Synopses & Reviews
Between the Flowers is Harriette Simpson Arnow's second novel. Written in the late 1930s, but unpublished until 1997, this early work shows the development of social and cultural themes that would continue in Arnow's later work: the appeal of wandering and of modern life, the countervailing desire to stay within a traditional community, and the difficulties of communication between men and women in such a community.
Between the Flowers goes far beyond categories of "local color," literary regionalism, or the agrarian novel, to the heart of human relationships in a modernized world. Arnow, who went on to write Hunter's Horn (1949) and The Dollmaker (1952)her two most famous workshas continually been overlooked by critics as a regional writer. Ironically, it is her stinging realism that is seen as evidence of her realism, evidence that she is of the Cumberlandan area somehow more "regional" than others.
Beginning with an edition of critical essays on her work in 1991 and a complete original edition of Hunter's Horn in 1997, the Michigan State University Press is pleased to continue its effort to make available the timeless insight of Arnow's work with the posthumous publication of Between the Flowers.
Synopsis
Between the Flowers is Harriette Simpson Arnow's second novel. Written in the late 1930s, this early work shows the development of social and cultural themes that would continue in Arnow's later work: the appeal of wandering and of modern life, the countervailing desire to stay within a traditional community, and the difficulties of communication between men and women in such a community.
About the Author
Born in Wayne County, Kentucky on July 7, 1908, Arnow lived on a farm near Ann Arbor, Michigan for most of her life. Arnow attended Berea College for two years (1926 - 1928) before completing her degree in sciences at the University of Louisville (1930). She then taught school in both Louisville and in Pulaski County, Kentucky before moving to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1934 in order to concentrate on her writing.
Supporting herself at various times as a waitress, a library clerk, and as an assistant for the Federal Writers\' Project, Arnow produced several essays and her first novel, Mountain Path, which she published as Harriette Simpson in 1936. In 1939, she married Harold Arnow; they purchased a farm in the Daniel Boone Forest where they lived as writers and farmers.
By 1944, the Arnows had moved to Michigan where Harold was a reporter for The Detroit News. In 1949 Hunter\'s Horn was published, followed by The Dollmaker (1954), Seed Time on the Cumberland (1960), Flowering of the Cumberland (1963), The Weedkiller\'s Daughter (1970), The Kentucky Trace (1974), and Old Burnside (1977).
Arnow also published numerous articles and pamphlets and was an active instructor in the Appalachian Writers Workshop held annually at the Hindman Settlement School. Arnow died on March 21, 1986 and was buried at her farm at Keno in Pulaski County, Kentucky.
- Courtesy, Kentucky Konnections