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Whistle Stop
Now back in print — Maritta Wolff's 1941 masterpiece about small-town Midwestern life in post-Depression America.
Whistle Stop, published to rave reviews and astonishing commercial success, is the story of the Veech family, an oversize, poverty-stricken tribe trying to make good in a cruel world.
Through the course of a punishingly hot summer, we experience life with the six children and three adult Veeches as they bicker, brawl, make up, and provide titillating morsels of scandal for the neighborhood.
A work of darkly comic grotesque, replete with shades of Flannery O'Connor, Whistle Stop is also a wrenching and earnest rumination on the tragedy of thwarted love.
Whistle Stop, published to rave reviews and astonishing commercial success, is the story of the Veech family, an oversize, poverty-stricken tribe trying to make good in a cruel world.
Through the course of a punishingly hot summer, we experience life with the six children and three adult Veeches as they bicker, brawl, make up, and provide titillating morsels of scandal for the neighborhood.
A work of darkly comic grotesque, replete with shades of Flannery O'Connor, Whistle Stop is also a wrenching and earnest rumination on the tragedy of thwarted love.
371 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1941
6 people are currently reading
404 people want to read
About the author
Maritta Wolff
14 books7 followersMaritta Martin Wolff Stegman (December 25, 1918 – July 1, 2002) was an American author.
She was born on December 25, 1918 in born in Grass Lake, Jackson County, Michigan. She grew up on her grandparents' farm and attended a one-room country school. Wolff was a senior at the University of Michigan when she wrote a novel-length story for an English composition class that won the 1940 Avery Hopwood Award, a university prize for excellent writing, worth $1,000. Whistle Stop is a seamy tale of the Veeches, a shiftless family living in a whistle-stop town near Detroit. The novel, depicting incest, violence, and containing much more vulgar language than was usual at the time, was published the next year by Random House. That Wolff, a mere 22-year-old, was the author of so hard-boiled a novel gave her an instant notoriety, and Whistle Stop became an immediate best-seller, going into five editions and a special armed forces edition. Yet the book was not without literary merit, Sinclair Lewis calling it "the most important novel of the year."
Wolff's second novel, Night Shift, attracted more critical praise, especially for its dialog. Over the next 20 years she wrote four more best-selling novels. Always a private person who shunned publicity, Wolff, in 1972, refused her publisher's request to go on a promotional tour for a recently finished novel, Sudden Rain, and as a result the novel was never published during her lifetime. At that point she evidently ceased writing fiction.
While at the University of Michigan she had met and married a prolific young writer, Hubert Skidmore, who published six novels before he was 30. Skidmore died in a house fire in 1946. In 1947 Wolff married a costume jeweller, Leonard Stegman, by whom she had a son, Hugh Stegman.
After Wolff's death, the manuscript for Sudden Rain, which had been kept safely in her refrigerator for the last thirty years of her life, was published (along with re-issues of Whistle Stop and Night Shift) to much acclaim.
She was born on December 25, 1918 in born in Grass Lake, Jackson County, Michigan. She grew up on her grandparents' farm and attended a one-room country school. Wolff was a senior at the University of Michigan when she wrote a novel-length story for an English composition class that won the 1940 Avery Hopwood Award, a university prize for excellent writing, worth $1,000. Whistle Stop is a seamy tale of the Veeches, a shiftless family living in a whistle-stop town near Detroit. The novel, depicting incest, violence, and containing much more vulgar language than was usual at the time, was published the next year by Random House. That Wolff, a mere 22-year-old, was the author of so hard-boiled a novel gave her an instant notoriety, and Whistle Stop became an immediate best-seller, going into five editions and a special armed forces edition. Yet the book was not without literary merit, Sinclair Lewis calling it "the most important novel of the year."
Wolff's second novel, Night Shift, attracted more critical praise, especially for its dialog. Over the next 20 years she wrote four more best-selling novels. Always a private person who shunned publicity, Wolff, in 1972, refused her publisher's request to go on a promotional tour for a recently finished novel, Sudden Rain, and as a result the novel was never published during her lifetime. At that point she evidently ceased writing fiction.
While at the University of Michigan she had met and married a prolific young writer, Hubert Skidmore, who published six novels before he was 30. Skidmore died in a house fire in 1946. In 1947 Wolff married a costume jeweller, Leonard Stegman, by whom she had a son, Hugh Stegman.
After Wolff's death, the manuscript for Sudden Rain, which had been kept safely in her refrigerator for the last thirty years of her life, was published (along with re-issues of Whistle Stop and Night Shift) to much acclaim.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
April 16, 2020
okay, it's time to champion another forgotten author.
it is appalling that i have never written a review for a maritta wolff book before now. thank goodness for paper-writing procrastination, or i wouldn't even be writing it now!
maritta wolff was the ballsiest writer of her time. and so forgotten that some of her books aren't even listed here on goodreads.
it is a massive oversight.
this book is one of three re-issued by scribner's in the early 2000's, and that is the only way i ever would have heard of her. after i burned through those three, i managed to track down all but one of her other books that had not been reissued. but i am almost afraid to read them because of that thing i have where i will feel cast adrift once i run out of them. (fortunately, the one i don't have, i have only ever seen for like 300 bux, so until i feel comfortable spending 300 bux on a single book, it will remain my tamerlane)
this one is just perfect, for me and my particular literary themes and needs. it focuses on a poor family in small town michigan with their long-nursed familial resentments, possibly incestuous relationships, their desires too big for their circumstances, and the force of their personalities.it is at once vast and claustrophobic.
her descriptions are amazing. amazing. i haven't read anyone who made me feel this woeful and downtrodden since steinbeck. but she is this 22-year-old kid writing this in the early 40's - a woman - writing with such furious envelope-pushing strength about things that most women of her time wouldn't have ever touched. it's as though she wasn't even aware that there was an envelope. like angel clare. (wow. what a bookdorky joke i just made. i don't know if i am proud or ashamed)
i often compare her to dawn powell, but it is strictly an affective comparison. powell writes about artists struggling in the greatest city in the world, tough-talking and back-stabbing to get ahead. wolff's characters would be those characters, too, if they could just get to that city. instead, they are trapped in their anonymous towns, infighting and struggling and occasionally gaining ground.
but both she and powell are the most under-read american women of the early twentieth century.
now go and change that. this one and night shift are both readily available and excellent. sudden rain is less good, but anything that sits in a fridge for thirty years is bound to be a little off. yup. that's where they found it. possibly because her first husband died in a fire, and it was her way of protecting it, but she sat on it for THIRTY YEARS!!! and it's okay. not great. a little more soap-opera-y than i like. go with the other two. i will let you know when i read my old fragile editions of her earlier stuff that is so old they don't even have isbns!
and if anyone wants to buy me a copy of the sighing of the heart, i will accept it.i promise.
come to my blog!
it is appalling that i have never written a review for a maritta wolff book before now. thank goodness for paper-writing procrastination, or i wouldn't even be writing it now!
maritta wolff was the ballsiest writer of her time. and so forgotten that some of her books aren't even listed here on goodreads.
it is a massive oversight.
this book is one of three re-issued by scribner's in the early 2000's, and that is the only way i ever would have heard of her. after i burned through those three, i managed to track down all but one of her other books that had not been reissued. but i am almost afraid to read them because of that thing i have where i will feel cast adrift once i run out of them. (fortunately, the one i don't have, i have only ever seen for like 300 bux, so until i feel comfortable spending 300 bux on a single book, it will remain my tamerlane)
this one is just perfect, for me and my particular literary themes and needs. it focuses on a poor family in small town michigan with their long-nursed familial resentments, possibly incestuous relationships, their desires too big for their circumstances, and the force of their personalities.it is at once vast and claustrophobic.
her descriptions are amazing. amazing. i haven't read anyone who made me feel this woeful and downtrodden since steinbeck. but she is this 22-year-old kid writing this in the early 40's - a woman - writing with such furious envelope-pushing strength about things that most women of her time wouldn't have ever touched. it's as though she wasn't even aware that there was an envelope. like angel clare. (wow. what a bookdorky joke i just made. i don't know if i am proud or ashamed)
i often compare her to dawn powell, but it is strictly an affective comparison. powell writes about artists struggling in the greatest city in the world, tough-talking and back-stabbing to get ahead. wolff's characters would be those characters, too, if they could just get to that city. instead, they are trapped in their anonymous towns, infighting and struggling and occasionally gaining ground.
but both she and powell are the most under-read american women of the early twentieth century.
now go and change that. this one and night shift are both readily available and excellent. sudden rain is less good, but anything that sits in a fridge for thirty years is bound to be a little off. yup. that's where they found it. possibly because her first husband died in a fire, and it was her way of protecting it, but she sat on it for THIRTY YEARS!!! and it's okay. not great. a little more soap-opera-y than i like. go with the other two. i will let you know when i read my old fragile editions of her earlier stuff that is so old they don't even have isbns!
and if anyone wants to buy me a copy of the sighing of the heart, i will accept it.i promise.
come to my blog!January 18, 2019
Maritta Wolff opens the door and invites one and all in to meet the Veech family. Personally, I will remain with the Veechs for a very, very, long time.
September 11, 2012
i can't talk about whistle stop without thanking karen for turning me onto maritta wolff, a writer who really should be more well known. check out karen's evangelizing review here. join us, and testify!
here's my hallelujah:
when you read a maritta wolff novel, it feels like she is gently holding your ear against a thin tenement wall of permeable words, pushing you into her world, overhearing her characters, knowing more than what they'd want you to know. she also transmits to you her deep understanding of human character, and ability she has to imbue it in the people she helps you to subsume. the fact that she was 22(!) when she wrote this novel, only makes me beam at the seduction of her prose, and the gravity of her spirit, seemingly wise beyond her years. but there is no other explanation for it.
she conjures with clarity the veech family in all its boisterous devotion, devotion that pushes beyond comfort to disturbingly intimate. i've come to think of them as lolita family robinson although it's imprecise: the little girl in the book is certainly no nymphet, the creepiness of her character and the mysteries around her parentage, and the parentage of those around her spin, the keys that i aim to keep spoiler-free, in this review. i feel pretty sure that what i think is true, is true and if so, yeesh. (non sequitur: and what about the boarder?!? i didn't know what to think!) so there's for why the book reminds me lolita. as for the family robinson: the veeches struggling through life in socioeconomic wreck but with that loving family spirit i connect with the film i saw on wide world of disney. the family really love each other, and they're messed up, sure. but they've been through a lot, and sometimes it's hard to keep still when you can't settle down.
maritta wolff writes with a vivid stroke. i want to read more. i notice little obsessions: trains figure almost as dei ex machina in her books, ready to pitch in to further along her story. did she always do that? i guess i'll see. :)
here's my hallelujah:
when you read a maritta wolff novel, it feels like she is gently holding your ear against a thin tenement wall of permeable words, pushing you into her world, overhearing her characters, knowing more than what they'd want you to know. she also transmits to you her deep understanding of human character, and ability she has to imbue it in the people she helps you to subsume. the fact that she was 22(!) when she wrote this novel, only makes me beam at the seduction of her prose, and the gravity of her spirit, seemingly wise beyond her years. but there is no other explanation for it.
she conjures with clarity the veech family in all its boisterous devotion, devotion that pushes beyond comfort to disturbingly intimate. i've come to think of them as lolita family robinson although it's imprecise: the little girl in the book is certainly no nymphet, the creepiness of her character and the mysteries around her parentage, and the parentage of those around her spin, the keys that i aim to keep spoiler-free, in this review. i feel pretty sure that what i think is true, is true and if so, yeesh. (non sequitur: and what about the boarder?!? i didn't know what to think!) so there's for why the book reminds me lolita. as for the family robinson: the veeches struggling through life in socioeconomic wreck but with that loving family spirit i connect with the film i saw on wide world of disney. the family really love each other, and they're messed up, sure. but they've been through a lot, and sometimes it's hard to keep still when you can't settle down.
maritta wolff writes with a vivid stroke. i want to read more. i notice little obsessions: trains figure almost as dei ex machina in her books, ready to pitch in to further along her story. did she always do that? i guess i'll see. :)
March 17, 2012
This novel of a small-town Michigan family dealing with a raft of challenges during one blistering summer in the early 1940s is remarkable on several levels. The dialogue and social mores are unsurprisingly dated, yet the writing is still fresh and vibrant, all the more astounding for being the writer's first book. Wolff creates each member of the large, beleaguered Veech family so distinctly that each comes alive as a fully formed individual, all flawed in some way, but all heartbreakingly human. With very few differences you could envision such a family living out pretty much the same scenario today. This is a novel that will stay with you; I'm pleased someone rediscovered it and put it into print again.
June 30, 2011
I read this book, written in 1943, as a result of a cool school assignment (for my Reader’s Advisory course). We had to find a truly forgotten author, read one of their books and write a paper convincing readers why they should check out this author. I found this book in the collection of books I inherited from my grandma. I was surprised by the grittiness, and honest depictions of the realities of life in this novel. It touched on subject matter like adultery, children born out of marriage, crime, depression and even incest! Although a long book, I really enjoyed this and would recommend checking out any of these author’s books you can get your hands on.
January 21, 2019
I picked this up on a recommendation from a friend but as I read deeper into the pages of the novel, I realized I was reading for the milieu it creates. Set in the summer of 1939 in a small town in Michigan (for what it's worth, Wolff was born in a small village about an hour west from Ann Arbor), it creates a tableau of the Veech family. Maybe it's a copy cat of the Joad family, the sensational novel that appeared a couple of years before Whistle Stop, but no matter. It stands on its own.
My paternal grandmother would have been 35 years old when this novel was set. I knew her in her older age (she lived to be 100), but I never knew her when she was younger. I could see the world she may have lived in with the dialogue that Wolff has created; I could gain a sense of home life, of town life, the dances, mores, and provincial ways. As a period novel, I gained entry into the past I never knew and I feel like it enriched my relationship with my grandmother (even though she died in 2004). Don't you read books to understand your relationship to other people?
When I arrived at the final pages, it dawned on me that the character, Carl, was most likely Wolff's own voice in this multi-generational family. Carl is a minor character but sees what all the others are doing and saying and Carl insights have the final paragraphs of the novel. I think it remarkable that she wrote this when she was 22 years old.
Initially, it took me a while to gain interest, but by page 70 I was going. Wolff framed the plot to relate anecdotal chapters of the different family members only to weave them back into the cloth later. She doesn't stamp the characters with value judgments but presents their stories straight across. This impartiality allowed me to read it and form my own judgments, much like I would do if I were reading this as an exhibit in an art gallery or a historical museum.
Alcohol pours freely in the book. There is dancing, shouting matches, an attempted rape, a suicide, a shot-gun wedding, brutal murder of a cat by hand, car crashes, guns fired, boredom, and the Michigan heat in summer. Remarkably too, I saw how quickly the characters reacted--they made life-changing decisions in a flash and this reminds me of my family's ancestry too. No regrets. And in the background, the train rumbles with its whistle.
My paternal grandmother would have been 35 years old when this novel was set. I knew her in her older age (she lived to be 100), but I never knew her when she was younger. I could see the world she may have lived in with the dialogue that Wolff has created; I could gain a sense of home life, of town life, the dances, mores, and provincial ways. As a period novel, I gained entry into the past I never knew and I feel like it enriched my relationship with my grandmother (even though she died in 2004). Don't you read books to understand your relationship to other people?
When I arrived at the final pages, it dawned on me that the character, Carl, was most likely Wolff's own voice in this multi-generational family. Carl is a minor character but sees what all the others are doing and saying and Carl insights have the final paragraphs of the novel. I think it remarkable that she wrote this when she was 22 years old.
Initially, it took me a while to gain interest, but by page 70 I was going. Wolff framed the plot to relate anecdotal chapters of the different family members only to weave them back into the cloth later. She doesn't stamp the characters with value judgments but presents their stories straight across. This impartiality allowed me to read it and form my own judgments, much like I would do if I were reading this as an exhibit in an art gallery or a historical museum.
Alcohol pours freely in the book. There is dancing, shouting matches, an attempted rape, a suicide, a shot-gun wedding, brutal murder of a cat by hand, car crashes, guns fired, boredom, and the Michigan heat in summer. Remarkably too, I saw how quickly the characters reacted--they made life-changing decisions in a flash and this reminds me of my family's ancestry too. No regrets. And in the background, the train rumbles with its whistle.
March 2, 2020
I cannot believe I had never heard of this author. I kid you not that reading this novel was very much like reading some kind of blend of Steinbeck at his best and Flannery O'Connor. The characters she has created are vivid and feel so very real. The author was masterful in what she tells and does not tell. I was completely absorbed, and didn't want it to end. Now that it has ended, I'll be seeking out other novels of hers to read.
July 23, 2019
I was engrossed in this novel from the get-go. The characters are written sublimely. The reader has their favorites, and roots for them, and the ones they think are just losers. In a way, this family reminds me of Ma and Pa Kettle. There are six children, and one grandchild. The two oldest, Ernie and Mary, are the only ones that have a job, so I don't know where the money comes from to feed this gang. The mama is overworked and overwhelmed with taking care of this mob, while the father lays around reading, cuz he can't work"for his rheumatism."
Kenny, a grown-up, good-for-nothing son, spends his nights hanging out with the gangsters from the nearest City, ostensibly Ann Arbor, comes home at dawn, and sleeps all day. In his Mama's eyes, he can do no wrong, so we can figure out why he's like that. He's also a woman-user, preferably married ones, who he drops when he's had his fill of using them. One of the women got so angry with him, she purposely drove into a concrete abutment while they were driving together. Mary and Ernie go to see Kenny the next morning in the hospital. Get a load of the lax rules of hospitals in those days:
"They left the automobile in the parking lot and went in the door of the big hospital together. In the vast cool efficient interior, Ernie was plainly embarrassed and out of place. Mary went to the information desk and stated her name and business directly. The crisp, white - garbed woman behind The desk consulted her cards and looked at Mary curiously while she talked. 'Your brother's condition is not really serious Miss Veech. He was unconscious when he came in here, of course. He has some smashed ribs and a broken collarbone and a bump on his head that we can't be sure about until after the x-rays.' " P.128
"The nurse, hovering in the doorway, smiled slightly at his words. 'Can I have a cigarette?' he asked her. 'Just one, please?' 'I think you might, if you want one,' she said." P.132
A young woman who Kenny used to date, a friend of his sister's, is dying from a brain tumor. His sister convinces him to go say goodbye to her before she dies. But on the way there, Kenny sees his sister Mary going into a bar with her boyfriend. This enrages Kenny, and gives us an idea of what's going on under the surface in this story that has subtly-drawn Dynamics. He goes into a restaurant and quickly downs 5-6 whiskies, further fueling his rage. When he continues on into the hospital, he brutally takes out his rage on the dying girl:
"Kenny turned and propped his arm against the door jamb and laughed magnificently. His voice was slurred and careless, and he chose each word with a calculated cruelty. 'Hell, if you ain't one screwy dame all right. You think I can remember back to them days? Maybe you can; I can't. Hell, it was too long ago and I had too many dames since. What do you think? I can't even remember what it was like, having you....' She winced in the bed, and he struck a posture of elaborate thought. 'Nah, I can't remember. I guess you wasn't nothing special. The only ones I ever remember are the ones I like or the ones that are real hot...'
Fran Cope shut her eyes tight. 'Goodbye, Kenny,' she said, 'Goodbye.' P.214
Josie, one of the twin young women of the Veech family, considers herself to be meant for a better life than the poor one she was born into, and is always aspiring to get invited to places with the upper-class set. She gets invited to a dance at the country-club by a young man who her friend sets her up with. As she is riding to the dance in his car, she dreams of him falling in love with her, marrying her, and giving her the life she's sure she deserves. She has a rude awakening when he tries to put the make on her during the dance:
"Josette sat quite still and let him do it, and felt his fingers, cool and delicate, against the arches of her feet. And, strangely enough, she thought again of Pat Thompson with bitter scorn. Never once in a million years would Pat have thought of sand in her shoes, or cared enough to take them off for her. She felt an unspeakable tenderness for Johnny Meredith. Her thoughts turned into rhetorical theatrical praises. She kept saying to herself over and over, 'This night, This moment must never end. This night is love.' Johnny set up again in the seat and put his arm around Josette and Drew her firm up against him, bent her head back against his shoulder gently with his hand. His words were disjointed peculiarly. 'Poor feet! All tired out after all that dancing. Now you can rest. Just relax and rest here, and shut your eyes, and listen to the waves down there on the beach, and the music... ' P. 178-9
This engrossing story was written by the author when she was 22 years old, and makes this reader marvel at the depth of her knowledge of the human condition, and talent for characterization, setting, and ability to depict life in a small Midwestern town in the depression years, at such a tender age.
Kenny, a grown-up, good-for-nothing son, spends his nights hanging out with the gangsters from the nearest City, ostensibly Ann Arbor, comes home at dawn, and sleeps all day. In his Mama's eyes, he can do no wrong, so we can figure out why he's like that. He's also a woman-user, preferably married ones, who he drops when he's had his fill of using them. One of the women got so angry with him, she purposely drove into a concrete abutment while they were driving together. Mary and Ernie go to see Kenny the next morning in the hospital. Get a load of the lax rules of hospitals in those days:
"They left the automobile in the parking lot and went in the door of the big hospital together. In the vast cool efficient interior, Ernie was plainly embarrassed and out of place. Mary went to the information desk and stated her name and business directly. The crisp, white - garbed woman behind The desk consulted her cards and looked at Mary curiously while she talked. 'Your brother's condition is not really serious Miss Veech. He was unconscious when he came in here, of course. He has some smashed ribs and a broken collarbone and a bump on his head that we can't be sure about until after the x-rays.' " P.128
"The nurse, hovering in the doorway, smiled slightly at his words. 'Can I have a cigarette?' he asked her. 'Just one, please?' 'I think you might, if you want one,' she said." P.132
A young woman who Kenny used to date, a friend of his sister's, is dying from a brain tumor. His sister convinces him to go say goodbye to her before she dies. But on the way there, Kenny sees his sister Mary going into a bar with her boyfriend. This enrages Kenny, and gives us an idea of what's going on under the surface in this story that has subtly-drawn Dynamics. He goes into a restaurant and quickly downs 5-6 whiskies, further fueling his rage. When he continues on into the hospital, he brutally takes out his rage on the dying girl:
"Kenny turned and propped his arm against the door jamb and laughed magnificently. His voice was slurred and careless, and he chose each word with a calculated cruelty. 'Hell, if you ain't one screwy dame all right. You think I can remember back to them days? Maybe you can; I can't. Hell, it was too long ago and I had too many dames since. What do you think? I can't even remember what it was like, having you....' She winced in the bed, and he struck a posture of elaborate thought. 'Nah, I can't remember. I guess you wasn't nothing special. The only ones I ever remember are the ones I like or the ones that are real hot...'
Fran Cope shut her eyes tight. 'Goodbye, Kenny,' she said, 'Goodbye.' P.214
Josie, one of the twin young women of the Veech family, considers herself to be meant for a better life than the poor one she was born into, and is always aspiring to get invited to places with the upper-class set. She gets invited to a dance at the country-club by a young man who her friend sets her up with. As she is riding to the dance in his car, she dreams of him falling in love with her, marrying her, and giving her the life she's sure she deserves. She has a rude awakening when he tries to put the make on her during the dance:
"Josette sat quite still and let him do it, and felt his fingers, cool and delicate, against the arches of her feet. And, strangely enough, she thought again of Pat Thompson with bitter scorn. Never once in a million years would Pat have thought of sand in her shoes, or cared enough to take them off for her. She felt an unspeakable tenderness for Johnny Meredith. Her thoughts turned into rhetorical theatrical praises. She kept saying to herself over and over, 'This night, This moment must never end. This night is love.' Johnny set up again in the seat and put his arm around Josette and Drew her firm up against him, bent her head back against his shoulder gently with his hand. His words were disjointed peculiarly. 'Poor feet! All tired out after all that dancing. Now you can rest. Just relax and rest here, and shut your eyes, and listen to the waves down there on the beach, and the music... ' P. 178-9
This engrossing story was written by the author when she was 22 years old, and makes this reader marvel at the depth of her knowledge of the human condition, and talent for characterization, setting, and ability to depict life in a small Midwestern town in the depression years, at such a tender age.
July 17, 2012
Gritty realism- the Veech family is bawdy, brawling and a group of characters to never quite forget. A great piece of writing from an author that needs to be read more.
September 17, 2022
Ambiguous and depressing ending, suggesting that the miserable lives and relationships of this family apparently will continue. Disturbing themes are left unresolved, such as the incestuous relationship between siblings Kenny and Mary and Mary’s illegitimate child Dorothy who clearly has emotional problems that appear to psychotic. The whole relationship with the border Judd was a mystery. He seemingly lives there but contributes nothing to a family that is financially poor. There wasn’t one character in this book that had any redeeming qualities. Even the father, Sam, although having more clarity with regards to his children’s qualities and behaviors is emasculated by his wife Molly. Molly, Kenny, Josie - all vie for being the most obnoxious and unsympathetic characters in the book and Dorothy is just downright scary for a child.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 25, 2025
Whistle Stop by Maritta Wolff (1941, 449 pgs) is an excellent read, a page turner where every time I set the book down I wanted to get right back to it. Wolff, who was 22 when she wrote the novel, crafted a slice-of-life tale that ran the course from Ma & Pa Kettle humor to dark noir with stunning prose (the last paragraph and sentence are a stunner). The story follows the not-so-good, not-so-bad lower middle class Veech family, Ma & Pa and their mostly grown kids...each family member has flaws and is not-so-good, not-so-bad as well. But this contrast sure brings out a lot of character which really pulls you in to the read. In addition to lots of family strife there's also a lot of action which keeps the read right moving a long. Recommended for fans of dramatic novels or noir crime fiction...5.0 outta 5.0...check it out....
July 6, 2017
The story of a family in days gone by. I liked it, particularly the earlier part of the book, especially how the characters' narratives were written. Toward the end, I thought the writing wasn't quite as good, possibly, and not much of an ending.
I recently transcribed my father's diaries. He kept them from 1935 when he was 16 years old living on a farm and going to high school all the way through his days in the US Navy during WW II. He was stationed on an oil tanker ship for most of the war and had time to do a lot of reading while they were at sea. I kept a record of the books he read and their authors. Whistle Stop was one of those books. I enjoyed reading the book and thinking of my father reading it in his hammock on the ship.
I recently transcribed my father's diaries. He kept them from 1935 when he was 16 years old living on a farm and going to high school all the way through his days in the US Navy during WW II. He was stationed on an oil tanker ship for most of the war and had time to do a lot of reading while they were at sea. I kept a record of the books he read and their authors. Whistle Stop was one of those books. I enjoyed reading the book and thinking of my father reading it in his hammock on the ship.
November 5, 2023
Great book. 4.5 stars. Whistle Stop, written in 1941, is a book that is a raw, unflinching book about a "messy" (in today's parlance) family that is set in small town Michigan during the summer before the start of WW2.
Come for the dramas of the Veech family, and stay for how the characters (though not very likeable) suck you into their lives. Once l got the family members figured out (it took a few chapters), l couldn't put it down. Highly recommend!
Come for the dramas of the Veech family, and stay for how the characters (though not very likeable) suck you into their lives. Once l got the family members figured out (it took a few chapters), l couldn't put it down. Highly recommend!
August 6, 2019
I read to page 66, bored by the tale of a sniveling family. Skipped to the end, but even that didn’t pique my interest. I didn’t care about any of the characters or what happened to them and the tale was not enriching my life.
This was popular in its day, but not a classic IMHO.
This was popular in its day, but not a classic IMHO.
July 22, 2019
Good story about a down and out large family making it through their rough and tumble life in a small town in the Midwest.
keep-in-mind
July 25, 2019Added 7/25/19. (first published 1941)
The group Constant Reader will start reading Whistle Stop: A Novel on Thursday, August 01, 2019.
The group Constant Reader will start reading Whistle Stop: A Novel on Thursday, August 01, 2019.
July 22, 2016
Strangely never answered the questions in my mind but well illustrates the inner-workings of a large family. Mother Molly, the head of the household who dishes out compliments and criticism as easily as the food she feeds her dependent grown family. Sam, the father sees their children more clearly but is never able to offer any input with Molly around, so he drowns himself in his reading. Ernie, the eldest son, often called upon for paying bills and little else is slightly peeved because he is not the golden son, it is the lazy, shiftless Kenny who was favored by all. His killer charm allows him to never need to buy his own drink or cigarette, can also turn deadly at times. The beautiful and shadowy Mary, always there when financial help or advice is needed but otherwise mysteriously absent. Twins Jen and Josie couldn't be much more different as they strike out in search of independence and identity. Quiet and lonely Carl is jumpier than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Mary's spooky daughter Dorothy always lurking about, listening to gossip and telling lies. No relationship is more puzzling than the unexplained sweetness between Mary and Kenny. No answers in this book.
April 3, 2013
Maritta Wolff is so under-rated, but this book really makes you question WHY. Her characters are riveting and her dialogue is simply fantastic. She twines the hyper-realistic with unbelievable stories and events.
Oh, one warning -- this book will make you crave a cigarette, if you've ever been a smoker. All the characters routinely light up and her prose makes each cigarette seem delicious! :)
Oh, one warning -- this book will make you crave a cigarette, if you've ever been a smoker. All the characters routinely light up and her prose makes each cigarette seem delicious! :)
October 5, 2013
Such a great set up of story and characters. What a family or "fambly" as Molly Veech says. Molly and Sam Veech and their six children are fascinating and each one of them distinct. We spend a great deal of time getting to know them before anything really happens, them when it does, it's all over. That's why I didn't rate the book higher because I felt unsatisfied by the ending.
April 13, 2011
I think this book is weird. While it is an enjoyable read (especially for a lazy summer day) I still have no clue what happened at the end, even though I read and re-read the ending about three times. Three stars because its an average book.
February 10, 2013
A lot of fun to read. Molly and Sam and their children Mary, Kenny, Ernie, Carl, Josette, Jennifer
and granddaughter Dorothy all live together in one house along with a boarder old Jud Higgins. You soon feel like you know every one of them and it's "game on"...
and granddaughter Dorothy all live together in one house along with a boarder old Jud Higgins. You soon feel like you know every one of them and it's "game on"...
September 6, 2016
The author is a good enough writer that I kept reading... mostly in the hopes that the train would jump the tracks and tear through the Veech house, ending the whole lot of them. The story could then pick up with a different, and by definition better, family.
November 9, 2009
Our last book before Hurricane Katrina hit. 4 month hiatus
August 14, 2013
A John Steinbeck wannabe.
August 18, 2014
I admired her way of weaving the storyline through a variety of unique characters and just the raw feeling of life in post-Depression America.
January 6, 2014
well written, good read, stars
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