The Friendly Persuasion

Product Details

• Notes:
• Outfit: USED - VERY GOOD
• ISBN13: 9780156029094

Description

A quintessential American heroine, Eliza Birdwell is a wonderful blend of would-be austerity, practicality, and gentle humor when it comes to keeping her faith and caring for her family and community. Her husband, Jess, shares Eliza's love of people and peaceful ways but, unlike Eliza, also displays a fondness for a fast horse and a lively tune. With their children, they must negotiate their way through a world that constantly confronts them-sometimes with candor, sometimes with violence-and tests the strength of their beliefs. Whether it's a gift parcel arriving on their doorstep or Confederate soldiers approaching their land, the Birdwells embrace life with emotion, conviction, and a love for one another that seems to conquer all.
The Friendly Persuasion has charmed generations of readers as one of our classic tales of the American Midwest.

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Customer Reviews

delightful
This is a perfectly delightful collection of stories about a family of Quakers, the Birdwells, in Civil War-era Indiana. For the most part, they center around the ongoing but largely unspoken battle between the somewhat free-spirited husband, Jess, who likes singing and horse racing and the like, and his more serious wife, Eliza. The themes dealt with are mostly minor, though the difficulty of remaining pacifist in the midst of war is treated, and, of course, became the core issue in the excellent Gary Cooper film version of the book.

The real value of the book lies in its implicit rebuke to one of the central conceits of the modern age, that simply because rather restrictive religious beliefs were central to peoples' lives in that earlier America, their existences must necessarily have been dour and joyless. This prejudice is silly on its face, contrary as it is to everything we know about human nature, and Jessamyn West's stories, with their devout, but playful, Quaker characters, are a terrific antidote. Though the Birdwells' lives are proscribed by rules and social conventions which may strike us as odd, they are also filled with joy and love and a sense of community, both the physical and the spiritual community, which any one of us would envy.

GRADE : B+

2001-03-19 | brothersjudddotcom (Hanover, NH USA) | Helpful Votes: 21 | Rating: 4

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A quietly funny and touching book.
Friendly Persuasion is a group of short stories following an Indianan Quaker couple and their family through their adult lives. Jess, the father is a nurseryman and Eliza, his wife, a Quaker clergy. Jess keeps life lively with comeuppances and an attraction to new conveniences such as gas lighting and running water in the home. The opening story "Music on the Muscatuck" was particularly funny. Well written vignettes with clear characterization. Published in 1940 and still in print. An old-fashioned, "classic" sleeper.

1998-08-28 | Helpful Votes: 17 | Rating: 4

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Leafy Rivers, New Edition (Library of Indiana Classics)

Product Details

• Fit out: NEW
• ISBN13: 9780253353023
• <a title='Condition Guide' href='/content/Condition_and_S hipping_Guide.htm' target='_blank'>Click here to in consideration of our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices</a>
• Notes: Sort New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Description

Jessamyn West's spirited novel -- set in the Ohio Territory in the early 1880s -- is a handsomely paced adventure for lovers of period romance and suspense. Leafy Rivers is a young bride caught up in emotions she does not altogether understand and cannot quite control. As she races against time to save a life and a marriage that may already be lost, a vivid assortment of characters -- such as Simon Yanders, a man whose loss has taught him generosity and whose grief has made him alert to joy; Cashie Wade, irresistibly wild and free; and Leafy's husband, Reno, whose love is matched only by his ineptitude -- offers challenges that threaten to waylay her at every turn.

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Customer Reviews

A must for fans of literary fiction, or classical American literature
By the time you realize there's a problem, it may already be too late. "Leafy Rivers" tells the story of the titular character as she faces life in the later nineteenth century. One of the finest novels from Indiana's long history, it is filled with unique characters who offer a glimpse of life at the time while entertaining readers with an adventurous and great story. "Leafy Rivers" is a must for fans of literary fiction, or classical American literature.

2009-04-13 (Oregon, WI USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Still reading
I am still reading this book, & I am enjoying it. The stories are well written. It surpises me this was set in the 1800's. It is fairly modern. The love stories are very touching. I have read a few other Jessamyn West books, & I WILL read more.

2002-05-13 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Jessamyn West (Twayne's United States Authors Series)

Description

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The Massacre at Fall Creek

Description

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Customer Reviews

Solid bit of historical fiction
For this Hoosier reviewer, "The Massacre at Fall Creek" is most interesting since the places involved are no more than a 45 minute drive from my house.

Jessamyn West does a great job of getting the "feel" of an 1824 frontier community - how small it was, how truly far away it was from "civilization" and how that isolation created a unique culture.

The storyline is based on a real incident in which several white men from a community to the north of Pendleton, Indiana killed two families of Indians, including their children and stole their furs. Records from those days are "iffy" at best so West has to fill in a lot of blanks as she goes along. In fact, she even uses fake names for the white men involved, although it may be that in the 33 years since her book was written additional research has revealed the names of the men.

Of course, the Indians were outraged at this treaty violation and the U.S. government decided that there was going to be a real trial and it paid for a team of prosectution and defense lawyers to conduct a real trial. A jail was built (ironically, Pendleton is the site of one of Indiana's prison facilities nowadays as well) and a trial was held for four of the five white men. The fifth white man was never captured by white authorities.

The book focuses on the love life of one of the young ladies of the settlement (her love interests intertwine in all aspects of the case), the trial and the aftermath. At times this book reads more like a romance novel, at othertimes like a legal thriller but it is a solid, enjoyable read about a sad, tragic moment on the Hoosier frontier.

2008-06-27 | intrepid reviewer (Indianapolis, IN) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4

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Another great book of J West's.
Jessamyn West is a great fictional writer of historical events. The Massacre at Fall Creek is great Midwest history, and is similar in style to James Alexander Thom and many of his great fictional historical novels. This is a great book for students of Indiana history--should be recommended by teachers.

2000-06-20 | Helpful Votes: 8 | Rating: 5

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Historical fiction at its best!
This book was great. I used it to further enhance an understanding and foundation for Native Americans and their plight. This book shows how western expansion affected/effected the Natives and how America came to realize that they were human beings also and not just animals. Anyone who wants to gain an understanding of Native Americans through historical fiction will love the book.

1999-12-16 (jacksonville, florida) | Helpful Votes: 11 | Rating: 5

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Collected Stories Of Jessamyn West

Description

In thirty-six stories, West rings changes in time and presents a startling sweep of personalities and moods. Her themes span the breadth of experience, from the bite of misery to the balm of delight. Her achievement, taken totally, is a spectrum of living-a haunting, rewarding experience.

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To see the dream

Description

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Customer Reviews

A story not finished yet.
Jessamyn West tells some entertaining stories about how she, a naive midwestern farmer's daughter, is taken from her humble home in Napa to Hollywood where directer William Wyler, his assistant, and his brother Robert wine and dine and flatter her into revising Michael Wilson's script for Friendly Persuasion resulting with a film that matches their vision of her novel. Often she leaves on the train during difficult stages of the production. Her story does evade the controversy concerning removing Wilson's credit for the script that Frank Capra first planned to film. The blacklist is never mentioned. It would be a more interesting read to learn about Wilson's script and compare it to the final film to see the differences. Like "Citizen Kane" maybe someone could take that first script and film it for Showtime or Turner Classics. While I do find West's book to be gifted writing (it points out she is not a Quaker as stated in some biographies) I am disapointed at her eagerness to compromise principles just to visit Hollywood and be charmed by these
celebrity VIP's.

2008-02-07 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3

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A remarkable piece of work
"A film ought not to be the 'picture of' a novel, a visual record of events related in a printed narrative. I would far rather have a good movie which bore very little relation to the book than a poor movie which faithfully photographed the book. A movie is a thing in itself; it should be good in itself, not as a mirror for another form."

That's just one of the many gems included in this insightful account, from conception through execution, of how Jessamyn West's novel The Friendly Persuasion became a film. The book takes the form of journal entries that follow the author's life, as she lived it during this time. Unlike many other novelists whose works have become movies, West wasn't much interested in overseeing her own book's filming. She especially wasn't interested in writing the script, because she was immersed in a new manuscript; and because she wisely understood that a novelist and a script writer practice different arts. But in order to help the great director William Wyler capture her characters, and tell their story in a way appropriate for the screen, she found herself learning how to write a script anyway - and she also found herself venturing into the life of a world called Hollywood.

Writers and non-writers alike will enjoy West's anecdotes featuring Wyler, actor Gary Cooper, and others. But it's her fellow writers who will read this book with smiles and nods, as West captures over and over feelings that everyone who knows the Muse must recognize. This is a remarkable piece of work. Highly recommended!

2004-10-01 (Augusta, ME USA) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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