A collection of poignant stories about art and artists, about those who love them and those who don’t. Every story in this book is about artists and disappointment. Three stories are Western, two of them set in Kansas and Wyoming, and the third is about a woman from Nebraska traveling through Boston.
When Professor Godfrey St. Peter and his wife move into a new home, he begins to feel dissatisfied with the new turn in life. He continues his scientific work in his dusty laboratory in an old house, trying to return to his old life. Two of his daughters get married and leave their home, two sons-in-law appear in the family. This provokes a midlife crisis, making the professor feel like he has lost his will to live due to a lack of purpose.
An American classic about Swedish immigrants in the Midwest. There lived in Nebraska a clever and beautiful woman named Alexandra Bergson, and she had three brothers. The older ones were greedy self-satisfied people, the younger one was a spoiled egoist, and she devoted her whole life to making sure they had a good life. I thought only about crops, livestock and land plots, but I didn’t think about myself – for the time being
The action takes place in Virginia five years before the Civil War. The story shows the impact of slavery on Saphira Colbert, a woman of spirit and common sense who is frighteningly capricious in dealing with the people she „owns”. The heroine Sapphira lacks moral qualities, she does not cause sympathy. However, the book was critically acclaimed and was a commercial success.
This is a historical fiction book depicting the French colonization of Canada and life in Quebec in the late 1600s. Euclid Auclair is a father and a widower. The little daughter took over the running of their home after the death of her beloved mother two years ago. She is twelve. Euclid and his family, wife and daughter, had come to Quebec eight years earlier, hired by the Governor General to be his physician.
The story is about a rich girl deserting her riches for the love of her life. She is an Irish Catholic and the boy for whom she leaves everything is related to German Protestantism. The life seems to be good. But when at the end of her life as the couple is reduced to abject poverty, she probes few questions relating to her life.
The story of a boy who grew up in a wealthy farming family, not avoiding hardships and always ready to lend a helping hand. The story of a love that didn’t happen, but rather happened, between the main character or Antonia, turns out to be more than growing up, more than just about the history of one country. This is a story about a change of mind.
Lucy Gayheart is well known in her small Nebraska town for her great looks, energy and piano playing. Everyone assumes that she will marry the son of banker Harry Gordon, including Harry, but at 18 she goes to Chicago to study piano and ends up making money accompanying the famous international vocalist when he spends time in Chicago. Her life, other people’s lives and people’s expectations changed forever.
The novel tells about the life of a French missionary in the southwestern United States. In the center of the novel are two Frenchmen, Bishop Jean Latour and Father Joseph Veillant, who left Europe and devoted their entire adult lives to creating a new Catholic parish in Santa Fe after the Mexican War.
