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American Beauty
Originally published in 1931, this bestselling American family saga from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber shares the story of the Oakes family, as their relationships and property encounter numerous struggles over the course of hundreds of years.
In the early 18th century, the Oakes family was one of many working to settle their land in the Connecticut Valley, facing harsh winters and land disputes. Their attempts over the years to tame the land and produce a properous tobacco farm prove more difficult than expected, and when the family takes on Polish immigrants to work the farm, cultures clash, and relationships become complicated. American Beauty follows the goings-on at the Oakes estate from 1700 through 1930, and whether in times of family turmoil or hopeful prosperity, Edna Ferber's cast of fascinating characters and pitch-perfect take on American life rings true.
In the early 18th century, the Oakes family was one of many working to settle their land in the Connecticut Valley, facing harsh winters and land disputes. Their attempts over the years to tame the land and produce a properous tobacco farm prove more difficult than expected, and when the family takes on Polish immigrants to work the farm, cultures clash, and relationships become complicated. American Beauty follows the goings-on at the Oakes estate from 1700 through 1930, and whether in times of family turmoil or hopeful prosperity, Edna Ferber's cast of fascinating characters and pitch-perfect take on American life rings true.
313 pages, Hardcover
First published January 8, 1931
30 people are currently reading
202 people want to read
About the author
Edna Ferber
281 books286 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 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 23, 2021
Five Stars. This book, published in 1930, has lessons for today. Themes: change is the constant. Neighborhoods/ communities and technologies continually evolve and morph. Another theme: 'family' is not necessarily the nuclear dad, mom, 2.2 biological children. Lesson: a neighborhood will not remain "pure" of race nor of ethnicity. Lesson: your children will not necessarily follow in your footsteps: they will have a new way of thinking and doing new and old things. All this and more become apparent in this sparse 192 page novel.
What also made this novel impacting is that readers learn of Connecticut history: I was unaware of the tobacco industry so far north. We learn of inhabitant succession: Puritan settlement evolves into a mecca for Polish immigrants looking for land and agricultural freedom. I loved the author's depiction of setting: I felt I was actually 'in' the season she described. But too I felt the author showed and not told the reader some of life's 'lessons'. We mainly see life through the eyes of the Oakes' and the Olszak families with a sprinkle of the Baldwin family mindset.
It was in all a quick read, almost like a parable, and I think the message will stay with me quite a while.
What also made this novel impacting is that readers learn of Connecticut history: I was unaware of the tobacco industry so far north. We learn of inhabitant succession: Puritan settlement evolves into a mecca for Polish immigrants looking for land and agricultural freedom. I loved the author's depiction of setting: I felt I was actually 'in' the season she described. But too I felt the author showed and not told the reader some of life's 'lessons'. We mainly see life through the eyes of the Oakes' and the Olszak families with a sprinkle of the Baldwin family mindset.
It was in all a quick read, almost like a parable, and I think the message will stay with me quite a while.
May 15, 2019
Ferber's writing will seem old fashioned to readers now, but she turns a phrase and sets a scene with a master's grasp of language. Orrange Oakes, Judith, Ondy, Big Bella, and especially Temmie become rather haunting in their intensity even though this generational family saga set in rural Connecticut is relatively brief at under 200 pages. It contains big themes but focuses closely on a particular segment of time, and offers two of the most memorable death scenes (surely) ever penned. Adult.
March 29, 2020
I have read any thing by her I can get my hands on. EDNA NEVER DISAPPOINTS. Repeat: SHE NEVER DISAPPOINTS.just read this and just hope you can find another novel she wrote. I don’t understand why a lot of her novels aren’t printed anymore. She is a golden author.
December 10, 2019
not her best and dated.
February 21, 2017
Easy reading, enjoyable.
March 26, 2008
Written in 1931, this is an interesting novel about the waves of immigrants into the U.S. and how one wave supplants another. In this case, its rural Connecticut, first settled by the English in 1700s and then taken over by the Poles in late 1800s. This romanticized history focuses on one English family and how they try to hold onto their land and keep the tobacco farm going, but with the help, of course, of a Polish immigrant.
Interesting quote: "These Poles lived on cabbage, potatoes, and salt pork. As they flocked into the valley, the village storekeepers were in despair. The Poles raised their own pork, their own potatoes, their own cabbage. Their money went into the land or back to Poland. They made their own harsh wine, brewed their own beer, their cider, hard as iron, came from their own juicy apples. Sometimes a Pole dropped in at the village store to purchase, for a few pennies, a little sack of cheap candies as a treat or his brood of children. That was all."
Those are the people, my mother came from.
Interesting quote: "These Poles lived on cabbage, potatoes, and salt pork. As they flocked into the valley, the village storekeepers were in despair. The Poles raised their own pork, their own potatoes, their own cabbage. Their money went into the land or back to Poland. They made their own harsh wine, brewed their own beer, their cider, hard as iron, came from their own juicy apples. Sometimes a Pole dropped in at the village store to purchase, for a few pennies, a little sack of cheap candies as a treat or his brood of children. That was all."
Those are the people, my mother came from.
January 12, 2013
I love the way Edna Ferber manages to be sweeping in her storytelling in such a relatively small number of pages. Once again, generations of life are covered, and covered richly, in a slender book that leaves you missing nothing. This begins at the beginning of the Depression, then shoots back to Colonial times and comes back to the beginning again by the end. I would have loved the book if it had followed on in the narrative from the first chapter, but I still loved it when it yanked completely back to show how the strong, New England Oakes family became the dirt-poor farmers they are at the start.
I've seen this described online as Ferber's "eugenics" novel, and it's true that she almost describes the Polish immigrants as another race or species. But the marriage of New England stock to Polish is presented as a positive, mostly, bolstering the weaker Oakes clan with hard-working, sturdy constitutions. I don't care at all about the politics here, though; I'm just after the story, and this one is great.
I've seen this described online as Ferber's "eugenics" novel, and it's true that she almost describes the Polish immigrants as another race or species. But the marriage of New England stock to Polish is presented as a positive, mostly, bolstering the weaker Oakes clan with hard-working, sturdy constitutions. I don't care at all about the politics here, though; I'm just after the story, and this one is great.
January 10, 2016
I read this mainly because my mom once mentioned that her mother liked her books. Interesting, but I don't know if I liked it or not. Will have to think about it.
After thinking for a couple weeks I can tell you my impression is VERBOSE, Ferber never explains or describes things in one sentence when she can do it in three or five. It's an old fashioned style of writing on high drama soap opera subject matter, reminds me of Proust trying to be Steinbeck but coming out all Jackie Collinsish instead.
After thinking for a couple weeks I can tell you my impression is VERBOSE, Ferber never explains or describes things in one sentence when she can do it in three or five. It's an old fashioned style of writing on high drama soap opera subject matter, reminds me of Proust trying to be Steinbeck but coming out all Jackie Collinsish instead.
February 20, 2016
"Giant." "Cimarron." "Show Boat." Edna Feber's books and short stories have repeatedly made for major movies. Her novel "So Big" won a Pulitzer Prize. So I'm guessing "American Beauty" is a minor work, reading as it does like one of Joyce Carol Oates' less successful novels set in upstate New York, with its Strinbergian tensions between the sexes and its portrayal of poverty as a petri dish for the grotesque. Like second rate Oates, Ferber rushes, rambles, and repeats. But given that JCO is pretty damn good at her best, I'd try Ferber again before writing her off.
January 28, 2008
I'm very fond of Ferber's short stories and early novels about life (especially Jewish life) in the Midwest, but her later novels all seem to be shapeless and unrealized. Although it contains some interesting material on tobacco farming in the Connecticut Valley, American Beauty is really just plotless backstory; it ends just at the point when I would be interested in seeing what happens.
October 13, 2013
I loved Giant and So Big, but this book did not capture me. I felt like it never got into the story. It was too much like a description of their lives instead of a story that enchants you and pulls you in. I did not care for it. :(
June 11, 2014
Oh, Edna Ferber! Why did it take me half of my life to discover you??? Every one of her books is such a little jewel of a story. Another wonderful tale of an American family's story. Quirky, interesting characters play out this tale of a family in Connecticut from the 1700's to the 1930's.
Want to read
March 20, 2008Pass it on, Mom!
April 13, 2017
Fascinating look at immigration over several generations into New England. I had no idea there were so many Polish farmers in Connecticut.
Want to read
August 7, 2011Connecticut
did-not-finish
November 25, 2018Not as interesting as her other books.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews