I found it hard to put this one down, it was so powerful. Gertie is such a strong character. This book shows exactly how hard a life many lived in the cities and how close to disaster families could be.

An epic family saga that grips you from start to finish; truly deserves it's "classic" status

I thought The Dollmaker was great. I wasn’t sure what to expect but found myself pleasantly surprised. This was a tough book to read and I had to put it aside at times because it upset me so much. The Dollmaker is a bleak, depressing at times, quite dark book and there are some graphic moments that even I found a bit upsetting. I loved the way the book contrasts the rural and urban experience, everything rural comes across as good and everything urban is awful. This shouldn’t work and should be predictable but the author pulls it off. Impressive. I found the dialogue a but touch because it’s written in Kentucky hill dialect but the whole novel is so intense this never got to be an issue. The Dollmaker is intense and should be to dense to enjoy but something about it really appealed to me. It reminds me a lot of Joyce Carol Oates especially her Wonderland Quarter series. I’d highly recommend The Dollmaker.

An American classic re-discovered.

Gertie Nevels, married to Clovis and mother to five children, lives in the countryside around Ballew, Kentucky. They move from farm to farm when crops need sowing or reaping. She loves the life but hates the uncertainty that this lifestyle brings. She has been saving every dime possible so that she can buy a farm that has recently come onto the market. In fact, she’s already paid the money for the farm. Unfortunately, this takes place in the middle of WW2 and Clovis has left for Detroit to work in one of the factories making goods for the war. Gertie is shamed into asking for her money to be returned by her God-fearing mother who makes her give up this dream and move to Detroit with the children to join her husband.

I can understand why this book is an American classic and why Vintage Press have republished it. Harriette Amow has written the story in the language of those who others would have referred to as “Hillbillies”. I found it difficult at first to read it in this format, but am pleased I persevered because the power of the language used, creates a very powerful story.

Gertie is a tall, awkward woman, with her only education being gained from the bible. However, dig deeper and you find that this woman has been somewhat brainwashed (by her mother) into thinking that the bible is the only book worth reading and that life must be lived by obeying its teachings. Behind this we find out that Gertie is a creator of beauty by turning a chunk of wood into something beautiful. She had learnt how to whittle wood by watching her father - a man who can’t stand up to his wife’s overbearing character and finds solace in slipping off to his barn where he can find peace creating something out of a piece of wood.

Gertie wanted to find that same peace; instead she has had to learn how to cope with life in the cramped housing that had been hastily constructed to home the men and their families who had moved to Detroit to work in the factories. She also finds that Clovis has taken to living on credit – buying a car, fridge and furniture before she arrives. This credit, that all the families live on, comes back to haunt not only Gertie and Clovis but many of their neighbours when the workers go on strike.

I think that what I found most depressing was Gertie having to give up her dreams of peace and security that the farm could have provided and instead she and the children find themselves exposed to all the pitfalls that living in a town can bring. The lack of privacy, the bullying, the petty fights that break out in the neighbourhood. But worst of all is waking up every morning with the regret that her dreams have not been or ever will be fulfilled.

I found myself questioning whether women’s rights have ever really moved on since that time. Yes, they hold down important high-powered jobs. They try for equality in the workplace and at home, but what really happens to all the dreams and aspirations they had as young girls growing up? Even in the cases where the women become the sole breadwinners and the husbands take on the role of house-husband, does she go home at night with a big smile saying “This is what I dreamt about when I was growing up! I’ve managed to achieve what I set out to do”, or does she still have that “mother-guilt” when her child gets sick, but she has to get to work, or she misses their concert because she has to work late?

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

Book supplied by Netgalley for an honest review.

Harriette Arnow's The Dollmaker, first published in 1954, was set during the last months of the second world war. With the current rise of economic migration, this story about the clash of cultures is as relevant now as it was seven decades ago. The Nevels, 'hillbillies' from rural Kentucky, struggle to 'adapt' and make sense of the industrial and cultural tensions of Detroit's projects that exploded to cope with the war production.

The writing, though often wordy, is heartfelt. Phonetically spelt dialogue, and the sensitive well-formed cast of characters draw you in; their struggles are felt, their journeys are personal.

Like Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, the Dollmaker immerses the reader in the minutiae of living under conflict, under poverty, and the fear of whatever the future may be bring. This is a long book, over 600 pages in printed editions, and by the end you understand and sympathise with all the characters, even those you despise.

Hopefully one day the Dollmaker will be recognised for the classic that it is.

When I first started this book I wasn't sure I could persevere with it. The lead character Gertie and her family are "hillbillies" from Kentucky and the dialogue is written using their way of speaking which is, at times, difficult to follow. However, I am so glad I did! The book was touching, tragic and really made me think about what is really best for us in life. Gertie was a content, but very poor, housewife struggling to raise her family and her main aim was to get together enough money to buy their own farm. When her husband Clovis is sent to Detroit to work in the war factories her dream collapses as she has to follow him. Their life then becomes so different from how it was before, they have more money but get caught up in the spiral of debt and Clovis becomes dangerously involved in the violent union strikes. The move to Detroit has tragic results for one of the children and Gertie's complete breakdown after this is written so em pathetically that I could have cried along with her. This is not just a story of a simple family, it makes one look at what we really want or need to be happy in life.

I couldn't finish this title I couldn't get into the story. It started well and I was intrigued. But after reading for a while I realized I was wrong and didn't finish it.

I had not heard of this book before I was sent a copy. What a depressing tale of very strong characters. Based in Detroit at the end and just after the 2nd world war the book describes the appalling living conditions families had to endure. She is forced into this role despite wanting to live off the land in Kentucky. I did find the book slightly rambling in places and the plot moved at a slow pace although this could be construed as reflecting the slow life that the characters lived.

It is Mothers’ Day here in the UK, although the featured mother above is very American – and the book, a classic, is almost unknown here.

Gertie has to be one of the great fictional mothers, bringing up her children in great hardship, trying (along with her husband Clovis) to do her best for them. She is forever worried for them, concerned, trying to defend them and save them. The book starts with an astonishing scene on the backroads of Kentucky, where she is desperate to get a seriously ill child to the doctors – she somehow forces a reluctant army officer to take them into town, but along the way performs an emergency tracheotomy on the child. It is an opening unlike any book I can think of. She is shown in all her strength, a woman who will take on the US Army to save her child.

She and her family are poor farmers in a remote part of the state, but they are happy, and she has hopes and plans to own their own land. During the War her husband goes to Detroit to work in a factory – eventually she is pressured to follow him, though this means giving up all her plans.

In Detroit she lives in a housing project, an alley full of different families, all of them clearly drawn for us, and we follow their lives for the next couple of years, with endless ups and downs (mostly downs, tbh). Gertie has a talent for wood-carving, and she makes the dolls of the title to try to get money for the family. She is also forever looking at a large chunk of wood she has been treasuring for years, not sure how best to carve it.

There is much discussion of child-raising in the book - the mothers in the alley have very varied ways of parenting, and it is fascinating to read, and to see that all the current discussion and variations were in full flow back then.

There’s also a woman who wants a housecoat (subject of much Clothes in Books discussion recently) for Christmas –
‘She’d set her heart on a housecoat she seen in a window at American Credit.’
‘With flounces and a lot of gold?’ Mrs Anderson asked.
Max nodded, glad, ‘He must a got it. Full-skirted, swishy?’

Online there is a reference to ‘a club for people who could only read The Dollmaker once’, and you can totally understand that. The book is a masterpiece, it is heart-wrenching and beautiful and quite extraordinary. But  one section of the book is so tragic that if I were to read The Dollmaker again I would most certainly skip it. It is too much.

It is not a heart-warming story of happy communities – it is probably a very truthful picture of neighbours who are fighting one minute and forced to help each other the next. There is no avoiding the grinding poverty, the fears about money, the paper-thin walls that mean everyone knows your business.

We also get a brief portrayal of a very difficult mother-daughter relationship: Gertie’s mother is only in a couple of scenes, but jumps off the page as a certain kind of person, complaining the whole time and never happy. It is she who pushes Gertie to leave the land and join Clovis in Detroit.

And that leads me onto my only criticism: the book shows the city as being totally bad, and it is constantly being compared unfavourably with living on the land. There are no benefits allowed for Detroit, and that does seem unconvincing and unrealistic. The scales are tipped by the author, so that the move to the city is shown as entirely dark, and as putting an end to the family’s hopes and dreams. But it's hard to believe that dirt-farming has no downside...

But somehow it is compelling and gripping, and not as depressing as it might be. I realize that doesn’t sound like much of a recommendation, but I thought it was a wonderful book. John Steinbeck is feted as a great author in this area, but to me this book is better than any of his.

It is being re-issued now, and I hope it gets the attention it deserves both in the USA and in the rest of the world.

Gertie is a great Bible reader, so I hesitate to correct her, but I wonder if she actually meant the daughter of Jephtha (rather than Jethro) in the passage above.

Previous Mothers' Day entries have included books by Dodie Smith, Angela Carter, Arnold Bennett, GB Stern - and also a Guardian piece on Bad Mothers. Click label below to see more.  

The picture is by the incomparable Dorothea Lange, photographic chronicler of 30s America. So although it was taken in 1936, a few years before the book’s setting, I thought this looked like Gertie and one of her children. It shows ‘Jewish-American farm mother, Mrs. Cohen, wife of the farm manager’ in New Jersey, and is from the NYPL.

A novel which will keep you simultaneously hooked and devastated throughout, as we learn page by page about the turbulent and traumatic life of Gertie, a hard-working and strong wife and mother. The opening of the book thrusts the reader straight into the action with Gertie dramatically rushing to save the life of her young son, showing she is willing to go to any lengths to ensure that happens and this sets the scene for a novel that never lets up until the very end. From this moment, the reader is left in no doubt what kind of character Gertie is: determined, strong-willed, self-sufficient - in short, a survivor, no matter what the odds are against her.
Throughout the novel, Gertie is faced with test after test, but nothing can break through her resolve to survive - and she is sorely tested often: a selfish and thoughtless husband, a cold and uncaring mother, and countless worries about her children, all with a backdrop of a tough and meagre life to get through. The one way she feels able to survive is because she has her homelife with her family, which she is immensely proud of, and her dream to own their own land and live off their own profits - a dream she is within a moment's grasp of... when she is forced to give it all up and follow her husband to an industrial nightmare in Detroit - something she hates from the very first day and something she never comes to terms with.
The trials and heartbreaks Gertie is forced to endure cause immense upset for the reader and it is impossible not to will her through it all to the very last page, though there are times when it seems she has lived through the impossible. Gertie's story will keep any reader gripped to the bitter end and it is worth every moment spent reading it.

Reviewed on Goodreads and mygoodreads.co.uk

This is a fine example of a novel that is both bleak yet inspiring. The attention to detail, even in the face of truly awful events, was amazing to read. Gertie is a formidable character and though I found this challenging - there's only so much suffering you can read about - I truly feel this will stay with me for a long time in the future.

Gertie is a commendable, resourceful, talented character who tries to keep things ticking over and make the best of things despite her dire circumstances. I found the book rather slow moving, long winded and rambling in places. Even though it added authenticity I struggled with the dialogue. It's poignant and depressing but that's how it was in those dark days. Thank you for letting me read it.

Not being familiar with this classic book, I was amused to find, after reading the first harrowing section, that I'd seen the film version with Jane Fonda many years ago. Our lead character, Gertie, has dreams which are shattered by the events of the Second World War. She moves with all her children to Detroit for her husband's war work. Drama and tragedy invade their new unusual urban way of life.

The dialogue is an interesting read, especially for a non-American, with its Appalachian country drawl and simple sentence structure. Characters are well-developed and the book is compulsive reading. It is well worth a look although as the afterword tells us: it is depressing.

Imagine a female-centered meld of The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists and The Grapes of Wrath, set in Kentucky and the working-class projects of Detroit during World War II, and you have the vaguest sense of Arnow’s lost classic, written in 1954 and now reissued by Vintage.

This massive, powerful, graphic, often lyrical and cumulatively tragic portrait of wife and mother Gertie Nevels trying to raise her children and hold her family together despite the contradictory impulses of her marriage, has the epic shape of a nineteenth-century Victorian novel. Realistic and finely detailed, it is shot through with high drama, indeed begins – heart-stoppingly – in that manner as Gertie fights for one of her children’s lives.

Although she will be derided by the Detroit natives as a hillbilly, Gertie is a strong, powerfully-rooted, not especially articulate countrywoman with exceptional skills. She can grow vegetables, smell weather, kill and joint a pig, chop the most obdurate log and, most special of all her gifts, whittle wood into miraculous dolls, crucifixes, animals and much more. One of the strongest, most eloquent metaphors in the novel is her work on a great block of word, an effort to release the spiritual presence within it.

Born to farm, Gertie’s greatest ambition is to set up herself, her husband Clovis and their five children on their own piece of land, in a sound house, within their own community. And this dream of life, made concrete in the form of The Tipton Place, is almost within her grasp when pressure from Clovis, Gertie’s own mother and convention force her to abandon it. It’s wartime, Clovis has been called up but is now working in a factory in Detroit, earning decent money, and the pressure is for his wife to pick up sticks and join him in the accommodation he has found.

Arnow’s description of living conditions in industrial Detroit is Dickensian. The noise, the squalor, the pathetic government housing and impossible weather – all are evoked grimly yet not to the exclusion of an element of appreciation. The place hums with elements of neighbourliness, and the life force. But for Gertie, the new home comes at a terrible price. Not only has her money for The Tipton Place started to be spent, but their miniscule apartment has stripped her of her rural capabilities and instincts. In Detroit she begins to fail – as a shopper, a cook (using modern appliances and food she hasn’t grown herself) and as a hillbilly, assailed by the bigotry of teachers and others.

Widening her lens, Arnow folds more and more into her story in its urban setting – financial corruption, religious intolerance, racism, consumerism, union coercion, police violence, class. The book, previously rooted in rural poverty, morphs into a noisy, vibrant portrait of the urban working class, following a swelling cast in a large, shifting panorama of American industry. Gertie and her neighbours are in a constant battle to maintain financial security, decency and childcare, helping each other out when circumstances permit and permanently assailed by the larger circumstances not of their making.

Nevertheless it’s Gertie’s long trajectory of loss, suffering and adjustment that drives the story and compels the reader. While Arnow may linger excessively on the clamorous scenes of Detroit, her portrait of Gertie, the countrywoman with limited education but an unmatched instinct for the earth, weather, farming and creativity, dominates the book.

Nor is there a happy ending for Gertie, cast out of her dream of paradise and now dwelling within ever-tightening parameters of financial need. Inarticulate she may be, but her character, her pain and her self-sacrifice render her eloquent and monumental.

As American tragedies go, Arnow’s is a major work, strangely overlooked. How did Virago Modern Classics miss this one? Whatever the explanation, its re-emergence now deserves attention and wide dissemination.

The dollmaker by Harriette Amow.
Gertie is the young mother of five children – uneducated, determined, strong. Her only ambition is to own her own small farm in the Kentucky hills where she lives, to become self-sufficient and free.
Whenever the struggle to live off the land eases, her inarticulate imagination takes its freedom and flies. Because Gertie is also an artist, a sculptor of wood and creator of beautiful handmade dolls.
When the family is forced to move to industrial Detroit, with its pre-fab houses, appliances bought on credit and neighbours pressed in on every side, life turns into an incomprehensible, lonely nightmare. Gertie realises she must adapt to a life where land, family and creativity are replaced by just one thing: the constant need for money.
This was a slow but good read. 3*. Very confusing for me. I voluntarily reviewed an advanced copy of this book from netgalley.

Astounding find of what feels,like a classic - demoralising despite the incredible energy and life force of Gertie, its central figure - she fights for her children has creative urge she expresses in her whittling of wood to make beautiful objects: dolls. But it's way time, and children her into traffic and sometimes fatal terrible. The final decline is the move to Detroit forced by his mother to follow her husband despite satisfying work on a farm - in sight of buying her own place. In Detroit working in factories and scrabbling for scraps of food and money, the family is further driven apart and to ruin. It's depressing but masterful and I was glad for Joyce Carol Oates final word which lifted me up and helped me associate this novel's importance. It is utterly gripping.

A terrific and engaging story that haunted me long after I turned the final page. Loved it!!

Haunting and tragic... this book tells the story of an Appalachian family forced to move to Detroit for work during WWII. Gertie, the central character, can never let go of her love for her land, and she never fits into life in Detroit. Painful losses, harsh realities, prejudice all make it difficult.

The book is beautifully written and full of rich imagery, both real and symbolic however at times i did struggle to understand some of the Dialect but thats because i am British and had to slow down the reading, never the less it dis not spoil or detract from the message this book was portraying. Highly Recommend!

Tragic and beautiful in equal measure. Highly recommended.

Harriet Arnow’s name is not very well known now but on the basis of this book certainly deserves to be. It’s the compelling and moving story of a country woman, Gertie Nevels, deeply rooted in her native Appalachia, Kentucky, who harbours a life-long ambition to own her own farm and live independently. But when her husband Clovis moves to boomtown Detroit she and the children are forced to follow him. In the 1940s Detroit was expanding rapidly due to the war, but the individuals who flocked there had no share of the profits. They were valued only for their economic worth and any hopes of a better life soon become subsumed into a harsh struggle merely for survival. The American Dream, it soon becomes apparent, is not attainable for everyone. It’s a powerful novel, a searing indictment of rampant capitalism, and Gertie’s plight is harrowing. Nevertheless, it’s a book I appreciated rather than enjoyed. Most of the dialogue is in country dialect, which although not difficult to understand and indeed very necessary for the book’s authenticity, became rather wearing after a while. I didn’t really relate to the characters, although Gertie herself is a memorable one. I simply didn’t feel fully engaged with the any of them. However, it’s a searing portrait of industrial America and well worth reading.