Mode of Program Participation
Academic Scholarship
Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Harriette Arnow’s Between the Flowers: Reading the City in rural Appalachia
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Arnow’s second novel, Between the Flowers, remained unpublished during her lifetime and was only published some 60 years later by Michigan State University Press in 1999. In her article, “The Writer and the Land: Harriette Simpson Arnow and the Genesis of Her Novel "Between the Flowers," Martha Billips explains how Arnow and her editor, Harold Strauss, at Covici Friede spent three years trying to get the novel published. According to the correspondence between the two, there were editorial questions about Arnow’s depiction of farming from readers who knew little or nothing about the topic. Contrary to its reception in 1936, where readers discounted Arnow’s familiarity with farming, Martha Billips’s article offers an alternative reading that points to Arnow’s continued interest in agrarianism. My paper will re-examine this topic to explore the tension that exists in Arnow’s novel between those who return to farm like Marsh Gregory, the main character, and those who feel the pull of the city, a theme that gets discussed in many of her novels. Between the Flowers offers Arnow’s most sustained discussion of this subject. It is with her character, Delphine Costello, where the complications play themselves out. Her character problematizes the relationship between an imagined city and the realities of Appalachian life. Though the reader is meant to sympathize with Marsh Gregory, who returns to the land to farm, the character of Delphine offers a counterbalance to explore the dynamics that exist between Appalachian communities and cities that affect everyone.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Phoebe Jackson is a Professor of English at William Paterson University whose academic areas of interest are women writers and social class.
Harriette Arnow’s Between the Flowers: Reading the City in rural Appalachia
Arnow’s second novel, Between the Flowers, remained unpublished during her lifetime and was only published some 60 years later by Michigan State University Press in 1999. In her article, “The Writer and the Land: Harriette Simpson Arnow and the Genesis of Her Novel "Between the Flowers," Martha Billips explains how Arnow and her editor, Harold Strauss, at Covici Friede spent three years trying to get the novel published. According to the correspondence between the two, there were editorial questions about Arnow’s depiction of farming from readers who knew little or nothing about the topic. Contrary to its reception in 1936, where readers discounted Arnow’s familiarity with farming, Martha Billips’s article offers an alternative reading that points to Arnow’s continued interest in agrarianism. My paper will re-examine this topic to explore the tension that exists in Arnow’s novel between those who return to farm like Marsh Gregory, the main character, and those who feel the pull of the city, a theme that gets discussed in many of her novels. Between the Flowers offers Arnow’s most sustained discussion of this subject. It is with her character, Delphine Costello, where the complications play themselves out. Her character problematizes the relationship between an imagined city and the realities of Appalachian life. Though the reader is meant to sympathize with Marsh Gregory, who returns to the land to farm, the character of Delphine offers a counterbalance to explore the dynamics that exist between Appalachian communities and cities that affect everyone.
