This evening I glanced at my bookshelves, shrunken from a recent disposal of some seven hundred volumes, but still robust with eight or nine hundred more, and selected three novels whose protagonists are both female and heroic. They are not heroes like Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games, but are instead women who face up to everyday struggle and disaster with verve and grit.
These are marvelous stories. Two of them I’ve taught--Good Morning, Miss Dove for its plot and its language, and I Capture The Castle for the same—and the third book, Larry McMurtry’s Moving On I include because it should be better known among readers familiar with Lonesome Dove, because of its portrait of a young woman marrying and becoming a mother, and because the writing style is remarkable.
These are marvelous stories. Two of them I’ve taught--Good Morning, Miss Dove for its plot and its language, and I Capture The Castle for the same—and the third book, Larry McMurtry’s Moving On I include because it should be better known among readers familiar with Lonesome Dove, because of its portrait of a young woman marrying and becoming a mother, and because the writing style is remarkable.
Francis Gray Patton’s Good Morning, Miss Dove tells the story of a school teacher in a small town and of her influence on the lives of her students, many of whom appear as adults in the town. Miss Dove—the name is ironic—is one of those teachers who are hard on the outside, but who possess a heart of gold. Even when the students leave her classroom, she continues to command their respect, literally, and they return her admonitions and directives with love and respect. Good Morning, Miss Dove is elegantly written, as if Miss Dove herself were the author. There are scenes in this novel where you may need some tissue handy. http://amzn.to/2emNO7w
I Capture The Castle offers up a lively seventeen narrator named Cassandra and her observations about her eccentric family in Britain before World War II. Listen to the opening paragraph: “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosey. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have sat before can be inspiring—I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn’t a very good poem. I have decided my poetry is so bad that I mustn’t write any more of it.” A fine novel about young love and old, growing up, writing, and the glories of being just a little different. http://amzn.to/2emTKgN
Larry McMurtry’s Moving On was published in 1970, years before he became famous for his Lonesome Dove books and other Western novels. This fat novel, which runs to almost 800 pages, tells the story of Patsy Carpenter, a young woman living in Texas about the time McMurtry wrote the novel. Here you will find great characters, a moving tale of a vivacious woman, and the struggles of various people with relationships and work. I read this book twenty-five years ago and feel in love both with Patsy and with the rhythm of McMurtry’s sentences. The tart-tongued, saucy Patsy with all her troubles is someone I still revisit from time to time. http://amzn.to/2fq7SXA
(An aside: my own novel, Amanda Bell, features a female protagonist. Several of my friends, male and female, asked why I chose Amanda as the main character. I have no real answer. Perhaps they should ask why Amanda chose me). http://amzn.to/2fkY967
Best wishes and happy reading!
If you enjoyed this piece, please like and share. If you decide to order one of the books, or find out more about them, copying or pasting the link at the end of each short review will take you to Amazon
I Capture The Castle offers up a lively seventeen narrator named Cassandra and her observations about her eccentric family in Britain before World War II. Listen to the opening paragraph: “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosey. I can’t say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have sat before can be inspiring—I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn’t a very good poem. I have decided my poetry is so bad that I mustn’t write any more of it.” A fine novel about young love and old, growing up, writing, and the glories of being just a little different. http://amzn.to/2emTKgN
Larry McMurtry’s Moving On was published in 1970, years before he became famous for his Lonesome Dove books and other Western novels. This fat novel, which runs to almost 800 pages, tells the story of Patsy Carpenter, a young woman living in Texas about the time McMurtry wrote the novel. Here you will find great characters, a moving tale of a vivacious woman, and the struggles of various people with relationships and work. I read this book twenty-five years ago and feel in love both with Patsy and with the rhythm of McMurtry’s sentences. The tart-tongued, saucy Patsy with all her troubles is someone I still revisit from time to time. http://amzn.to/2fq7SXA
(An aside: my own novel, Amanda Bell, features a female protagonist. Several of my friends, male and female, asked why I chose Amanda as the main character. I have no real answer. Perhaps they should ask why Amanda chose me). http://amzn.to/2fkY967
Best wishes and happy reading!
If you enjoyed this piece, please like and share. If you decide to order one of the books, or find out more about them, copying or pasting the link at the end of each short review will take you to Amazon
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