Book Review: Winter Wheat

I can't imagine why, in all my years of high school, college, and graduate school as an English major, I had never heard of Mildred Walker. Her writing is entirely along the lines and quality of Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner--OK, maybe not quite as spectacular--but pretty darn close. So why isn't she included in American Lit anthologies/reading lists? Why aren't we teaching her when we study the American West or the impact of WWI and II? I have no idea. All I can say is that if I were teaching American Lit again, I would seriously consider including Winter Wheat on our reading list.

But back to the book. Winter Wheat tells the story of Ellen Webb, a young woman born and raised on a wheat farm in Montana, during a 2-year span of her life. Ellen has spent an idyllic childhood on the farm, loved by her parents and completely satisfied with ranch life. She is a hard worker on the farm but desires a college education. With a good crop, her parents are able to send her to college in Minnesota, where she quickly falls in love. As Ellen says, "I hadn't meant to fall in love so soon, but there's nothing you can do about it. It's like planning to seed in April and then having it come off so warm in March that the earth is ready."

Ellen's troubles begin when Gil comes to Montana for a visit, and Ellen begins to see her parents and herself in a whole new way. She is painfully aware of her mother's foreignness (she's from Russia) and her father's sickness, and she convinces herself that they are trapped in a loveless marriage.

The story is beautifully written. Ellen is a tremendously likable character. I loved her romanticism mixed with a healthy dose of sensibility. Mr. and Mrs. Webb are also extremely well-drawn, memorable characters., and Walker's descriptions of Montana are wonderful, as well. This is one of my favorite books so far in 2008.

The Sunday Salon: Vacation Reading

Just one of the many fabulous parts of vacation is the huge amount of time I can devote to reading. Most of my vacation reading takes place during the car trip; in this case, the trip was a total of 16 hours round-trip, and I probably read for 10-12 of those hours. Dr. H. likes to listen to an audiobook; my teenager reads, sleeps, and listens to his iPod (sometimes all at the same time); and the younger two alternate between watching DVDs and playing.

Growing up, car trips were much different. For one thing, my father liked to wake us up around 2 a.m. to get started on a trip. In those days before carseats and mandatory seatbelts, we kids had the luxury of traveling with the seats folded down in the back of our big blue station wagon, sunk deep in a pile of blankets and pillows. Also, my mother heavily dosed us with Dramamine (even though we weren't prone to car sickness), so we slept pretty much the whole way, awakening every few hours for a groggy rest stop. When we did clear out of our drug-induced stupor, we sang. My parents would start with old college fight songs (University of Illinois) and head into "Clementine," "I've Been Working on the Railroad," and "Waltzing Matilda" (which I learned around age 12, by the way, is the correct title for what I always thought was "Walt and Matilda"). We rarely stopped to eat; my mother packed sandwiches, oranges, and possibly a treat or two. I desperately wanted to toss the ham sandwich out the window then in favor of McDonalds back then; now the thought of McDonalds makes me cringe.

But I digress. While I do have fond memories of traveling as a child, truthfully, we kids probably slept the majority of our trips and my mother probably sat in her seat reading while my father drove. Just like we do now. And so I managed to read four books during our four day vacation: John Grisham's The Appeal (my review here), the hilarious Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank by Celia Rivenbark (my review here), Alice McDermott's lovely Child of My Heart (my review here), and the beautiful Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson, which I've not yet reviewed. Except for the Grisham novel, the reading was exceptionally good and satisfying.

I'm now reading Mildred Walker's Winter Wheat, which so far is wonderful--very reminiscent of Willa Cather's My Antonia. This week I'm planning to get my TBR list finished and up on my blog solely so that I can have the satisfaction of publicly crossing off books as I read them. I'm not sure what that says about me, except that I'm one of those people who likes to cross things off of lists. Probably I will even list books that I've read recently for the sheer pleasure of the crossing-out process.