WINTER WHEAT

by Mildred Walker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 20, 1943

This has so much to recommend it that it may seem pettifogging to limit enthusiasm by acknowledging that it is unduly slow-paced, almost to the degree of laboring the point. Ellen's roots were deep in the Montana wheat country where she was raised. On the rise and fall of the wheat market rested her future-- education, chance to escape the world her mother, Russian born, loved -- her father, even after years, rebelled against. She had her chance -- went to Minneapolis to the University -- and met Gil, and learned that his was a world apart from hers. It was not until he came West and she glimpsed her own world through his eyes, and sensed his fearful withdrawal, that she acknowledged defeat. Her mother -- in his eyes -- was a peasant; her father -- a failure -- despite his Vermont background; her very adequacies a barrier; and the drea of hate engendered by loneliness was too much for him. He ran away. And Ellen accepted failure, sought self-sufficiency in a year teaching a prairie one-room school, and only when that, too, failed her, did she find again the soundness of her own foundations in her parents' bond of understanding that had buried a false start. Psychologically, an interesting study in personalities. Historically, and regionally, a convincing panel in American life -- time, just before the Second World War.

Pub Date: Jan. 20, 1943

ISBN: 0803297416

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt, Brace

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1943

Categories: FICTION