UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · GENERAL
Conrad Richter
Conrad Michael Richter (October 13, 1890 – October 30, 1968) was an American novelist whose lyrical work is concerned largely with life on the American frontier in various periods. His novel The Town (1950), the last story of his trilogy The Awakening Land about the Ohio frontier, won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His novel The Waters of Kronos won the 1961 National Book Award for Fiction. Two collections of short stories were published posthumously during the 20th century, and several of his novels have been reissued during the 21st century by academic presses.
When the lunch period begins, the lines dissolve in an instant of fluidity.
— from A Country of Strangers, 1997
Most acclaimed
A Country of Strangers
1997
A Country of Strangers is a magnificent exploration of the psychological landscape where blacks and whites meet. To tell the story in human rather than abstract terms, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David K. Shipler bypasses both extremists and celebrities and takes us among ordinary Americans as they encounter one another across racial lines. We learn how blacks and whites see each other, how they interpret each other's behavior, and how certain damaging images and assumptions seep into the actions of even the most unbiased. We penetrate into dimensions of stereotyping and discrimination that are usually invisible, and discover the unseen prejudices and privileges of white Americans, and what black Americans make of them. The book makes clear that we have the ability to shape our racial landscape - to reconstruct, even if not perfectly, the texture of our relationships. There is an assessment of the complexity confronting blacks and whites alike as they struggle to recognize and define the racial motivations that may or may not be present in a thought, a word, a deed. The book does not prescribe, but it documents the silences that prevail, the listening that doesn't happen, the conversations that don't take place. It looks at relations between minorities, including blacks and Jews, and blacks and Koreans. It explores the human dimensions of affirmative action, the intricate contacts and misunderstandings across racial lines among coworkers and neighbors. It is unstinting in its criticism of our society's failure to come to grips with bigotry; but it is also, happily, crowded with black people and white people who struggle in their daily lives to do just that.
The sea of grass
St. Louis woman travels to New Mexico to wed rancher, only to find that his first love is "sea of grass" where thousands of cattle roam and open-range cattlemen fight against small-town farmers. "That lusty pioneer blood is tamed now, broken and gelded like the wild horse and the frontier settlement." From that first poignant line to the glowing passage at the end, this novel is a work of art, enchanting the reader by the beauty of its prose at the same time that it rouses him by its passionate drama. A love-story, full of tenderness and sorrow, it is also a picture of a time forever lost and a way of life that now exists only in the memories of garrulous oldsters. Here is the Southwest in all its bravado and brutality, its color and violence, eternally fascinating even when filtered through the tale of a woman who hated it. Mr. Richter in this book confirms the high promise of his superb short stories of the Southwest published last year in the volume called Early Americana. The tragic conflict is laid bare immediately when James Brewton, lord of the greatest ranch in all Texas, bold, inexhaustible, and merciless, brings to his lawless land the girl he will marry--a girl of incomparable loveliness, gentle, soft, cultivated. yet strong and willful in her own fragile way. The very morning of her arrival she witnessed an episode in the cruel battle between the herdsmen, led by her bridegroom, and the settlers, whole families of starvelings who had migrated to the virgin territory, led by a young lawyer driven half by ambition and half by gallantry. The lines were drawn then, and there could be no truce until time had cooled the blood and history itself resolved the war. But how much they lived through until that truce, how many sleepless nights, how many regrets, how much pain! The reader turns the last page secure in the knowledge that he, too, has lived through something profound in the unfolding of this story--and the emotion it has evoked will haunt him for more than a day.--Jacket.
The aristocrat
An infinitely attractive human being--a great lady, American-style--comes alive in Conrad Richter's wonderful new novel. She is Miss Alexandria Morley, and in her eighties--a doughty warrior against creeping modernity and mediocrity. She has the warmest of hearts. She is the coolest of strategists. It is a joy to see her do battle. Secure in her Victorian mansion, in "her "Pennsylvania town, flying her flag in defense of principle and old-time decorum, she takes on and outclasses the mighty coal company (she's caught them cheating on taxes); civilizes her roughhewn young doctor (good character is no license for crudity); copes patiently (family obligations are sacred) with the poor old cousin who is a tidal wave of garrulous idiocy; stands firm against the poisonous cousin who is a knot of destructive envy; puts herself gently at the service of a sweet young cousin who cannot decide among her eligible beaux. All around her, in her house, in her memories, the past swirls. But Miss Alexandria lives in the now. She hopes, out of courtesy to her heirs, to die when her stocks are up. She tells the truth to those who can bear it--most especially to herself. She has learned, from the Southern belle who was her mother, to love the graces of life--and, from the mining potentate who was her father, to give no quarter to foolish circumstances. Even on her deathbed, Miss Alexandria, who has warned the officious clergyman that she won't have anyone praying aloud over her, wins a gallant victory. Like her dear ones and her adversaries, her servants and her fellow townspeople, the reader will take his hat off to the Aristocrat. She is the last of her kind.