When I started my Pulitzer run, I developed a pattern of announcing the next book by writing “Next Up” followed by the author’s name. Then I’d give a brief recap of the book I’d just finished with an introduction to the one I was starting. I kept that up for a few books, but The Orphan Master’s Son was so good that I realized it needed its own piece, even if it was going to be a short one.
Same for Demon Copperhead.
So here I am, having just finished Willa Cather’s One of Ours, and I see a new patter emerging. Another book that was so good I had to give the author her due credit — not by burying my impressions of her work in a piece about my moving on to the next one, but by giving her her own.
I’ll start by saying, “It’s been a while.” I began reading One of Ours on the 12th of June. It took me nearly as long to read as Angle of Repose, which I accused of being both good and a slog. One of Ours was no slog — it just took me a bit of time for some reason. I knew from the beginning that Cather’s prose was beautiful and engaging. It seemed such a light and real telling of a person’s story — not tedious in the slightest. I could see the arc of the main character’s life, and it all made sense. There was a major shift in the middle (you could almost say this was two separate books, the contrast was so stark), but she got you there with little effort. I understood. I didn’t sit there and say, “well, that was sudden,” or “that made no sense at all.” It all fit.
The story was both glorious and tragic. The writing was beautiful. The book won the Pulitzer 100 years ago (1923), and I’m quite happy to have read it. I really do recommend it. It’s a great book that I’m sure does not get the attention of many people anymore, but it should. It comes in right now at number 5 on my list, but that’s a tight list, and the difference between 2 and 5 is really not that far.
Now…next up: Anthony Doerr and the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner, All the Light we Cannot See, which, as it turns out, is another World War book (WWII).
