Margaret Wilson (1) (1882–1973)

How do some of these books win the Pulitzer? Among the earlier ones, some just don’t wear well because the subject matter becomes outdated, but this isn’t one of those. This is a seriously underwhelming and ordinary book. It is not a bad read, there are parts of it, particularly those that describe the difficulties of this rural life and the environment, that are beautifully done.

Tears were running down Isobel McLaughlin’s face as she finished. Though she never doubted that God was infinitely kind, she wondered at times why that something else, called life, or nature, should be so cruel.

It isn’t that you cannot understand what Margaret Wilson hopes to achieve with this novel. She would like us to think about the nature of revenge and forgiveness. She intends, I think, to highlight the responsibility of the strong to the weak, the nature of self-sacrifice. She means to promote Christian values.

She is not particularly effective in her efforts, because she is strangely inconsistent. Her main character is a young man by the name of Wully McLaughlin. Wully returns from the Civil War to find things at home are not as he left them. Wully is, by turns, very strong, determined and angry, and very weak, wavering and sentimental. I had a hard time reconciling the early image of the young soldier with the later images Wilson paints. At the end of the book, I had little sense of who Wully really was.

There are chapters of little or no forward movement, in which, I assume, we are expected to build some affinity with the characters. Sadly, for me, this did not happen. There is an almost side narrative that seems to never fit within the main storyline. Reactions are overblown to the point of hyperbole, and often do not seem to fit with the situation. I found some of the feelings of the characters simply impossible to understand, not the least of these being those of the young girl who is at the heart of the plot.

In my final complaint, I wonder what world-shaking activity Margaret Wilson felt she had to run off to when she wrote the ending to this novel. After building to what should have been a climactic end, she simply folds her tent and exits with a whimper. I’m sure Wilson intended to show Wully struggling with himself and his feelings, but what was left to me was a confused sequence of antithetical emotions that seemed unrealistic, if not impossible. I felt faintly dissatisfied.

Had this book not won the Pulitzer prize I would have simply counted it as a mediocre read. One cannot help expecting more from a Pulitzer. Not every winner is a winner.
… (meer)

The setting of this post Civil War novel is the farm lands of Iowa.

Wully McLaughlin returns to his family's farm after escaping from the Confederates, where he had been taken prisoner. He relives his experiences in the War and finding his brother's body, frozen in the snow. The memories and experiences are reminiscent of "The Red Badge of Courage."

While at home, Wully visits a neighboring farm and Christie McNair. With the war and the emptiness of the surrounding area, Christie is lonely. She and Wully spend time together and share their first kiss. They come to an understanding that after the war, there will be a marriage.

When the war ends, Wully can't wait to see Christie again but when he does, she won't look him in the eye and makes plain that she doesn't want to see him. This shocks Wully and he does't know what to make of it.

He returns to her farm, secretly to see if he can learn more and finds her sitting on her front porch, in tears.

Unable to figure things out, he's on the road home when he meets Peter Keith, one of his cousins. He asks Peter if he knows why Christie is acting the way she is. Peter becomes very agitated and finally admits that he spent time with Christie when Wully was away and asked her to marry him. They have a heated discussion and Peter leaves the area in a cowardly manner.

Wully finally gets that Peter has made Christie pregnant and she is ashamed. The novel then goes into what he does to let Christie know that she is the only one for him and that he'll make thngs right. This is a well told portion as we see the strick moral view of the farmers and the compassion that Wully's mother has for her son and his wife.

The novel does meander and is overly long but offers a good description of frontier life and the struggles that farmers were going through in the cold, Iowa winters.

There is a particularly entertaining segment when a farmer who became a widower, returns to Scotland to find a new wife. He marries a woman of wealth and when she arrives at her new husband's farm, she finds that he had been living in little more than a sty. Her approach to imporving the home to make it inhabitable is memorable.… (meer)