THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE ARKANSAS OZARKS

by Donald Harington ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 30, 1975

From ""shit fire"" to the ""bees' knees,"" from sunup to sundown over the course of 150 years, and from the time when Jacob Ingledew and his less effectual brother Noah walked 600 miles from Tennessee to the Arkansas Ozarks where they established the little community, Stay More--Donald Harington has recreated a pioneer saga as sturdy as that native sycamore. A regional/ historical reflection of America growing upward and outward and ultimately downward from the first ""bigeminal"" or ""duple"" house to the Dinsmore hovel of the Depression; from Conestoga wagons to gristmills; from the early solitary survival--picking greens and hunting razorbacks--to the slow progress of the Stay Morons as they acquired a schoolhouse and a church and a merchandise store. People, let alone a story, don't figure much except for the blue-eyed progenitor Jacob or the one equally durable Yankee peddler who keeps coming and going and finally stays. All down to the last generation when one boy, with five sisters before him, is left to carry on the Ingledew name and legacy of ""great achievements"" after the decline and dispersal of the settlement. Harington's rustic Americana has a heart as big as all outdoors, a sometime humor, and a tenacious admiration. It is also full of fascinating ""facks"" from the bergu (a stew of 500 squirrels) to the endemic, debilitating flakes which give you the ""wearies."" They might overtake you unless you join Harington in the spirit with which he has written this prodigious commemorative. For some it may serve as a reassuring nostalgia trip particularly at a time when we are more than ever willing to be mortgaged to the past.

Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1975

ISBN: 1592640737

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1975

Categories: FICTION