Today’s post is an excerpt taken from Ruth Suckow’s novel Country People, first published in 1924, and reissued this centenary year. Country People was Suckow’s first novel in a long and distinguished list of published books. She was a well-known writer in her time. But she often wrote of rural characters in a rural setting, so she was tagged a “regionalist” and soon forgotten.
Thank you for this post, Mary. I'm looking forward to meeting you later this year at the RSMA meeting. My then boyfriend took me to a Ruth Suckow Annual Meeting as a hot date 25 years ago and I was astonished to learn about this wonderful writer--I was an English teacher at Hawkeye Community College. I'd taken classes at ISU and Buena Vista and had numerous literature courses, but I'd never heard of Suckow. I began using one of her short stories ("A Rural Community") in my Intro to Literature class and students liked her and "got" her.
What a vivid picture of a time and place. Thanks again for your introduction to Ruth Suckow's work and for your introduction today to the excerpt from her novel.
Thank you for this post, Mary. I'm looking forward to meeting you later this year at the RSMA meeting. My then boyfriend took me to a Ruth Suckow Annual Meeting as a hot date 25 years ago and I was astonished to learn about this wonderful writer--I was an English teacher at Hawkeye Community College. I'd taken classes at ISU and Buena Vista and had numerous literature courses, but I'd never heard of Suckow. I began using one of her short stories ("A Rural Community") in my Intro to Literature class and students liked her and "got" her.
What a vivid picture of a time and place. Thanks again for your introduction to Ruth Suckow's work and for your introduction today to the excerpt from her novel.
Thank you Mary. Having just learned about Ruth Suckow this past summer, I am anxious to read her books.