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Come and Get It
Originally published in 1935, this is Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Ferber's sprawling novel of Wisconsin's logging days, when fortunes—and families—were made and broken over king lumber.
Barney Glasgow, who had fought his way up from chore-boy in the lumber camps of Iron Ridge to lumber king of Wisconsin, is fifty-three and has much reason to be content when the granddaughter of his old friend, Swan Bostrom, disrupts his life. But destiny provides an ironic escape from folly, and Barney's son carries on the story—a story which was to end in those fatal months that closed the year 1929. Rich with the vibrant qualities of life itself, this is more than the story of Barney Glasgow and his children. It is the story of lumber, and the story of the making and breaking of a fortune, during one of the most fascinating periods in the history of Wisconsin, and of the nation.
Barney Glasgow, who had fought his way up from chore-boy in the lumber camps of Iron Ridge to lumber king of Wisconsin, is fifty-three and has much reason to be content when the granddaughter of his old friend, Swan Bostrom, disrupts his life. But destiny provides an ironic escape from folly, and Barney's son carries on the story—a story which was to end in those fatal months that closed the year 1929. Rich with the vibrant qualities of life itself, this is more than the story of Barney Glasgow and his children. It is the story of lumber, and the story of the making and breaking of a fortune, during one of the most fascinating periods in the history of Wisconsin, and of the nation.
518 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 1991
About the author
Edna Ferber
289 books291 followersEdna Ferber was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels were popular in her lifetime and included the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big (1924), Show Boat (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), Cimarron (1929; made into the 1931 film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), and Giant (1952; made into the 1956 Hollywood movie).
Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to a Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper, Jacob Charles Ferber, and his Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Julia (Neumann) Ferber. At the age of 12, after living in Chicago, Illinois and Ottumwa, Iowa, Ferber and her family moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, where she graduated from high school and briefly attended Lawrence University. She took newspaper jobs at the Appleton Daily Crescent and the Milwaukee Journal before publishing her first novel. She covered the 1920 Republican National Convention and 1920 Democratic National Convention for the United Press Association.
Ferber's novels generally featured strong female protagonists, along with a rich and diverse collection of supporting characters. She usually highlighted at least one strong secondary character who faced discrimination ethnically or for other reasons; through this technique, Ferber demonstrated her belief that people are people and that the not-so-pretty people have the best character.
Ferber was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of wits who met for lunch every day at the Algonquin Hotel in New York.
Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to a Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper, Jacob Charles Ferber, and his Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Julia (Neumann) Ferber. At the age of 12, after living in Chicago, Illinois and Ottumwa, Iowa, Ferber and her family moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, where she graduated from high school and briefly attended Lawrence University. She took newspaper jobs at the Appleton Daily Crescent and the Milwaukee Journal before publishing her first novel. She covered the 1920 Republican National Convention and 1920 Democratic National Convention for the United Press Association.
Ferber's novels generally featured strong female protagonists, along with a rich and diverse collection of supporting characters. She usually highlighted at least one strong secondary character who faced discrimination ethnically or for other reasons; through this technique, Ferber demonstrated her belief that people are people and that the not-so-pretty people have the best character.
Ferber was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of wits who met for lunch every day at the Algonquin Hotel in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 31, 2016
Written in the 1930s this novel is a tale of the lumber barons who razed the forests of norther Wisconsin in the early 1900s. The tale is of the life of a lumber jack, Barney Glasgow, a handsome man who marries money. It follows the fortunes of his family through several generations in Butte des Morts where the very wealthy lumber and paper mill families lived. With foresight, Ferber addresses some of the questions of conservation, pollution, and workers rights that are still being debated today.
February 23, 2024
This is one of six volumes of Edna Ferber books that were around my parents' house. I read the other five many years ago, but could never get beyond the first few pages of this one as it seemed to lack interesting characters or settings. I determined to once and for all read the book, and found that beyond the rather mundane setting of the first pages, it had both. However, the book's quality is uneven.
The first, and longer, part of the book centers on the life and thoughts of Barney, a charismatic opportunist who operates a highly profitable logging and paper mill business he inherited through marrying a rich man's daughter. Barney's home life is seemingly placid, but although he is polite to her, he can barely tolerate his uncomely, dour wife. He dislikes his adult son because he resembles the unloved wife's family, and although he has some regard for his daughter, he does not offer her any viable alternative to settling into her own well-connected but loveless marriage.
Barney briefly escapes his home life to run off into the woods where he pals up with Swan, a former mentor and co-worker from his earlier days as a lumberjack. Some chapters describe Barney's parentage, childhood, and early adventures with Swan. On this trip, Barney encounters Swan's family, whom he has not seen in years, and is impressed with Karie, his hard working, plain spoken daughter, and falls madly in love with Karie's beautiful, sophisticated teenage daughter, Lotta. Over the next months, he showers the family with increasingly generous gifts, including a lavish trip to Chicago, cushy jobs at the paper mill, and a house in town. Barney says the gifts are a tribute to Swan because he helped Barney get started in his career, but it becomes obvious that Lotta is the intended target of his generosity. He secretly declares his love to Lotta, and assures her he will find some way to leave his wife and live with her. He eventually learns that Lotta has entered into a relationship with his unloved son, and threatens to disinherit the boy and claims he wants nothing to do with either of them. However, the next day a boating accident kills Barney, his wife, daughter, and son-in-law. The unloved son is the sole heir to the business, and promptly marries Lotta. Swan beats it back to the north woods, while Karie gives in to Lotta's pleas to stay in the small town to keep her company. Lotta attempts to enter the small town society but being that it is a small town, everyone knows she was two-timing the charismatic Barney so she is snubbed, and one of Barney's vengeful staff even attempts to kill her. Lotta eventually relocates to New York and then to Europe, where, with her husband's money, she is able to enter society, which she keenly enjoys. She maintains marriage with the besotted unloved son despite long absences, and with the help of Karie raises her twins, a son and daughter. After the stock market crashes, the unloved son/husband calls her and the young adult twins back to the small town, whereupon he dies. Lotta's extravagant lifestyle is considered passé given the world wide financial disaster, and her children, while fond of her, eschew their European upbringing and assert their American roots. They want to stay in the small town where the son will run the paper mill and Karie will mind them, while their mother heads back to Europe. The book ends with a birthday party for 85 year old Swan who is still a working lumberjack.
The first part of the book, involving Barney, is told largely from Barney's point of view. His inner thought and motivations are expressed. While Barney is deeply flawed, he is easily the most interesting character in the book, and the problems he faces and causes in trying to navigate life make him sympathetic to the reader. What does a man owe to a wife who has brought him money and advantages but whom he does not, and has never loved? Is it morally acceptable to pretend affection in order to improve one's circumstances? How can a parent effectively like a well-behaved child whom he finds intrinsically annoying? How can a child deal with a parent who is overwhelmingly controlling? How does a worker handle innovation when the old ways seem to be the better ways? The abrupt end of Barney's life two-thirds of the way through the book, without a resolution to the his problems, makes the reader feel cheated. It was as though the author did not know what to do with him so she killed him off. The remaining third of the book, largely chronicling Lotta's societal rise, is uninspired and trite. The author rarely takes the reader into Lotta's mind, and despite having so many pages about her, she is not well characterized. One wonders why the author made this abrupt turn in the narrative and descended from a well-wrought drama to banality.
Karie and Swan, who remain in the background throughout, are generally depicted as being good hearted and naïve, but they are complicit with Lotta in accepting the excessive gifts from Barney. Another character, Tom Melendy, is brought into the last part of the novel as an intellectual mentor to the twins, but his character is not well developed and one wonders how he has routine access to the children.
Pursuant to the dinner invitation of the book title, the author doesn't just say that someone had a meal. She describes in detail what it was they ate, whether pork and beans, vinegar pie, or toasted tuna-fish sandwiches. The individuals' diets are reflective of their characters, as are the locations where they are comfortable. Swan is only happy in the North Woods, Lotta in Europe, whereas the unloved son/husband is at his best in his small town.
Disappointingly, the author relies on stereotypes that were apparently popular at the time of writing that depict various nationalities and people from various parts of the US as being slow-witted, devious, honest, shrewd, or simply insignificant.
Had this novel continued its exploration of its main character's dilemmas and avoided stereotypes, it could have much better. Despite this, the quality of the first two thirds make it a worthwhile read.
The first, and longer, part of the book centers on the life and thoughts of Barney, a charismatic opportunist who operates a highly profitable logging and paper mill business he inherited through marrying a rich man's daughter. Barney's home life is seemingly placid, but although he is polite to her, he can barely tolerate his uncomely, dour wife. He dislikes his adult son because he resembles the unloved wife's family, and although he has some regard for his daughter, he does not offer her any viable alternative to settling into her own well-connected but loveless marriage.
Barney briefly escapes his home life to run off into the woods where he pals up with Swan, a former mentor and co-worker from his earlier days as a lumberjack. Some chapters describe Barney's parentage, childhood, and early adventures with Swan. On this trip, Barney encounters Swan's family, whom he has not seen in years, and is impressed with Karie, his hard working, plain spoken daughter, and falls madly in love with Karie's beautiful, sophisticated teenage daughter, Lotta. Over the next months, he showers the family with increasingly generous gifts, including a lavish trip to Chicago, cushy jobs at the paper mill, and a house in town. Barney says the gifts are a tribute to Swan because he helped Barney get started in his career, but it becomes obvious that Lotta is the intended target of his generosity. He secretly declares his love to Lotta, and assures her he will find some way to leave his wife and live with her. He eventually learns that Lotta has entered into a relationship with his unloved son, and threatens to disinherit the boy and claims he wants nothing to do with either of them. However, the next day a boating accident kills Barney, his wife, daughter, and son-in-law. The unloved son is the sole heir to the business, and promptly marries Lotta. Swan beats it back to the north woods, while Karie gives in to Lotta's pleas to stay in the small town to keep her company. Lotta attempts to enter the small town society but being that it is a small town, everyone knows she was two-timing the charismatic Barney so she is snubbed, and one of Barney's vengeful staff even attempts to kill her. Lotta eventually relocates to New York and then to Europe, where, with her husband's money, she is able to enter society, which she keenly enjoys. She maintains marriage with the besotted unloved son despite long absences, and with the help of Karie raises her twins, a son and daughter. After the stock market crashes, the unloved son/husband calls her and the young adult twins back to the small town, whereupon he dies. Lotta's extravagant lifestyle is considered passé given the world wide financial disaster, and her children, while fond of her, eschew their European upbringing and assert their American roots. They want to stay in the small town where the son will run the paper mill and Karie will mind them, while their mother heads back to Europe. The book ends with a birthday party for 85 year old Swan who is still a working lumberjack.
The first part of the book, involving Barney, is told largely from Barney's point of view. His inner thought and motivations are expressed. While Barney is deeply flawed, he is easily the most interesting character in the book, and the problems he faces and causes in trying to navigate life make him sympathetic to the reader. What does a man owe to a wife who has brought him money and advantages but whom he does not, and has never loved? Is it morally acceptable to pretend affection in order to improve one's circumstances? How can a parent effectively like a well-behaved child whom he finds intrinsically annoying? How can a child deal with a parent who is overwhelmingly controlling? How does a worker handle innovation when the old ways seem to be the better ways? The abrupt end of Barney's life two-thirds of the way through the book, without a resolution to the his problems, makes the reader feel cheated. It was as though the author did not know what to do with him so she killed him off. The remaining third of the book, largely chronicling Lotta's societal rise, is uninspired and trite. The author rarely takes the reader into Lotta's mind, and despite having so many pages about her, she is not well characterized. One wonders why the author made this abrupt turn in the narrative and descended from a well-wrought drama to banality.
Karie and Swan, who remain in the background throughout, are generally depicted as being good hearted and naïve, but they are complicit with Lotta in accepting the excessive gifts from Barney. Another character, Tom Melendy, is brought into the last part of the novel as an intellectual mentor to the twins, but his character is not well developed and one wonders how he has routine access to the children.
Pursuant to the dinner invitation of the book title, the author doesn't just say that someone had a meal. She describes in detail what it was they ate, whether pork and beans, vinegar pie, or toasted tuna-fish sandwiches. The individuals' diets are reflective of their characters, as are the locations where they are comfortable. Swan is only happy in the North Woods, Lotta in Europe, whereas the unloved son/husband is at his best in his small town.
Disappointingly, the author relies on stereotypes that were apparently popular at the time of writing that depict various nationalities and people from various parts of the US as being slow-witted, devious, honest, shrewd, or simply insignificant.
Had this novel continued its exploration of its main character's dilemmas and avoided stereotypes, it could have much better. Despite this, the quality of the first two thirds make it a worthwhile read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 9, 2015
This starts out as the story of Barney Glasglow, a wealthy paper mill owner around the turn of the century. It flashes back to his youth in a logging camp (his mother was the cook), and it reminded me so much of John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River that I set out looking for reviews that made the comparison, but no one reads Edna Ferber any more, so there were none. Then it jumps back to adult Barney, and he becomes obsessed with the unnaturally beautiful granddaughter of his old logging buddy Swan Bostrum. Melodrama ensues, especially when Barney's son Bernie becomes smitten with Lotta, too.
This book is a bit all over the place, but it is still the kind of multi-generational saga that Ferber does so very well. I didn't love it as much as the perfect Giant or also perfect So Big, but it was still a great read to the end.
This book is a bit all over the place, but it is still the kind of multi-generational saga that Ferber does so very well. I didn't love it as much as the perfect Giant or also perfect So Big, but it was still a great read to the end.
June 11, 2022
Having greatly enjoyed the 1936 movie version, I took up the novel and was interested to discover that it is very different in many respects and covers a much longer time-span than even the two generations of the movie. A rich and wonderful reading experience, completely absorbing. One startling development that is not in the film knocked me right off my chair.
November 2, 2011
I picked up this little gem at a used bookstore. Ferber looks ahead to ramifications of logging w/o replanting, health consequences of mining, etc. She was banging the gong long before it was popular to do so.
March 4, 2018
Really interesting multigenerational saga about the timber industry from the end of the 1800's up through the stock market crash of 29. First half of the book is deeply engaging, second half gets a bit superficial and races through time. The end is cool though.
February 12, 2024
At least 3.5 stars
An enjoyable story about the lumber business in the northern forests, and in particular the tycoon Barney Glasgow.
It's a detailed rags to riches story centering on the Glasgows, two immigrants from Scotland and Northern Ireland, who move to the New World and find themselves in the 'wilds' of Wisconsin.
They have a son Bernard (Barney) but both die during Barney's youth. Barney works as a logger, starts at the bottom, does the hard yards, and eventually wins the respect of his rich boss.
Barney also marries the boss's daughter, for money, not love.
His long but loveless marriage gives him a son and daughter, but he's not the happiest of family men, despite being close to his daughter. He's more happy hanging out with his oldest friend and former work mate, Swan the Swede.
Swan is also a family man and Barney becomes obsessed with his grand-daughter, Lotta.
Barney is to become one of those foolish middle-aged men to have a crush on a much younger lady.
He throws his money away on her, but it's all to no avail.
This is a big part to the book's story, but not by any means all of it. Young son Bernie is also obsessed with Lotta which results in the expected conflicts.
As with many older books of 500+ pages the story unfolds slowly, with much description of the logging business, the harsh working conditions of those times, and of the lives of the people who lived in these northern parts, rich and poor, their social status, prejudices, etc.
Ferber must have spent a lot of time researching these things, before writing the book. And she touches on things that were probably not discussed much then as they are now; the rape of the land, removing trees, but never replanting, and even on one page how the tree removal can result in climate change.
I feel that she likes many of her characters, those all-American pioneers braving the wilds, working hard, but also criticizes their lack of interest in the environment, replanting, and leaving acres of land desolate and useless for further generations. Making money was the only concern for tycoons like Barney-and for his workers, keeping their jobs.
(Teddy Roosevelt was one of the biggest conservationists to ever live at The White House, so the business tycoons were not too happy about him being in office. But times were changing, and some businessmen were afraid of change.)
The story starts in 1907, goes back in time, then back to 1907, going on until the 1930s.
Did the Depression ruin the Glasgow Empire? Worth reading to find out.
Overall I enjoyed this old-fashioned book, it was a straightforward read. It was a bit too long, and started to drag a bit towards the end, but still worthwhile. If it was a bit shorter, I may have bumped the rating up to 4 stars.
An enjoyable story about the lumber business in the northern forests, and in particular the tycoon Barney Glasgow.
It's a detailed rags to riches story centering on the Glasgows, two immigrants from Scotland and Northern Ireland, who move to the New World and find themselves in the 'wilds' of Wisconsin.
They have a son Bernard (Barney) but both die during Barney's youth. Barney works as a logger, starts at the bottom, does the hard yards, and eventually wins the respect of his rich boss.
Barney also marries the boss's daughter, for money, not love.
His long but loveless marriage gives him a son and daughter, but he's not the happiest of family men, despite being close to his daughter. He's more happy hanging out with his oldest friend and former work mate, Swan the Swede.
Swan is also a family man and Barney becomes obsessed with his grand-daughter, Lotta.
Barney is to become one of those foolish middle-aged men to have a crush on a much younger lady.
He throws his money away on her, but it's all to no avail.
This is a big part to the book's story, but not by any means all of it. Young son Bernie is also obsessed with Lotta which results in the expected conflicts.
As with many older books of 500+ pages the story unfolds slowly, with much description of the logging business, the harsh working conditions of those times, and of the lives of the people who lived in these northern parts, rich and poor, their social status, prejudices, etc.
Ferber must have spent a lot of time researching these things, before writing the book. And she touches on things that were probably not discussed much then as they are now; the rape of the land, removing trees, but never replanting, and even on one page how the tree removal can result in climate change.
I feel that she likes many of her characters, those all-American pioneers braving the wilds, working hard, but also criticizes their lack of interest in the environment, replanting, and leaving acres of land desolate and useless for further generations. Making money was the only concern for tycoons like Barney-and for his workers, keeping their jobs.
(Teddy Roosevelt was one of the biggest conservationists to ever live at The White House, so the business tycoons were not too happy about him being in office. But times were changing, and some businessmen were afraid of change.)
The story starts in 1907, goes back in time, then back to 1907, going on until the 1930s.
Did the Depression ruin the Glasgow Empire? Worth reading to find out.
Overall I enjoyed this old-fashioned book, it was a straightforward read. It was a bit too long, and started to drag a bit towards the end, but still worthwhile. If it was a bit shorter, I may have bumped the rating up to 4 stars.
May 21, 2020
A great story spanning generations. It tracks a few generations of a lumber family in Wisconsin from the first immigrants coming to the US and establishing themselves as laborers to the creative thinking, ambition and fortuitous marriages that net them a fortune in lumber and then expand into iron. Each successive generation gets further removed from the actual labor until 1929 rearranges things. It is interesting to see how each generation strives to better things for the next generation who has less and less reason to value the status quo and all seek to leave their stamp on society as they know it.
November 2, 2022
Interesting story about self made paper mill man, his family , their interactions
June 13, 2021
This novel is hard to find these days. I downloaded a poorly proofread, but cheap, copy from Amazon evidently issued by a publisher that reprints books with lapsed copyrights. My reason was the same as for reading "Showboat" many years ago -- I saw and loved the classic movie based on it and wanted to read the original. Movie versions of Ferber's books tend to end the story about halfway through, rather than follow the "sweeping saga" into the next generation, who are almost always less interesting than their parents. Ending the story halfway through also allows at least some of the characters to have a happy ending. (Who was it who said that "comedy or tragedy, it all depends on where you end it"?)
Still, Ferber did manage to keep me turning the pages, and nodding in agreement as she deplored the short-sighted waste of natural resources, the destruction of old-growth forests, then the emerging understanding that lumber interests were going to have to start re-planting and stop clear-cutting. At the same time, she explores the lives of immigrants who came here desperately poor, and found a living in the lumber camps. We can see where Barney Glasgow, her protagonist (not exactly a hero) gets his relentless drive to succeed and to advance socially. Both his parents died young from the brutal labor conditions in logging camps. If his way out of that was to marry his boss's "elderly, ugly daughter," so be it. That was the trade-off he made as a young man, and he paid a price for it in the form of a serious midlife crisis later. At the same time, his daughter makes the same trade-off, entering a loveless marriage with someone of her own wealthy class, although she loves someone else. In the second half of the novel, when Glasgow's son inherits the business, he runs it more efficiently and takes worthwhile measures to conserve resources, but lacks his father's ability to relate to the laborers in his factories. The son, unlike the father, was never one of them.
Ferber resorts to some melodramatic plot twists that I found far too convenient a way out of the complications in the human drama. On the other hand, she is excellent at describing time and place, setting the scene and evoking the cultural milieu, whether it's in a Wisconsin logging camp or the glittering lives of the rich before the crash of '29. It's not great literature, but it's a good read.
Still, Ferber did manage to keep me turning the pages, and nodding in agreement as she deplored the short-sighted waste of natural resources, the destruction of old-growth forests, then the emerging understanding that lumber interests were going to have to start re-planting and stop clear-cutting. At the same time, she explores the lives of immigrants who came here desperately poor, and found a living in the lumber camps. We can see where Barney Glasgow, her protagonist (not exactly a hero) gets his relentless drive to succeed and to advance socially. Both his parents died young from the brutal labor conditions in logging camps. If his way out of that was to marry his boss's "elderly, ugly daughter," so be it. That was the trade-off he made as a young man, and he paid a price for it in the form of a serious midlife crisis later. At the same time, his daughter makes the same trade-off, entering a loveless marriage with someone of her own wealthy class, although she loves someone else. In the second half of the novel, when Glasgow's son inherits the business, he runs it more efficiently and takes worthwhile measures to conserve resources, but lacks his father's ability to relate to the laborers in his factories. The son, unlike the father, was never one of them.
Ferber resorts to some melodramatic plot twists that I found far too convenient a way out of the complications in the human drama. On the other hand, she is excellent at describing time and place, setting the scene and evoking the cultural milieu, whether it's in a Wisconsin logging camp or the glittering lives of the rich before the crash of '29. It's not great literature, but it's a good read.
October 6, 2010
really good book for its time and place but, surprisingly, an exception to the rule that usually the book is better than the movie: a Frances Farmer/Bing Crosby vehicle.
September 18, 2013
Edna Ferber was once one of my favorite authors. I haven't reread any of her books in a long time.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews