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Parrish: a Novel
"...dramatic world in conflict, a world which knows both the clamouring pressures of modern industry and the lingering tradition of plantation life..."
- GenresFiction
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1958
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 16, 2016
I enjoyed reading this book as it is an old book from my mom, who passed away almost twenty years ago. There is just something really special about going through the same pages she did.
Apart from that, it's just a nice story and not much more than that. It's very accessible and light, probably a bit too much so for many readers.
Despite the book not having much to offer from a literary standpoint, there are some elements in it that did appeal to me. I liked reading about tobacco cultivation. Taking into account the original story was written in 1958, it's interesting to see how themes such as sexuality and relationships are treated. As a coming of age story it also certainly has some charm to it. While perhaps a bit cliche, there are strong character developments which do make you want to read the story to the end.
Overall I'm glad most works from my mother's collection are more down my alley.
Apart from that, it's just a nice story and not much more than that. It's very accessible and light, probably a bit too much so for many readers.
Despite the book not having much to offer from a literary standpoint, there are some elements in it that did appeal to me. I liked reading about tobacco cultivation. Taking into account the original story was written in 1958, it's interesting to see how themes such as sexuality and relationships are treated. As a coming of age story it also certainly has some charm to it. While perhaps a bit cliche, there are strong character developments which do make you want to read the story to the end.
Overall I'm glad most works from my mother's collection are more down my alley.
February 5, 2023
I've been reading a few novels from the 1950s lately. They deal with young men who reach manhood trying to understand the raw, tough fathers that raised them and the unwavering mothers that love them. There were a set of mores that grown men understood, even if they flaunted them, that young men were trying to assimilate in a much-changed world.
Parrish is a novel of a young man who came with his mother to tobacco country in New England. His mother was a survivor and married the richest man in the valley. Parrish was too rebellious, but fell in love three times. Interesting conflicts throughout the novel, particularly because Parrish is determined not to be controlled by anyone.
It's a fun ride through 1948-1953. A more innocent time, a more determined time, but still a time with men trying to understand the rules of the mature man game.
I liked it.
Parrish is a novel of a young man who came with his mother to tobacco country in New England. His mother was a survivor and married the richest man in the valley. Parrish was too rebellious, but fell in love three times. Interesting conflicts throughout the novel, particularly because Parrish is determined not to be controlled by anyone.
It's a fun ride through 1948-1953. A more innocent time, a more determined time, but still a time with men trying to understand the rules of the mature man game.
I liked it.
May 1, 2020
The book, written in 1958, tells the story of tobacco owners and workers in a series of summers. Today, the book really should get three stars, though in its day, it was a hot seller. But I have a unique connection.
I grew up in Windsor CT and in the sixties I worked on the tobacco farm which Salas Post's farm was based on. Older siblings of my co workers were actually extras in the movie "Parrish". As a fifteen year old, I naturally had no idea the angst that the owners felt throughout the summer...I just knew I made an incredible $1.05 an hour and was able to buy my first pair of Papagolos with my own money!
I grew up in Windsor CT and in the sixties I worked on the tobacco farm which Salas Post's farm was based on. Older siblings of my co workers were actually extras in the movie "Parrish". As a fifteen year old, I naturally had no idea the angst that the owners felt throughout the summer...I just knew I made an incredible $1.05 an hour and was able to buy my first pair of Papagolos with my own money!
June 12, 2021
1948-1953. Very interesting information on the complexities of raising tobacco. Interesting characters, and the development of adolescents. Also interesting complexities of the dynamics of success and dominating individuals. Must admit I got engrossed, and enjoyed the book far more than I expected.
September 30, 2022
Long a fan of the soapy movie and a Hartford, Connecticut, area resident, I finally read the novel. Savage’s writing is actually quite nice, with memorable turns of phrase. It’s very much of its time and her attempts at Jamaican-inflected speech are cringe-worthy, but the stereotypes of both race and social standing are expected in this period and I have to say that, though well-traveled territory of love and money and land and greed, it’s still an enjoyable read. And far less trite than the movie. But do see the movie. I mean, Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Karl Malden, Claudette Colbert, and technicolor. What’s not to love?
November 7, 2014
Must be about the third or fourth time I've read this book in the past 40 years. I love the main character and the way he thinks about the world, his place in it, and how his behaviors and thoughts mold his character. The setting isn't far from where I grew up in Connecticut, and a couple of high school friends "worked tobacco" in the summer so those two things probably add to my enjoyment of the book.
March 12, 2013
Book so much better than the movie. I did enjoy the movie, but the book really went into the growing of tobacco. Most interesting.
March 30, 2014
I actually found this book at a thrift store. I have the 45rpm of the theme song from the movie and was always curious since I had never seen it. I enjoyed the book very much. Well written.
January 16, 2026
New York City, New York; Connecticut River Valley / 1910–1930
This is one of those novels that looks deceptively simple: a beautiful young woman, a powerful older woman, a small town, and then it slowly reveals itself as something much darker and more intimate. Parrish is not a femme fatale.
Parrish McLean is a girl being watched, desired, projected onto, and slowly used up.
Madge Norwood does not simply dominate her. She feeds on her. A theme repeated with anyone that I wanted to interacts with Parrish. The town feeds on her. Men want her. Women resent her. Everyone assigns her meaning.
And Parrish, caught in the center of it all, begins to disappear.
The brilliance of the title is that it works two ways:
Parrish — the moral territory of the town,
and perish — what happens when a person is consumed by other people’s needs.
This is not a lesbian romance. It’s not a love story at all. It is a novel about power, hunger, projection, and emotional possession — about what happens when one person becomes another’s obsession and cannot escape.
It’s also about repressed love. And that combination — desire without permission, love without language — turns into domination.
Savage writes with a cool, precise eye. She never sensationalizes what is happening. That restraint makes it more disturbing. You can feel the walls closing in.
This is a book about how people are devoured — not by monsters, but by other human beings.
And that makes it far more unsettling than any thriller.
Reader’s note:
Some editions include an additional young man; others do not. Savage revised the book after its initial publication, and the later editions streamline the emotional focus back onto Parrish and Madge. The earlier versions feel more diffuse; the later ones sharper, colder, and more psychologically exact. If you want the novel as Savage ultimately intended it, look for the revised text.
This is one of those novels that looks deceptively simple: a beautiful young woman, a powerful older woman, a small town, and then it slowly reveals itself as something much darker and more intimate. Parrish is not a femme fatale.
Parrish McLean is a girl being watched, desired, projected onto, and slowly used up.
Madge Norwood does not simply dominate her. She feeds on her. A theme repeated with anyone that I wanted to interacts with Parrish. The town feeds on her. Men want her. Women resent her. Everyone assigns her meaning.
And Parrish, caught in the center of it all, begins to disappear.
The brilliance of the title is that it works two ways:
Parrish — the moral territory of the town,
and perish — what happens when a person is consumed by other people’s needs.
This is not a lesbian romance. It’s not a love story at all. It is a novel about power, hunger, projection, and emotional possession — about what happens when one person becomes another’s obsession and cannot escape.
It’s also about repressed love. And that combination — desire without permission, love without language — turns into domination.
Savage writes with a cool, precise eye. She never sensationalizes what is happening. That restraint makes it more disturbing. You can feel the walls closing in.
This is a book about how people are devoured — not by monsters, but by other human beings.
And that makes it far more unsettling than any thriller.
Reader’s note:
Some editions include an additional young man; others do not. Savage revised the book after its initial publication, and the later editions streamline the emotional focus back onto Parrish and Madge. The earlier versions feel more diffuse; the later ones sharper, colder, and more psychologically exact. If you want the novel as Savage ultimately intended it, look for the revised text.
September 9, 2018
After reading about 1/4 of the book I realized that I had never finished reading the book when I was 16 years old. I'm glad I finished reading it but I would not recommend it to my friends. It's just an OK read.
June 20, 2013
I think I must have read this book. It was written by the mother of a classmate of
mine in prep school and based on the raising of shade grown tobacco in the valley
of the Connectict river around Hartford and near Windsor/Loomis(my school) also. In fact,
some kids in the 1960 summer school were used as extras in the movie in the scene of the shade nets being put up. Just before
my time there... When we used to drive to Hartford from Worcester to visit family
in West Hartford and Glastonbury(in the 1950's) we'd anticipate seeing those fields of white
gauze(or whatever it was) spread over the green plants with the drying barns alongside. Lovely but
gone now forever and replaced by shopping malls and suburban housing along the
Interstate. UGH! Date read is a guess.
mine in prep school and based on the raising of shade grown tobacco in the valley
of the Connectict river around Hartford and near Windsor/Loomis(my school) also. In fact,
some kids in the 1960 summer school were used as extras in the movie in the scene of the shade nets being put up. Just before
my time there... When we used to drive to Hartford from Worcester to visit family
in West Hartford and Glastonbury(in the 1950's) we'd anticipate seeing those fields of white
gauze(or whatever it was) spread over the green plants with the drying barns alongside. Lovely but
gone now forever and replaced by shopping malls and suburban housing along the
Interstate. UGH! Date read is a guess.
September 17, 2016
read in high school. it was made into a movie.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews