|
The Home Place
Copyright © 1966
by Dorothy Thomas
U of Nebraska P
|
As a writer of the short, pungent tale, Miss Thomas can have but few superiors.
Her work is firm and disciplined. She makes the richest possible use of such
details of midwest agrarian life as she chooses so economically. —
Saturday Review of Literature
A realist of no mean order, as Ma Jeeter's Girls showed, [Miss Thomas's] work
has humor, warmth, a kind of homely solidity. — New York Times Book Review
Miss Thomas tells the story with keen insight and sympathetic understanding,
supplementing her picture with an authentic background and an eye for detail
which vivify the whole narrative. &151; Christian Science Monitor
It is only when the story is finished that the reader realizes he has actually
been living for a year in a very small house with an extremely large and united
family-and that his understanding has been greatly enriched by the experience.
— Boston Transcript
|
|
Ma Jeeter's Girls
Copyright © 1999
by Dorothy Thomas
U of Nebraska P
|
Ma Jeeter, a sensible and hearty farm woman, tells the stories of the courtships
of five daughters to the schoolteacher who boards with her. Ella, Bell, Lena, Laura,
and Lizzie all got bitten and burdened early, thanks to the bumblebee of love. Now
her youngest, Evie, is coming home to be married, and everything is as it should be.
The Jeeters are based loosely on a funny, goodhearted family that Dorothy Thomas
lived with in her schoolteaching days. H. L. Mencken, the famed editor, author,
and critic, encouraged her to write these vignettes about them. Original pen and
ink drawings by the author have been added to this edition. — from the jacket
Full of pawky observation and robustious humor. The central character, Ma Jeeter
of the Nebraska wheat country, stands out brilliantly in the round, and there is
quite as much reality in her six unfortunate daughters, all of whom save one get
to the altar only a lap or two ahead of the midwife. — American Mercury
Miss Thomas's Ma Jeeter is a never failing delight [in] her gusto, humor, and
native good sense. — New Republic
Miss Thomas tells her story with charming humor and real understanding. ...
Ma Jeeter and each one of the girls become lovable and live, in her vivid phrases,
without any appearance of exaggeration. — New York Times
|
What the Critics Say
Bibliography
