The Strange Woman

by Ben Ames Williams

HARDCOVER.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical

507 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

Ben Ames Williams was born in Macon, Mississippi to Daniel Webster Williams and Sarah Marshall Ames on March 7, 1889. Just after his birth, he and his parents moved to Jackson, Ohio. Because his father was owner and editor of the Jackson Standard Journal in Ohio, Ben Williams grew up around writing, printing, and editing. In high school he worked for the Journal, doing grunt work in the beginning and eventually writing and editing. He attended Dartmouth College and upon graduation in 1910 was offered a job teaching English at a boy’s school in Connecticut. He telegraphed his father seeking career advice, but his handwriting was terrible and his father mistook “teaching” for “traveling” and, not wanting his son to become a traveling businessman, advised him not to take the job. Richard Cary says it later saved Williams from “a purgatory of grading endless, immature English ‘themes’” and propelled him “toward a career as one of the most popular storytellers of his time”. Right after graduation he took a job reporting for the Boston American.

Williams worked hard reporting for the local newspaper, but only did this for income; his heart lay with magazine fiction. Each night he worked on his fiction writing with the aspiration that one day, his stories would be able to support himself, his wife, Florence Talpey, and their children, Roger, Ben, and Penelope. He faced many rejection letters in the beginning of his career, which only drove him to study harder and practice more.

Williams was first published on August 23, 1915 in The Popular Magazine with his short story “Deep Stuff.” After that his popularity slowly grew. He published 135 short stories, 35 serials, and 7 articles for the Saturday Evening Post during a period of 24 years. After the Post took him, other magazines began eagerly seeking Williams to submit his fiction to their magazines.

Williams is perhaps most famous for creating the fictional town of Fraternity, located in rural Maine. 125 of his short stories were set in Fraternity, and they were most popular in the Post. Maine is also the setting for many of his novels.

Williams died of a heart attack in 1953.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4* of five

This is one hella long book. Over 600 pages of densely packed story about Bangor, Maine, and its two different lives as a seaport and a lumber boomtown. It's a great story, and it's told through the lens of the fearsome and awful life of Jenny Hager Poster Evered. What a horrible life she led. What a horrifying person it turned her into. What a terrifying tale of an evil soul's manipulative rule over the innocents who had every right to expect she would be their loving helpmeet.

This story resonated with me as the son of just such a woman. It was of greater historical interest than I expected, as I didn't have any idea about the course of the economic development of Maine. It was very detailed and very multi-layered, which I confess surprised me from a book published in 1941. I wasn't prepared for the psychological astuteness of Williams's tale. It was a shock to me that the cruelties I saw my father suffer weren't unique, and the experience of the same levels of psychological torture myself was clearly shown in Jenny's relationships with her own brood. There's a weird sort of comfort in that, seeing the worst of one's own life brought to light in fiction where it's possible to cope with it by closing the covers of the book.

I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a pleasure read, but it's a darn good tale told well and written by a writer who has vanished from the literary scene without a trace. That makes me sad. Ben Ames Williams doesn't deserve the final death of anonymity.

For film noir fans, there is a public-domain film of the same title but different basic intent...redeeming Jenny, as played by the luminously lovely Hedy Lamarr, was a total violation of Williams's story...that's a decent way to spend a couple hours here.

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leave Her to Heaven is one of my favorites and I was hoping this epic, The Strange Woman would become a new favorite. It's pretty great especially if you're into long, highly detailed stories that focus on the setting just as much as its cast. For some reason this just never quite hit the right notes for me, but I still have a feeling that Ellen Berent and Jenny Hager could have taken notes from each other's books.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Muriel Schwenck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book I revisit every decade or less.
Jenny is indeed a strange and perverted woman, compelled from her early childhood by a dysfunctional upbringing, an all too early realization of her feminine lure, abandonment by mother, and also by her own private perversions and demons. Other girls started in her poverty stricken, immoral, drunken family and did not develop like Jenny did. (And credit to her pathetic alcoholic father, he did not become the pervert that his daughter did.)
Am I giving away the plot? No! That is still the first couple chapters. Not to mention a great historical tale of the rise, fall and rise again of life in Bangor, Maine. From about 1820 through the War Between the States, this book has it all, in fascinating detail.

Ben Ames Williams does a brilliant job of detailing the inner life, twisted pleasure, and motivations of a disturbed, and very strange woman. And also the reactions of her family and various victims. One almost feels sympathy for Jenny if she could only control her worst impulses and not attempt to drag others into her personal pit of hell. Oh. she tries to avoid it... sometimes...
Most highly recommended.

Also check out Leave Her to Heaven

[Richard Dominguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting story about a woman whom due to her upbringing and misfortunes becomes hardened and jaded. Using her power and position she goes afer what she wants and seems to derive pleasure from others suffering. I thought it was a good book, but I wonder if Jenny had been a man, would there have been a different outlook towards the book.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Strange Woman is the epic story of a troubled & manipulative woman told against the backdrop of the first half of 19th century Bangor, Maine. Just as there were two Bangors of that lumber and seafaring era: one proper and the other, wild and bawdy, there were two Jenny Hagers, and the reader is left to determine which is the true one in her vacillations with friends, family, and the community. As I read this classic which was first published in 1941, I sometimes felt as though I were viewing Jenny’s motives and actions through the lens of an ever changing kaleidoscope, and, as a good book will do, it often drew me in and I wanted to be able to speak up and warn the characters . . . except was my interpretation correct? It is long-684 pages—but the reader, to get the full impact of both the early/mid 1800s Queen City and the Strange Woman who lived there, needs to read through to the end.

While the Hedy Lamar movie was good, it diverts from the book and was in no way able to capture the multi-layers of character development that Ben Ames Williams reveals to the reader, so enjoy the film but know that the book offers much more.

[Janice · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Strange Woman was about the life of Jenny Hager, whose mother abandoned her and her father when she was a young child. Her father raised her and early in life she learned to manipulate him, but he was physically abusive to her. After his death, she married an older man, fell in love with his son, and eventually married the son's friend. They had four sons, and her treatment of all these men was odd; she was very generous with her wealth that she received after her first husband died and was kind to everyone in the town of Bangor, Maine. Her wonderful reputation with the people in the town didn't coincide with her reputation with her husband and children. Her hatred for her husband, and eventually all her sons became evident after her death. It seems she had a split personality and could not help her mean an cruel thoughts and actions. A very "strange" book!

[Rahma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whats not to like, lets see.......... the pre-war times were interesting to read about especially from the perspective of hearsay and little newspaper clippings. The strange woman as seen from the eyes of the main men in her life throughout the years, the love and fascination for everything gruesome, manipulation and exploitation.......... in other words everything was to like. It was great writing.

[Readitnweep · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange book about a disturbing 19th century female protagonist who has no redeeming qualities and enjoys ruining the lives of others and causing pain.

Interesting historical tidbits woven in with brief touches of actual historical figures, but overall a depressing and heavy read. Glad to be finished.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

speculation in maine in 1830 , just like now the world over. evil womanor saint, split personality??? would like to read again

[Susan Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

🖊 My review: A woman with a mental problem causes problems in Bangor, Maine a logging town, in 1824. Strange woman, indeed. Made into the 1946 movie by the same name with Gene Lockhart, Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, and Alan Napier. I enjoyed this story with a bittersweet dénouement.
✔️Published in 1941.
🤔 My rating 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
🎥 Media form: 1946 movie version.
✿●▬●✿●✿●▬●✿

[Gabrielle]

I picked up this book because I enjoyed the Hedy Lamarr movie adaptation. I read 2 chapters but needed to put it down as it disgusts me.

I am disgusted by the author’s warped views of women and girls. I am disgusted by the pedophilic thoughts and feelings of the first two men. There’s something wrong with ‘ole Ben Williams’ psyche and I don’t wish to explore his mind further with this story.

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Took me a year to read this - very interesting if you like historical fiction and know the area of Bangor, Maine at all. Takes one through the early 1800s to the end of the Civil War...but the main character was so nasty that I could only read it in small doses.

[Dano · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked it … historical fiction of Maine, lumbering, civil war, a little politics, drama, mystery, love … all meshed together for a great tale.

[Celine Olsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book

[Joy H.]

This review was added on 10/25/18.
Book was published in 1941 by International Readers League.
The book was adapted to film in 1946.
I watched the film on YouTube in October 2018.

See the info below:

FILM: "The Strange Woman" (1946)
YouTube LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeSyE...
IMDb LINK: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038990/...

Writers: Herb Meadow (screenplay), Ben Ames Williams (novel)

STARS: Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward

IMDb DESCRIPTION: "In 1820s New England beautiful but poor and manipulative Jenny Hager marries rich old man Isaiah Poster but also seduces his son and his company foreman."

Very suspenseful! Compelling!