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Weeds
The wife of a Kentucky tenant farmer struggles to improve the quality of her family's harsh life
366 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1923
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377 people want to read
About the author
Edith Summers Kelley
4 books2 followersEdith Summers Kelley (April 28, 1884 – June 9, 1956) was a Canadian-born author who lived and worked in the United States, and is best known for her 1923 novel Weeds (1923), set in the hills of Kentucky.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
September 15, 2022
What a wonderful surprise this was. I had read it in my youth, but all I remembered was that is was a depressing book about poor, ignorant farmers. I will blame the folly and prejudice of youth for being wrong, or maybe accept the wisdom and maturity of age for being able to appreciate it at this point. It's not depressing at all, more the story of early 20th century tobacco farmers in Kentucky, seen through the actions of Judith, who we meet as a lively, fun loving child and follow into adulthood. Life was necessarily full of hard work and difficulty just to maintain full bellies and ragged clothes on their backs.
We follow Judith into marriage at a young age, motherhood and sacrifices that must be made in personal freedoms in order to be a wife and mother. This doesn't come easily to Judy, and she rages at her entrapment and unending pregnancies and duty to her husband. "She found herself longing ardently for a single day, even a single hour when she could be by herself, quite alone and free to do as she chose." Outdoor work was preferred and housekeeping chores and incessant preparation of meals was "not her thing" as we say nowadays. Unlike today however, she had very few choices and was criticized by neighbors for the few she was able to make.
This is also the story of the community of men and women who were tenant farmers, ignorant of the outside world, but knowing in the ways of nature. We get all the usual types in any group of people, the lazy, the hard workers, the penny pinchers unwilling to share, thieves, people willing to help when needed. My favorite character was Jabez Moorhouse, a forerunner of my favorite fictional character, Wendell Berry's Burley Coulter. Jabez was a big, hardworking man who brought joy anywhere he showed up with his fiddle and his jokes. His monologue to Judy in chapter 23 is a beautiful thing and a joy to read. "Cause when I got whiskey warming my belly I feel like I was really the man I once hoped I was goin' to be."
This time around I did not find Weeds depressing at all, rather a woman's search for peace and acceptance of the life that was hers. The last 3 chapters were a revelation and a perfect ending. This is another forgotten book that deserves wider recognition. Highly recommended.
We follow Judith into marriage at a young age, motherhood and sacrifices that must be made in personal freedoms in order to be a wife and mother. This doesn't come easily to Judy, and she rages at her entrapment and unending pregnancies and duty to her husband. "She found herself longing ardently for a single day, even a single hour when she could be by herself, quite alone and free to do as she chose." Outdoor work was preferred and housekeeping chores and incessant preparation of meals was "not her thing" as we say nowadays. Unlike today however, she had very few choices and was criticized by neighbors for the few she was able to make.
This is also the story of the community of men and women who were tenant farmers, ignorant of the outside world, but knowing in the ways of nature. We get all the usual types in any group of people, the lazy, the hard workers, the penny pinchers unwilling to share, thieves, people willing to help when needed. My favorite character was Jabez Moorhouse, a forerunner of my favorite fictional character, Wendell Berry's Burley Coulter. Jabez was a big, hardworking man who brought joy anywhere he showed up with his fiddle and his jokes. His monologue to Judy in chapter 23 is a beautiful thing and a joy to read. "Cause when I got whiskey warming my belly I feel like I was really the man I once hoped I was goin' to be."
This time around I did not find Weeds depressing at all, rather a woman's search for peace and acceptance of the life that was hers. The last 3 chapters were a revelation and a perfect ending. This is another forgotten book that deserves wider recognition. Highly recommended.
October 3, 2022
"Weeds" is a forgotten novel of the 1920s that was reissued several times in the 70s, 80s, and 90s during the feminist movement. It's a character study of Judith, an effervescent child of nature who followed her father around the farm helping with chores. She was full of energy, had an artistic talent, and took great joy in observing the outdoor world. Her life changed as the wife of a Kentucky tenant farmer and the mother of three children. She found that the endless cycle of household chores, difficult pregnancies, and constant childcare was a soul-crushing existence. Even though she had a hardworking husband, the weather could wipe out any hope of escaping poverty. Judith went through times of anger and depression dealing with her unrelenting duties.
Uncle Jabez, an old man and the neighborhood fiddler, seemed to be the only one who understood the young woman. Joy in the beauty of the world, laughter, and contemplation were qualities they shared. He took the time to watch the beauty of a sunset, and compared life to the vivid changing colors which gradually muted to gray:
"It's a heap like a man's life, hain't it. . . . It begins happy an' simple, like them innocent pinks an' blues; then turns flame colored when he grows to be a man an' learns to know the love o' wimmin. But it don't stay that color long. First thing you know it's gray, like his hair, what he has left of it. Yaas, Judy, the young time's the on'y time."
This naturalist novel about the hard life of a farming family is notable because it's told from the point of view of a woman. Both a farmer and his wife did backbreaking work, but often had little more than corncakes to feed their families by mid-winter. Pregnancies and nursing took their toil on the malnourished women, and they aged quickly. Author Edith Summers Kelley and her artist husband raised tobacco as tenant farmers in Kentucky for several years so the experiences of a restless young farmer's wife and her neighbors feels brutally authentic.
Uncle Jabez, an old man and the neighborhood fiddler, seemed to be the only one who understood the young woman. Joy in the beauty of the world, laughter, and contemplation were qualities they shared. He took the time to watch the beauty of a sunset, and compared life to the vivid changing colors which gradually muted to gray:
"It's a heap like a man's life, hain't it. . . . It begins happy an' simple, like them innocent pinks an' blues; then turns flame colored when he grows to be a man an' learns to know the love o' wimmin. But it don't stay that color long. First thing you know it's gray, like his hair, what he has left of it. Yaas, Judy, the young time's the on'y time."
This naturalist novel about the hard life of a farming family is notable because it's told from the point of view of a woman. Both a farmer and his wife did backbreaking work, but often had little more than corncakes to feed their families by mid-winter. Pregnancies and nursing took their toil on the malnourished women, and they aged quickly. Author Edith Summers Kelley and her artist husband raised tobacco as tenant farmers in Kentucky for several years so the experiences of a restless young farmer's wife and her neighbors feels brutally authentic.
October 6, 2022
I have had a difficult time trying to decide how to rate this book. It’s not one that I particularly liked but there were some things that were good about it. This book is one that I can’t help comparing to another I recently read concerning the same topic and lifestyle. I happened to adore the main character in this other book, The Time of Man (TTOM) by Elizabeth Madox Roberts. And the prose styles are completely different which made a huge impact on my liking of both books. This novel is very straight-forward and more telling in its formation. TTOM comes from a modernist style and therefore plays with the language in a stream of consciousness way that allowed me to get more caught up in the main character’s story. But who knows, had I read this one first, would I have rated it higher? Maybe… slightly.
This is the story of tenant tobacco farmers in Scott County, Kentucky at the turn of the century and comes from the author’s lived experiences of the same type and from the same place. Ms. Kelley has an interesting and varied background for a woman living and trying to make a name for herself in the early 20th century. This Canadian-born writer lived in NYC in Upton Sinclair’s commune and was friends with Sinclair Lewis. After a divorce and two children, she and her second common-law husband procured a string of unprofitable jobs including tenant tobacco farming, managing a boarding house in New Jersey, ranching on an alfalfa and chicken farm and bootlegging in California. The fact that she spent time observing and living among the tenant tobacco farmers is a positive thing. It enabled her to write from experience even though she was not a native Kentuckian.
This was her first novel in which she created her protagonist, Judith Pipinger, as a character cut from a different cloth of the normal traditional woman of the time. She never thought highly of the traditional roles that females were expected to maintain - that of wife, mother, domestic laborer. She was better fit for the outdoors where a man was meant to be. She preferred nature and being on her own. When she does marry and have children, she winds up feeling suffocated and trapped in a role that she always despised. She seems to disdain her responsibilities to her family in favor of her selfish desires. There are some very brutal scenes throughout and the toil of farming every day for the hopes of a high pay day that never seems to happen is very crushing to imagine. It was hard to find sympathy for a woman who couldn’t find joy in her marriage (to a good man) and with her children (who are innocent beings). She was very unlikable and made some very poor and stingy decisions.
Much in the same line of the unsuccessful jobs she took on in her life, Ms. Kelley’s novel was never a success until it was rediscovered and reprinted in the 1970’s. I’ve tried to set forth my thoughts on a book that has basically been lost for decades. I’m not actually (once again) in the same mindset as other valued GR friends who read this with me. However, it’s one of those instances of preference when two books are so similar, one is going to edge the other out. This one just didn’t win, in my opinion.
This is the story of tenant tobacco farmers in Scott County, Kentucky at the turn of the century and comes from the author’s lived experiences of the same type and from the same place. Ms. Kelley has an interesting and varied background for a woman living and trying to make a name for herself in the early 20th century. This Canadian-born writer lived in NYC in Upton Sinclair’s commune and was friends with Sinclair Lewis. After a divorce and two children, she and her second common-law husband procured a string of unprofitable jobs including tenant tobacco farming, managing a boarding house in New Jersey, ranching on an alfalfa and chicken farm and bootlegging in California. The fact that she spent time observing and living among the tenant tobacco farmers is a positive thing. It enabled her to write from experience even though she was not a native Kentuckian.
This was her first novel in which she created her protagonist, Judith Pipinger, as a character cut from a different cloth of the normal traditional woman of the time. She never thought highly of the traditional roles that females were expected to maintain - that of wife, mother, domestic laborer. She was better fit for the outdoors where a man was meant to be. She preferred nature and being on her own. When she does marry and have children, she winds up feeling suffocated and trapped in a role that she always despised. She seems to disdain her responsibilities to her family in favor of her selfish desires. There are some very brutal scenes throughout and the toil of farming every day for the hopes of a high pay day that never seems to happen is very crushing to imagine. It was hard to find sympathy for a woman who couldn’t find joy in her marriage (to a good man) and with her children (who are innocent beings). She was very unlikable and made some very poor and stingy decisions.
Much in the same line of the unsuccessful jobs she took on in her life, Ms. Kelley’s novel was never a success until it was rediscovered and reprinted in the 1970’s. I’ve tried to set forth my thoughts on a book that has basically been lost for decades. I’m not actually (once again) in the same mindset as other valued GR friends who read this with me. However, it’s one of those instances of preference when two books are so similar, one is going to edge the other out. This one just didn’t win, in my opinion.
September 20, 2020
Obviously the ways in which the shittiness of existence plays out in each of us, to lesser or greater extents, are as multiple as we are, but some threads are thicker than others: race; gender; and wealth. With this text we have poor white women in rural Kentucky around 100 years ago. The writing is based on the author’s lived experiences, and it gains a great deal of power and focus from this fact. You don’t need me to tell you how crushing and dream-destroying that life could be. Interestingly for me, with respect to the other thread, race, there is very little in the way of black presence (and when black people are mentioned we can, perhaps if we are being charitable, forgive the racist manner of these mentions as being reflexive of the character’s views rather than the authors, though this is not clear). This is because these very poor communities in Kentucky at the time were pretty much exclusively white.
The prose is naturalist in style, and it is no surprise to find that Sinclair Lewis was one of the book’s early champions. The quality of the writing itself is very high, never becoming melodramatic or laboured, and always precise and controlled in its description.
A recommended read, and certainly one that deserves to be on any list of key 20thc American lit.
The prose is naturalist in style, and it is no surprise to find that Sinclair Lewis was one of the book’s early champions. The quality of the writing itself is very high, never becoming melodramatic or laboured, and always precise and controlled in its description.
A recommended read, and certainly one that deserves to be on any list of key 20thc American lit.
July 31, 2020
In recent times, I've taken to a little interest in "lost" novels. What causes a well-written story to be forgotten in such a relatively short time span? Last year, I "discovered"
Midsummernight
by Carl Wilhelmson, a book written by one-time John Steinbeck roommate, a novel that has seemingly been forgotten. While Weeds is not nearly as forgotten as Midsummernight, it certainly has not received the attention it deserves.
Weeds, first published in 1923, rediscovered in the 1970s, has never been in the literary spotlight. When first published, it quickly went out of print. Efforts by small presses in the 1970s and 1990s to reintroduce the work have kept it alive, but it still remains largely unnoticed.
That's unfortunate, because Kelley has written a strangely riveting novel with such dynamic characters. Our protagonist, Judith, is unique and strong-willed, a woman with considerable potential who is constantly fighting against poverty and societal expectations. Perhaps what makes this story stand out from others like it is that Judith marries the one man in the region who is not only considerate, but "grants" her the freedoms she asks for. He's certainly not the drunk and abusive misogynist the reader likely expects. Despite this, Judith eventually learns that marriage and motherhood were not what she expected them to be, and refuses to be confined to such roles. These distinctions in these two characters build upon a story with multiple dimensions.
In the end, this story doesn't build up to much of a conclusion, and this is perhaps the novel's greatest weakness. Despite this potential misstep, Weeds is a wonderful look at the brilliance of one woman, struggling against the current in 1920s rural America.
Weeds, first published in 1923, rediscovered in the 1970s, has never been in the literary spotlight. When first published, it quickly went out of print. Efforts by small presses in the 1970s and 1990s to reintroduce the work have kept it alive, but it still remains largely unnoticed.
That's unfortunate, because Kelley has written a strangely riveting novel with such dynamic characters. Our protagonist, Judith, is unique and strong-willed, a woman with considerable potential who is constantly fighting against poverty and societal expectations. Perhaps what makes this story stand out from others like it is that Judith marries the one man in the region who is not only considerate, but "grants" her the freedoms she asks for. He's certainly not the drunk and abusive misogynist the reader likely expects. Despite this, Judith eventually learns that marriage and motherhood were not what she expected them to be, and refuses to be confined to such roles. These distinctions in these two characters build upon a story with multiple dimensions.
In the end, this story doesn't build up to much of a conclusion, and this is perhaps the novel's greatest weakness. Despite this potential misstep, Weeds is a wonderful look at the brilliance of one woman, struggling against the current in 1920s rural America.
February 6, 2025
3.75 👩🌾🌱🍂👨🌾
June 14, 2015
This pastoral of the turn of the century treats Kentucky Tobacco farmers with dignity. Subsistence living is hard just attending to food and shelter. Very very well written. The focus is on the inner nature of Judith Pippinger as she develops from free-spirited childhood through all the mood swings of childbirth and the burden women often acquire serving a family. It required grueling hard work to live and Judith's nature was carefree only about three chapter's. Everything about nature is beautifully written. If Sylvia Plath were the main character in Little House on the Prairie it might resemble this book. The writing is brutal honesty of the most delicious kind. REAL, but little sunshine. There are definitely silver linings here. This dates from 1923 ,kicks ass, and asks the reader to differentiate between oppression/depression. Recently read Wilma Dykeman's THE TALL WOMAN that I think has similarities, but that book ended on a more uplifting note.
February 7, 2016
This is well-written and moving, but in an awful way that makes me sad for the way people's potential shrivels away when they're trapped in a life too small for them.
August 18, 2019
This book was first published in 1923 then again published in the 1970's at the beginning of women's liberation. Judith Pittinger was a child with desires, chutzpah, energy and effervescence, only to have the burdensome yoke of motherhood and marriage weigh her down in a time with no Maytag washer and dryer, no running water or utilities, no central heat nor air and also a helpless victim of inclement weather which would further drive her and her family into grinding poverty.
For her daughter, Judith wonders which would be worse: marriage and motherhood with all the harrowing joyless burdensome day to day existence OR life as an "old spinster" with nothing. She sees both as hopeless.
A beautifully written book about a young woman's descent into depression, anger and hopelessness.
For her daughter, Judith wonders which would be worse: marriage and motherhood with all the harrowing joyless burdensome day to day existence OR life as an "old spinster" with nothing. She sees both as hopeless.
A beautifully written book about a young woman's descent into depression, anger and hopelessness.
December 31, 2024
Great story about a woman’s travails while attempting to keep her artistic spirit alive in the midst of her proscribed role as a poor housewife on a Kentucky tobacco farm in the early twentieth century. So much has changed in a hundred or so years…and so much has not.
October 6, 2022
Sad, depressing, hopeless. It hit too close to home for me.
My roots are in eastern Ky. My dad’s side of the family were almost as poor as Judith’s. So, they suffered a similar life as he was growing up. My mom’s family owned land and had nice homes.
But still, the “setting up with the sick” and coffins in the living room with the hell fire and damnation of the so called preachers made me fearful of life at an early age.
My roots are in eastern Ky. My dad’s side of the family were almost as poor as Judith’s. So, they suffered a similar life as he was growing up. My mom’s family owned land and had nice homes.
But still, the “setting up with the sick” and coffins in the living room with the hell fire and damnation of the so called preachers made me fearful of life at an early age.
July 27, 2022
One of those books where authorial identity and life experiences really matters. Prior to Laura Ingalls Wilder's appearance on the literary scene, the wives of subsistence farmers were frequently depicted as imprisoned in emotionally and physically degrading lives. For obvious reasons, these narratives were largely penned by these womens' sons and daughters who escaped to a white collar city life (O.E. Rolvaag, Dorothy Scarborough, Hamlin Garland, Willa Cather, Erskine Caldwell) or by genteel town-dwellers who remained in agricultural areas but had never personally lived the day-to-day soul-crushing meaninglessness of subsistence farming (Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Conner).
Weeds is different, and you can tell. Edith Summers Kelley was a city girl -- raised in Toronto, university educated, spent her early 20s in Greenwich Village -- whose first encounter with tenant farming occurred as an adult when she and her second husband moved onto and attempted to cultivate a 700 acre tobacco farm in rural Kentucky. Edith was already a mother of two, and a third child was born in situ.
As a result, Edith's fiction sees things, reports dynamics that other authors skip over entirely. Ambivalence or downright dejection over unplanned pregnancies. The unceasing tedium and exhaustion of feeding and clothing a growing family, which starts out as a joyful experience but over time becomes a prison sentence. The unconscious effects of the first trimester on one's outlook. How the addition of young children precludes husband-and-wife teamwork in the fields, eroding shared ambitions and dividing couples into progressively narrower gender-segregated roles. Our heroine starts as a spunky, engaged young woman who devolves into a nihilistic farmwife tempted by both suicide and self-induced abortion.
It's a hard read, but one that captures a young wife's downward trajectory more realistically than urban men and childless women were able to at that time. For that, in and of itself, it is a valuable addition to southern and prairie fiction.
Weeds is different, and you can tell. Edith Summers Kelley was a city girl -- raised in Toronto, university educated, spent her early 20s in Greenwich Village -- whose first encounter with tenant farming occurred as an adult when she and her second husband moved onto and attempted to cultivate a 700 acre tobacco farm in rural Kentucky. Edith was already a mother of two, and a third child was born in situ.
As a result, Edith's fiction sees things, reports dynamics that other authors skip over entirely. Ambivalence or downright dejection over unplanned pregnancies. The unceasing tedium and exhaustion of feeding and clothing a growing family, which starts out as a joyful experience but over time becomes a prison sentence. The unconscious effects of the first trimester on one's outlook. How the addition of young children precludes husband-and-wife teamwork in the fields, eroding shared ambitions and dividing couples into progressively narrower gender-segregated roles. Our heroine starts as a spunky, engaged young woman who devolves into a nihilistic farmwife tempted by both suicide and self-induced abortion.
It's a hard read, but one that captures a young wife's downward trajectory more realistically than urban men and childless women were able to at that time. For that, in and of itself, it is a valuable addition to southern and prairie fiction.
October 19, 2017
First let me say what I found GOOD about this book: Kelley was an excellent writer. I was often caught up in the story and loved many of the descriptions of Kentucky, and everyday life as well as the presentation of the main character, Judith. Now, for the negatives: Edith Summers Kelley lived extensively in New Jersey in a commune, and in Greenwich Village where she was friends with many feminist activists and Progressive writers of the early 20s. Briefly the writer and her husband moved to a Kentucky tobacco farm that ended up failing. From her brief experience in rural Appalachia she had a talent for observing details of everyday life. However, she brought with her to Ky a strong aversion to country people and a total lack of understanding of what makes them tick. They say you should write what you know. Well, Kelley didn't KNOW these people at all, and it comes across in her book very strongly. She is demeaning and condescending in her descriptions of these good people. She considers them poorly fed and in-bred, with stupid expressions and a lack of imagination and aspirations in life. I was very offended by this woman born in Toronto and living mostly in the north, telling me about Kentucky people. She also shows them as completely devoid of any real religious fervor, and in fact makes it clear that had they been she would have considered them succumbing to fairy tales and falsities. The one preacher she features in the work is clearly not a man of God. Kelley's lack of her own faith is clear in her writing, as is her sense of superiority to the Kentucky farmers she so briefly lived near. I read the entire book (and it's somewhat long) because I wanted to get a full feeling of this work so I could review it properly. I would not recommend it to anyone serious about reading about the Appalachian south.
June 25, 2018
On a semi-silly note, Kelley's favorite word to use to describe anything other than the beauty of untamed nature seems to be "frowsy".
Despite the overuse of this word, Kelley is a writer who has a way with words. Descriptions and dialogue really flow throughout the book. Judith's complex emotions and needs are well-developed. The writing and subject matter remind me a lot of Sylvia Plath.
Nature is cruel, life is hard and unfair. The book is full of wasted lives and unredeemed potential. The only ones who are happy are those who don't know any better or otherwise got lucky and were born (or in Judith's sister's case, married) into something else.
I think the depiction of subsistence / tenant farming is fair. Toiling all day every day for such small returns can be soul-crushing, and it would be easy to think of one's life as wasted and hopeless. However, Kelley's idea of the farmers in the community as a whole is insulting. The only two people in the book with any sort of self-awareness or the ability for reflection are Judith and Jabez Moorhouse. Everyone else dies without ever having lived, and without knowing that they hadn't ever lived. In her own daughter, Annie, their character seems exemplified with her "blank eyes and expressionless face", eyes "with neither depth nor clearness ..., no sparkle of mirth or mischief, no flash of anger, nothing but a dead, even slate color". Plenty of people choose to become farmers and find joy and fulfillment in such a life, but all of these backwater country folk seem simply not to have the capacity to realize they're all very small and unhappy and would be better off doing something else.
This bias is, of course, very influential in the overall attitude of Judith towards her life. The depression and repulsion is palpable, especially in the second half of the book.
Despite the overuse of this word, Kelley is a writer who has a way with words. Descriptions and dialogue really flow throughout the book. Judith's complex emotions and needs are well-developed. The writing and subject matter remind me a lot of Sylvia Plath.
Nature is cruel, life is hard and unfair. The book is full of wasted lives and unredeemed potential. The only ones who are happy are those who don't know any better or otherwise got lucky and were born (or in Judith's sister's case, married) into something else.
I think the depiction of subsistence / tenant farming is fair. Toiling all day every day for such small returns can be soul-crushing, and it would be easy to think of one's life as wasted and hopeless. However, Kelley's idea of the farmers in the community as a whole is insulting. The only two people in the book with any sort of self-awareness or the ability for reflection are Judith and Jabez Moorhouse. Everyone else dies without ever having lived, and without knowing that they hadn't ever lived. In her own daughter, Annie, their character seems exemplified with her "blank eyes and expressionless face", eyes "with neither depth nor clearness ..., no sparkle of mirth or mischief, no flash of anger, nothing but a dead, even slate color". Plenty of people choose to become farmers and find joy and fulfillment in such a life, but all of these backwater country folk seem simply not to have the capacity to realize they're all very small and unhappy and would be better off doing something else.
This bias is, of course, very influential in the overall attitude of Judith towards her life. The depression and repulsion is palpable, especially in the second half of the book.
July 31, 2018
A depressing book about a young Kentucky farm girl in the nineteen teens with a lot of promise--she has energy, intelligence, and drawing ability. However, like all the other girls she knows, she marries early, has children, and has to deal with extreme poverty. The crops don't always grow, there's not enough food in the house, the house is so flimsy that it's often too hot or too cold. It's very realistic, including a description of childbirth that would make anyone think twice about having children. Kelley's life has some parallels. Although she was born in Canada and spent time in Greenwich Village with Sinclair Lewis and Helicon Hall with Upton Sinclair, she married an artist and moved to a farm in Kentucky. The farm wasn't successful and although the couple had enough money to move to other places and farm, it seems obvious that farming was something neither was good at. Kelley only had the one novel published in her lifetime because she was too busy taking care of her family and the various farms.
October 31, 2021
I'm grateful for the Feminist Press for saving Weeds, glad to see it is still in print.
Make sure to read this edition with the birth scene included.
Should be an American classic.
Make sure to read this edition with the birth scene included.
Should be an American classic.
August 9, 2013
This naturalist/feminist novel first published in 1923 takes place in Scott County, Kentucky. Since most of my Goodreads friends live there with me, I would recommend this book since that in itself makes it of interest. The theme of a bright and spirited woman who gets beaten down by hard circumstances and/or the mores of her time is not rare. I loved "The Heart Is
a Lonely Hunter" and felt much more connected to Mick than I did to Judith in "Weeds". Kelley' s treatment of the subject and her characters was much more heavy handed than McCullers', and I found her use of dialect very annoying: "Well an' haow air you a feelin', Judy?"! A friend who is a local history buff told me that the story, centered in an impoverished farming community, was set in northern Scott County. Perhaps it's just my civic pride, but I find it hard to believe that there was ever such a backward, isolated community in our county. Even if there were a group here a hundred years ago who spoke like that, it serves little or no purpose to the story and is, even worse, a major distraction. I have mostly complained, it seems, but I do think the book is worthy of reading. Judith Summers Kelley worked for, and was strongly influenced by, Sinclair Lewis. Her friends were many of the feminists, suffragists and political activists of that era so her novel has historical and thematic interest. It is not available for Kindle. I checked mine (The Feminist Press, 1982) out of the Scott Co. Public Library. Tip: read the afterword first.
a Lonely Hunter" and felt much more connected to Mick than I did to Judith in "Weeds". Kelley' s treatment of the subject and her characters was much more heavy handed than McCullers', and I found her use of dialect very annoying: "Well an' haow air you a feelin', Judy?"! A friend who is a local history buff told me that the story, centered in an impoverished farming community, was set in northern Scott County. Perhaps it's just my civic pride, but I find it hard to believe that there was ever such a backward, isolated community in our county. Even if there were a group here a hundred years ago who spoke like that, it serves little or no purpose to the story and is, even worse, a major distraction. I have mostly complained, it seems, but I do think the book is worthy of reading. Judith Summers Kelley worked for, and was strongly influenced by, Sinclair Lewis. Her friends were many of the feminists, suffragists and political activists of that era so her novel has historical and thematic interest. It is not available for Kindle. I checked mine (The Feminist Press, 1982) out of the Scott Co. Public Library. Tip: read the afterword first.
February 27, 2015
This is a novel about a young woman's life in rural Kentucky during the years surrounding WWI. As a girl she's bright and cheerful, but once she marries and has children, the day-to-day struggles of having to survive as a farmer's wife wear her down. This was written in 1923 and never really caught on, but was rediscovered by the Lost American Fiction project of the Popular Library publishing company in the 1970's. The author was friends with Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis and wrote for magazines after graduating from college. He husband was an artist, and they farmed in several parts of the US, including tobacco farming, about which she writes in the book. The book does a good job of portraying life on a farm, and makes me very glad I didn't have to live that life.
June 23, 2019
Another Grapes of Wrath
This was an extraordinary read. A piece of our country’s history captured, a light shined into a world I would never have known if it weren’t for this author. Heart breaking but real. I don’t know how this book has escaped notice and not been considered among the great novels of the 20th century. Beautifully written and ahead of its time. The main character was to me, completely, heart breakingly sympathetic. Although life is relentlessly grim, the main character Judith has the sensitivity to see the beauty in nature, which is all she has to uplift her throughout her life of grinding poverty and back-breaking work. Its her redemption. This is a book worth reading.
This was an extraordinary read. A piece of our country’s history captured, a light shined into a world I would never have known if it weren’t for this author. Heart breaking but real. I don’t know how this book has escaped notice and not been considered among the great novels of the 20th century. Beautifully written and ahead of its time. The main character was to me, completely, heart breakingly sympathetic. Although life is relentlessly grim, the main character Judith has the sensitivity to see the beauty in nature, which is all she has to uplift her throughout her life of grinding poverty and back-breaking work. Its her redemption. This is a book worth reading.
September 5, 2008
Mom read this is one of her learning in retirement classes...there's Boones mentioned in it. It must be interesting...I hope they aren't inbreeding.
Well, I finished it and the Boones didn't come up again, so that may be for the best. It was semi-interesting, and makes one glad that we women have access to birth control. It's about a Kentucky woman who is full of life and then she starts having children--today she'd be a working woman on the pill. Anyway, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this one even though it was interesting. If you're really into poor folks at the turn of the century and day to day life and how depressing that can be, you might enjoy it. :)
Well, I finished it and the Boones didn't come up again, so that may be for the best. It was semi-interesting, and makes one glad that we women have access to birth control. It's about a Kentucky woman who is full of life and then she starts having children--today she'd be a working woman on the pill. Anyway, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this one even though it was interesting. If you're really into poor folks at the turn of the century and day to day life and how depressing that can be, you might enjoy it. :)
April 13, 2016
Really nice book, however depressing, about the ways society can trap families in systems of poverty and suffering for generations, with little hope of escape. Not an uplifting novel, but well-written and interesting throughout.
January 23, 2021
The descriptions of wildlife, landscapes and sunsets are unparalleled. The tensions and joys of long term relationships are rendered beautifully as well. Weeds is a well written, poignant story.
February 14, 2025
An absorbing book. An important book. If you have any interest in the lives of Kentuckians (especially women) in earlier times, read this book.
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