1919: A Kansas Tale

by Dorothy Dierks Hourihan

In Dorothy Dierks Hourihan's 1919--A Kansas Tale , the reader is presented with a convincing picture of life in a small town in Kansas in the years following World War I.  The main character, Nan Heath, starts the story by watching the bodies of her parents and sister being removed from their burnt-out home.  Nan's progress from these bitter depths is the main current of the book.  Her relationship with Ned and their eventual marriage is a classic love story full of awakening and triumphs. 

95 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2010

Reviews

[Rebecca Shively · Rating 5 out of 5]

I happened to pull this book out at the library and thought it seemed interesting since my husband and I recently moved to Kansas. While it does need a bit of editing I thought it was a delightful story about a few generations of people and a small town.

[Kara Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very slow. I had a hard time getting through it.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a classic case of "don't judge a book by its cover." I picked this up off the shelf at the library expecting a cute Americana historical fiction type of book. I was in for a disappointment. The writing style was stiff, awkward and disjointed. I kept thinking that maybe the style would improve as the book went on, but if anything it got worse. Plus, it kept jumping around between the stories of three generations, seemingly at random. Even when it did stick to the story of one generation, it jumped around so much throughout that person's lifetime that it was difficult to figure out if the stories were occurring in the present, or the past. It was confusing at best, and there were several parts that I had to reread 3 or 4 times before I figured out what the author was actually trying to convey.

Mixed in with the erratically-flowing stories of these three generations were big blocks of text that seemed to just be relaying cut and dry facts about the time period. It just seems that this is not how historical fiction was meant to be written; so many historical fiction books incorporate the facts and information seamlessly into the story, and it just seemed like with this book the story would be put on pause to give you a history lesson.

Add to that a couple of unnecessary (and random) sex scenes written in that same awkward and stilted language. It was pretty horrible. I've read a couple romance novels along the way, and some other stories that happened to have some rather amorous parts, but this one takes the cake for awkwardly written love scenes.

Also, the author obviously has a great love of art that she attempted to incorporate into the book, but unless you were also interested in art you wouldn't have any idea what half the terms she used were. It really just seemed like the author was throwing out as much complicated art terminology as she could to sound intelligent - I don't think she considered her audience. Even being interested in art myself and familiar with the terminology, it seemed like most of the complicated references were unnecessary.

I really didn't like this book very much, but I gave it an extra star for the neat use of color in the author's initial description of the fire that burned the main character's house down (the only part of the book I really cared for), and the few neat sketches scattered throughout the book. It also had quite a bit of historical info that was interesting, even if the way it was presented was sub-par. Those few things combined earned it an extra star.