An enjoyable book with some lovely imagery and a few interesting insights into how we are shaped by and push against the spoken and unspoken expectations of society and family. ( )

While I grew up in the southern US, I have spent much of my life in the western states. I have met and grown to know well many people who grew up in this part of the country. Perhaps as a result, I have developed a real affection for stories of the West, everything from Steinbeck to Stegner to McMurtry and Haruf. Wright Morris has always been on my list, but this is the first I have read by him. I will say that there is nothing romanticized about Morris' take on pioneering of the West. Cora, the heroine, seems to be made from or made for the time and place, tough and she expects to work from pre-dawn to dark, but she also is always looking to improve life for herself and her family. Plains Song rings true for me in its depiction of Cora and of time and place. ( )

A slow paced and well written story of a family dominated by women atthe turn of the 20th century to the 1980's. Post-frontier farming in Nebraska was the setting for the lives of the Atkins family. The ties to the east, the immigrants,

The connection to the land were all part of their life's tapestry. Even the simpliest of lives told well is a good story. ( )

I didn't like this book. I couldn't follow the time line, some of the characters seemed to age at different speeds. None of the men were appealing and the woman characters didn't make sense.

3217. Plains Song / For Female Voices, by Wright Morris (read July 10, 1999) This won the National Book Award for 1981, and is much easier reading than the only other thing I've read by Morris, The Field of Vision, which I read in May and which won the Award for 1957. This book is laid in Nebraska and covers from the 1880s to the 1970s. The men (as contrasted with the women) are usually boors. The book is well-written, I thought, and the reading was
enjoyable, tho I suppose I missed some "deepness." This brought to 32 (of the 52) National Book award winners read by me. ( )