Reviews for ---and ladies of the club

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Toward the close of this 1176-page saga, a young writer--fired by tales of family history--plans a book: ""A long one, covering several generations of life in a midwestern city. . . an answer to Sinclair Lewis, whose Main Street had made her so angry."" That ""long book,"" of course, is the one that Santmyer, now 88, has been writing for decades, the one that has already received so much attention in the press. And it is indeed an answer to Sinclair Lewis: while Main Street's Carol Milford refused to see much worth in the cultural underpinnings of small-town, conservative mid-America, Santmyer celebrates those values--while following the densely intertwined lives of the established First Families in Waynesboro (southern Ohio), 1868-1932. The club of the title is the literary Waynesboro Women's Club, which--with its 15 (never more) elected members--provides a frame for Santmyer's remarkable mirror-image of the Élite mores, prejudices, and avocations in a prosperously bubbling town. Through the decades the Club's In Memoriam list grows longer; new members are elected; careful in speech and manner, the women preserve a judicious decorum among themselves and their families--smoothing abrasive edges of feuds, jealousies, and fierce religious differences. Despite domestic crises galore (adultery, straying children, suicide), the women cope, trusting in discretion, loyalty, or silence; they continue to meet, read their critical papers, and entertain their amused, patronizing hubbies--echoing the men's involvements with Republican politics, economic depressions, far-off wars, the threat of unions. And, though Santmyer gives close-up attention to a 60-year parade of spinsters and matrons, two proliferating families receive the steadiest focus: the clan headed by Sally Rausch and her husband Ludwig, a cordage-works owner and Republican committee-man; and the Gordon family, with patriarch Dr. John (a G.A.R. veteran) and matriarch Anne--a charter-member of the Club who keeps her secrets (John's illegitimate child) and survives through everything. Without question, some readers will be put off by Santmyer's uncritical portrait of these First Families--who despise Irish Catholics and shockingly-stereotyped blacks. (At age 82, Anne rails against the ""white trash"" who voted FDR into office.) But the evocation of period politics is densely fascinating; set-pieces--like a torchlight parade for Grant--have the authentic glow of family memories; the dynasty webs are seductively entangling. And, if only intermittently exciting and often more peculiar than likable, this is an undeniably vivid re-creation of one American past--with a strong view of Main Street by a long-time resident who saw only its noblest side. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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