51:04 -0800

Chaim Potok? The Chosen is set in 1940s Brooklyn. My Name is Asher Lev is set slightly later. Beautifully written, both.

By: Rash

Rash — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 13:16:34 -0800

You really want some Stephen Meader. He wrote 44 wonderful books between 1920 and 1969, all with adolescent boy-protagonists -- once well-known, and found in every library's Juvenile-Young Adult section, now he's forgotten. Check your used bookstore (if you're lucky) -- otherwise, Southern Skies has now republished them all. (It's a small press which is mostly print-on-demand.) Many are nautical, and most are set in 19th and even 18th Century America but a few were up-to-date, those fitting your parameters are:

T-Model Tommy
Blueberry Mountain (and the sequel, Snow on Blueberry Mountain)
Shadow in the Pines
The Sea Snake
The Long Trains Roll
Behind the Ranges
Bulldozer
Sparkplug of the Hornets

The Buckboard Stranger, and
Stranger On Big Hickory

...and of these, I think The Buckboard Stranger would be best. (Fans of Bradbury's Dandlion Wine and Something Wicked... would also like that one, I think.)

By: stowaway

stowaway — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 13:19:52 -0800

What about Black Boy by Richard Wright? It's his autobiography, from his childhood through his very early 20s, and it covers exactly the time period you are interested in. I loved this book when I was a teenager, but I'm a woman ...

By: gudrun

gudrun — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 14:58:13 -0800

Winesburg, Ohio, possibly? It's set in the teens, rather than the nineteen twenties, but it might work.

By: MonkeyToes

MonkeyToes — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 15:56:14 -0800

My apologies if this is not relevant, but in searching around for answers to your question, I stumbled upon Henry William Gibson's (wonderfully-titled) "Boyology, or Boy Analysis" (1922) and thought you might find it a useful look at what at least one adult thought boys were like/should have been.

By: JimN2TAW

JimN2TAW — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 17:34:21 -0800

Paul's Case, by Willa Cather

By: taltalim

taltalim — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 21:02:19 -0800

Stoner goes through the entirety of one man's life, and while and his adolescence was largely uneventful, it is difficult for me to describe how beautiful and incredible this novel was.

By: unsub

unsub — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 21:46:32 -0800

William Maxwell's So Long, See You Tomorrow and The Folded Leaf.

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow.

By: Countess Elena

Countess Elena — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 06:58:15 -0800

This is terrific! I have some Fitzgerald and Farrell from the library to start with. Thanks again!

By: outlandishmarxist

outlandishmarxist — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 10:14:10 -0800

Dos Passos, USA Trilogy

By: kristi

kristi — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 16:59:21 -0800

This is a little late for your time frame, but I really enjoyed Growing Up by Russell Baker - this is a non-fiction memoir, and he was born in 1925. The descriptions of his childhood - especially the jobs he held as a child - were vivid and moving.

By: Rash

Rash — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 18:09:36 -0800

Thought of another, more recent and "not written for the YA audience"-- ever heard of Ferrol Sams? He wrote an auto-biographical trilogy about a guy named Porter Osborne growing up in Georgia in the 'teens and 20s. The first two are Run with the Horsemen and The Whisper of the River, highly recommended.