- Hardcover: 549 pages
- Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky (December 1985)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0813115442
- ISBN-13: 978-0813115443
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.5 x 3.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 703 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,301,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"The depth and power and stature of this enormous book are rare indeed in modern fiction." -- The New York Times
"The Dollmaker has vividness and terrific reality. It is a book to make one think...a story of the strength of the human heart against bitter odds....Deeply sincere and moving." -- Chicago Tribune
"A masterwork...A superb book of unforgettable strength and glowing richness." -- The New York Times
"The Dollmaker's depiction of family life -- the entangled bonds between parents and children, brothers and sisters -- is unparalleled in modern fiction." -- The Georgia Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
"The Dollmaker has vividness and terrific reality. It is a book to make one think...a story of the strength of the human heart against bitter odds....Deeply sincere and moving." -- Chicago Tribune
"A masterwork...A superb book of unforgettable strength and glowing richness." -- The New York Times
"The Dollmaker's depiction of family life -- the entangled bonds between parents and children, brothers and sisters -- is unparalleled in modern fiction." -- The Georgia Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Book Description
Strong-willed, self-reliant Gertie Nevel's peaceful life in the Kentucky hills was devastated by the brutal winds of change. Uprooted form their backwoods home, she and her family were thrust into the confusion and chaos of wartime Detroit. And in a pitiless world of unendurable poverty, Gertie would battle fiercely and relentlessly to protect those things she held most precious--her children, her heritage...and her triumphant ability to create beauty in the suffocating shadow of ugliness and despair.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
Dock's shoes on the rocks up the hill and his heavy breathing had shut out all sound so that it seemed a long while she had heard nothing, and Amos lay too still, not clawing at the blanket as when they had started. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Dock's shoes on the rocks up the hill and his heavy breathing had shut out all sound so that it seemed a long while she had heard nothing, and Amos lay too still, not clawing at the blanket as when they had started. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Real for Me,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dollmaker (Mass Market Paperback)
Having grown up in rural Kentucky 'The Dollmaker' was far too real for me. Gertie is a real character, she is the typical strong and determined woman of the mountains. It is almost repulsive that she has to be paired with a man who is a weak and spineless character. Despite it all she was able to create beauty, honor her husband and children and to have dreams in all the despair. Her life is typical for so many women of rural Appalachia from that time. I would say that one who has to see the movie to critique the book needs to remember that a movie is rarely as worthy as the book. Either read the book or see the movie, most often I choose to do the former. Why let a movie ruin a good book! Stands out in my mind as one of the all time best reads, comprable to "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck!
5.0 out of 5 stars
A passionate denunciation of industry and war,
By
This review is from: Dollmaker (Mass Market Paperback)
An amazing book, especially considering it was published in 1954.The opening scene is gripping: an uneducated rural housewife performs a tracheotomy on her dying son. She values their country life and holds to those country values even when war comes and she takes the kids and follows her husband to Detroit where he's been assigned to work in a war factory. Wonderful characters, vividly drawn. But most of all, The Dollmaker is a passionate denunciation of industrialization and of war and all that it does to families and society.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Long but good,
By Kristine S. (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Dollmaker (Mass Market Paperback)
The Dollmaker was a novel about a family and it's struggle to stay together. The main character Gertie Nevel moved her family from Kentucky to Detroit in an effort to survive. It was during War World II and Gertie's family was in dire need of money. Though Gertie is strong willed, her fight in the chaotic wartime of Detroit thrusts her into a life she is at times unable to bare. The type of life she lived before and her morals she brought up with her to Michigan is something she continued to battle with through out the book. Her love for land, crops, and the country throws her into despair. Her Detroit home smothered her with disbeliefs of never being happy in an environment such as a city life. The home itself was small and she felt like she could have been suffocated at any moment. Her perception of urban life is not a good one either. She views Kentucky as this beautiful place where life should be, and instead she's in Detroit where there is nothing but evil. Another problem Gerite faces is in her leisure time; there she is incapable to whittle the small dolls for Cassie, her youngest daughter. Now she has to make ugly, unwanted dolls to make money. Gertie is a character with a lot of inner strength, and yet her spirit was broken through out the novel. Although this book was stretched out in miniscule detail it allowed the readers to understand more clearly how life changes for the better.
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