Theodore PrattBesprekingen

Heroes

So cute!!

Actually, reading serialized in the Milwaukee Journal.

This is a pretty light look at service in WWII, and it lends itself well to serialization. Since it's so short, I imagine the minimal suspense comes across better in small doses. When Mr Winkle does, finally, make it to war, the action is over almost as soon as it starts.

I enjoyed reading the rest of the paper almost as much as the story. I'll definitely be spending some more time in the 1940s of Google News!

Usually my summer reading books are boring but this one ended up being pretty good. Throughout the book I got to see things from a different perspective, that yes developing can be good but it can also backfire, making people lose their jobs.

Grandchildren favorite plus grest adult fun too.

The novel takes place in the 1920's - 1930's, and the main character, Zona, is astoundingly naive, as I suppose some young women were at that time. Still, the story of a woman's struggle with the dreaded problem of nymphomania seems quite dated.

The story is sensational - affairs with married men, adultery, troubles with a corrupt vice squad, and a stint in a women's prison. I hope it is not an accurate picture of its issues at that time, because Zona truly is hopelessly lost and 'tormented.' Would have made a good pre-code women's melodrama, possibly with a young Joan Crawford.

I had forgotten how much we enjoyed this book, bought in 1985, as a beautiful re-binding of a paperback in a very long-established independent bookshop in Oviedo. A light-history, written as a novel but closely following the facts – there really was a celebrated character who had the job of walking the mail between Palm Beach and Miami, along the coast; as the interior of Florida was then impenetrable (and the beaches open and un-developed too. Sigh!)

Some of the adventures seem more like the old-fashioned ‘tall tales’ - but surely, crossing Florida swamps with their common population of snakes, bug and gators was hardly an every-day chore for the mailman. Incredibly it was a reliable service too.

Great reading, particularly if you live in the cracker-state itself, but sadly, impossible now to recreate the route.

Fascinating historical fiction about the Florida real estate boom of the 1920's. A terrific read though sadly out of print.

The most harrowing description of a hurricane ( twelve pages long ) in all of Florida literature is found in The Big Blow/My Bride in the Storm.

Also made into a play produced by WPA Federal Theatre Project in NYC, 1938. Wade Barnett moves from Nebraska in the 1930s with his ailing mother and feisty Aunt Jane to try to save his mother’s health. He buys a farm near the town of Chobee and contends with the harsh land and weather conditions as well his hostile Cracker neighbors. The novel culminates with a monster hurricane that blows away his enemies after he has saved his neighbor Celie’s farmhand, Clay, from a lynch mob. Good picture of rural Florida in the 1930s.½

Steven Pierton takes on the route of the Barefoot Mailman from Palm Beach to Miami. On his first trip he takes along a young boy, Adie, who turns out to be a young woman, Adela Titus, with whom he falls in love. The hurricane’s early winds blew away a wreck and blew in barrels of Spanish wine. “This was only the advance warning of the hurricane whose center was located somewhere far out over the ocean. Where this was, what exact direction it was taking, could only be conjectured. It might arrive tonight, tomorrow, or the next day in all its fury. It might veer off to remain at sea, pardoning the land and allow it peace again” (140). Steven got drunk during the salvaging of the wine barrels, and his friend Jesse, took over his route – birth, death, politics, revenge, and love ensue.½