What book is this? Set early 20th century, widow with a BNB.
December 2, 2015 12:16 AM Subscribe
Can anybody help me find this novel? I don't know the author or title.
English language, published in the USA before 2006, probably published before 1960; possibly considered a classic. Description of a scene given below the cut.
(The following text is quoting somebody who asked my help finding this book.)
The setting is early twentieth century. An old woman runs a guesthouse in the country, and a young girl finds herself on hard times and must work for this old woman. The old woman treats her terribly, runs a very tight and tidy house, and is recently widowed. The girl initially figures the woman is in pain from her lost husband, but as the story progresses she realizes that the husband beat her and treated her terribly. She's glad he's dead. The woman has been mean and curmudgeonly for years.
So finally, dramatically, the young girl loses her shit and screams at the old lady, "What is WRONG with you? You hate me, you hate this house, you hate our guests, you hated your husband, and your children can't stand to be around you. Is there anything you ever loved?" The old woman instantly looks tired... ancient, and shambles over to a screened-in sitting room and sits in a chair. The girl sits across from her in a high-backed chair and the old woman starts talking.
"Even in the early days I knew that (husband) was going to be bad for me. That's a tough realization for a young woman with young children. I found joy in the guests who came through here... but there was a man who came through periodically for several years. He was a traveling salesman of some sort and we were very much in love. He had a wife and family, and I had husband and family. Things never went the way they usually do in situations like ours, but we would sit on this porch... much like we are now... and talk for hours and hours into the evenings. Eventually he stopped coming. They changed his route."
"Did you ever look for him? What was his name?"
The old woman gazed wistfully off the porch and sighed with a smile, "I don't remember."
(That's all I've got, folks. Thanks again!)
(The following text is quoting somebody who asked my help finding this book.)
The setting is early twentieth century. An old woman runs a guesthouse in the country, and a young girl finds herself on hard times and must work for this old woman. The old woman treats her terribly, runs a very tight and tidy house, and is recently widowed. The girl initially figures the woman is in pain from her lost husband, but as the story progresses she realizes that the husband beat her and treated her terribly. She's glad he's dead. The woman has been mean and curmudgeonly for years.
So finally, dramatically, the young girl loses her shit and screams at the old lady, "What is WRONG with you? You hate me, you hate this house, you hate our guests, you hated your husband, and your children can't stand to be around you. Is there anything you ever loved?" The old woman instantly looks tired... ancient, and shambles over to a screened-in sitting room and sits in a chair. The girl sits across from her in a high-backed chair and the old woman starts talking.
"Even in the early days I knew that (husband) was going to be bad for me. That's a tough realization for a young woman with young children. I found joy in the guests who came through here... but there was a man who came through periodically for several years. He was a traveling salesman of some sort and we were very much in love. He had a wife and family, and I had husband and family. Things never went the way they usually do in situations like ours, but we would sit on this porch... much like we are now... and talk for hours and hours into the evenings. Eventually he stopped coming. They changed his route."
"Did you ever look for him? What was his name?"
The old woman gazed wistfully off the porch and sighed with a smile, "I don't remember."
(That's all I've got, folks. Thanks again!)
The woman in your story runs a boarding house - it was a common profession for women back in the day.
Could you be thinking of A Girl of the Limberlost? Many details don't match, but it is a classic and there is a mean and crabby mother who had a bad marriage living with an adolescent girl where the long conflict in the story is the older woman clinging to her bitterness.
posted by Jane the Brown at 2:56 AM on December 2, 2015
Could you be thinking of A Girl of the Limberlost? Many details don't match, but it is a classic and there is a mean and crabby mother who had a bad marriage living with an adolescent girl where the long conflict in the story is the older woman clinging to her bitterness.
posted by Jane the Brown at 2:56 AM on December 2, 2015
Strange, my first thought was another Canadian, Margaret Laurence. Her novels often feature female characters whose stories are seldom told.
(The scene described made me think of Hagar Shipley in The Stone Angel, but I don't think she ever ran a boarding house.)
posted by Short Attention Sp at 5:13 AM on December 2, 2015
(The scene described made me think of Hagar Shipley in The Stone Angel, but I don't think she ever ran a boarding house.)
posted by Short Attention Sp at 5:13 AM on December 2, 2015
It's not A Girl of the Limberlost, I've read that many times.
posted by antiquated at 11:52 AM on December 2, 2015
posted by antiquated at 11:52 AM on December 2, 2015
Response by poster: Agreed, it's not A Girl of the Limberlost, and not The Stone Angel.
posted by Taisto at 7:50 AM on December 4, 2015
posted by Taisto at 7:50 AM on December 4, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by andrewcooke at 2:49 AM on December 2, 2015