First published 1999
Caroline Gordon exchanges nearly a decade of correspondence with her literary mentor Ford Madox Ford from 1930 to 1939. The Southern novelist writes candidly about her struggles to establish herself after completing her debut novel Penhally. Ford offers generous guidance and encouragement from England while Gordon works to introduce his writing to American readers. Their letters reveal the harsh economic realities facing writers during the Depression as both authors scramble to earn a living from their craft. Gordon shares vivid accounts of her daily battles as an emerging writer, mixing literary discussions with practical concerns about raising vegetables and chickens. The two authors exchange sharp observations about their contemporaries, including Katherine Anne Porter, Maxwell Perkins, Robert Penn Warren, and William Faulkner. Beyond gossip and survival tactics, they engage in serious conversations about writing technique and critique each other's manuscripts. Their friendship deepens through shared passions for both literature and rural life, creating an intimate portrait of two writers supporting each other across continents during a transformative period in modern literature.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: epistolary, found-family, mentor-mentee
Setting: America, England
Period: 1930s, Depression Era
152 pages · Hardcover · Univ Tennessee Press