APPLE IN THE ATTIC

by Mildred Jordan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 1942

Once more a background of Pennsylvania, but this time tapping the rich vein of the Pennsylvania Dutch for a fascinating story of a strange marriage. It lacks the romantic flavor of One Red Rose Forever, but there is more of creative imagination and characterization and a better sense of plot. Against an authentic background of a way of life, with its richness and its poverty, with its superstitions and traditions, with its warped moralities, she tells the story of a handsome, stubborn farmer, and the cowed little wife who loved him but lived in daily terror of his angers. He was stingy to the point of obsession, and the climax came when her forget fulness cost him $2 in the market, and he vowed never to speak to her again. Their marriage limped along, communication helped first through his talking to the dog, later to a parrot. Emma was heartbroken over her childlessness; Jacob thought she was deliberately avoiding childbearing, and his anger grew bitter and cruel when he found the doll she cherished and later caught her going in secretly for hex charms, in terror of what she thought was a tumor growing within her. Their child is born -- and fills their heart -- but the finale, the result of the child's natural demands, is a grim story of just retribution. Good regional material, in an expert hand.

Pub Date: Sept. 8, 1942

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1942

Categories: FICTION