Now in November

Tough times down on the farm. It's a Depression year and farmers are just barely scraping by, but this year troubles are compounded by a relentless drought. The Haldmarne family, ruled by a hard, somewhat tyranical father, try to survive, and barely do. Tragedy shows its face in the character of one of the three daughters, Kerrin, who is filled with anger and sets herself apart from her family; after a blowup with her father and the hired man Grant, she commits suicide. The mother dies in a fire. Another tragedy, quieter though just as painful, is revealed in the unrequited love the narrator Margret, another daughter, has for Grant, who goes away after Kerrin's death. Johnson writes a chiseled prose that is unsentimental and direct, and it works well with her subject matter. "All I want is a chance to live without shoveling out everything I can earn," says Haldmarne at one point. It was the universal cry of the farmer during the Depression. Johnson's book depicts those times well.

Josephine Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize for 'Now In November' in 1935 at the age of 24. This was her first novel. It is a shortish work, running all of 231 pages, but what fills these pages is astonishing. Powerful and wise, wrenchingly real, 'Now In November' immerses the reader into a world harsh and unforgiving during a time of trial and drought, rendered through a poetic prose that cuts to the quick. The narrator is Marget, a quiet soul who sees all and feels deeply yet cannot utter what fills her mind and her heart ~ and therein lies her fatal flaw. Marget seeks solace in the woods and hills and the small beauties of nature, finding loveliness where she can even as the world around her agonises from lack of rain. Despite the drought, work on the farm is unrelenting, rounds of planting and milking and incessant hoping for rain ... and always, always running beneath this a continuous fear and worry to make the mortgage and meet the debts. Adding to the worries of farm and weather is eldest daughter Kerrin, beautiful but dangerously insane. Her erratic behaviour hones a razor edge to all that the family endures. Everything comes to a head when a hired man arrives and falls in love with the youngest daughter, Merle. Merle is the most resilient of the three sisters ~ hearty, jolly, loud and opinioned, the antithesis of her sister Marget. Kerrin immediately sets her twisted sights on Grant in a wildly unhinged manner which proves her complete undoing. Behind the scenes, scarcely noticed, Marget loves Grant with a hopeless, mute, soul-cracking love; she can only stand by helplessly as Grant suffers from his own unrequited love. Merle does not love Grant, she loves the land and her mother and her father and her sense of duty; there's no room in her heart for more. Marget has the room, she'd welcome Grant unreservedly, but dares not suggest her feelings to him as she understands she'd never fill Grant's emptiness ~ the void that only Merle would satisfy. One night a fire starts on the farm, ravishing more than land and crops. The mother is mortally injured, and Kerrin finally succumbs to the dark demons in her mind. Grant, cast adrift amongst the wreckage, arrives to a final, permanent decision. After that nothing is the same. Yet, the land remains, and the farm, and the debt. And Merle, to bear her burdens and work like a man. And Marget, who in the end loses the most but must endure, refusing to believe that this is the end. She says as much. 'And if this is the consolation of a heart in its necessity, or that easy faith born of despair, it does not matter, since it gives us courage somehow to face the mornings. Which is as much as the heart can ask at times.' Almost breathtaking in its honesty, this is a truly remarkable novel written by a genuine talent. Johnson attended Washington University from 1926 to 1931. In 1955, Washington University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Humane Le

Josephine Johnson captures the spirit of life of so many dirt-poor farmers of the economic depression of the 1930's. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of 1935 was published at the very depth of this sad time. I was transported by the magic of her writing to the point I found it difficult to put the book aside until I had read it all. I recommend this book as reading for all who want to feel the anguish of the people living and struggling in this difficult era. This is not a light-hearted tale but rather an all-too-real portrait of life at the edge of hope.

Everyone I ask about this book has never heard of it. I am flabbergasted on why noone has ever read Now in November! This piece of work is beautiful, enchanting and most of all in tune with the human condition. It goes beyond the usual depiction of the dust bowl era and portrays what it means to yearn for knowledge and seek out pleasure when it is cruely restricted. This novel completely deserves a Pulitzer Prize just for the poetic language alone. Josephine Johnson, girl you should be proud!!!