The Dollmaker
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  • Published: 15 May 2017
  • ISBN: 9781784871871
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 624
  • RRP: $29.99

The Dollmaker

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An unknown American novel that deserves to be read. An epic masterpiece about an uneducated, rural woman who happens to be an artist - a sculptor of beautiful handmade dolls

'A terrifying lesson in US history – and a haunting tragedy' Guardian
Gertie is the young mother of five children – uneducated, determined, strong. Her only ambition is to own her own small farm in the Kentucky hills where she lives, to become self-sufficient and free.

Whenever the struggle to live off the land eases, her inarticulate imagination takes its freedom and flies. Because Gertie is also an artist, a sculptor of wood and creator of beautiful handmade dolls.

When the family is forced to move to industrial Detroit, with its pre-fab houses, appliances bought on credit and neighbours on every side, life turns into an incomprehensible, lonely nightmare. Gertie realises she must adapt to a life where land, family and creativity are replaced by just one thing: the constant need for money.

‘A masterwork… A superb book of unforgettable strength and glowing richness’ New York Times
WITH AN AFTERWORD BY JOYCE CAROL OATES
  • Published: 15 May 2017
  • ISBN: 9781784871871
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 624
  • RRP: $29.99
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About the author

Harriette Arnow

Harriette Arnow was an American teacher, novelist, social historian and essayist, celebrated for her works on the populations of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. She was born into a family of teachers in 1908 and after studying at the University of Louisville taught for two years in a school in rural Pulaski County. These experiences provided the basis for her first novel, Mountain Path. After spending time in Cincinnati and Kentucky, Arnow moved with her husband and two children to a farm in Michigan. It was there that she wrote The Dollmaker in 1954, a book that would become a landmark in American fiction. It was at that same farm that she died in 1984.

Praise for The Dollmaker

A masterwork...A superb book of unforgettable strength and glowing richness

New York Times

The depth and power and stature of this enormous book are rare indeed in modern fiction

New York Times

The Dollmaker has vividness and terrific reality. It is a book to make one think...a story of the strength of the human heart against bitter odds... Deeply sincere and moving

Chicago Tribune

The Dollmaker's depiction of family life - the entangled bonds between parents and children, brothers and sisters - is unparalleled in modern fiction

Georgia Review

It is a legitimate tragedy, our most unpretentious American masterpiece

Joyce Carol Oates

An extraordinary novel, one that burns ferociously with the great twinned fires of country and city that constitute America. Its opening pages are among the most striking I’ve read in recent years but so are its last. May this hard, beautiful story find the many new readers it deserves

Laird Hunt

A novel about social determinism, about the way that conformity and adaptation push against individualism… The Dollmaker has power and poignancy.

Sarah Churchwell, New Statesman

A book of biblical intensity... With vivid insights into racial, religious and labour tensions, this is a terrifying lesson in US history – and a haunting tragedy

Guardian

As engrossing as it is moving

Mail on Sunday

A heart-rending documentation of a turbulent time in American history. High time it was rediscovered

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