Pity Is Not Enough

by Josephine Herbst

Book Overview

"I'd rather fail in story writing than succeed in anything else," Josephine Herbst declared in 1913. The Iowa native's Trexler family trilogy, with Pity Is Not Enough as its first volume, shows clearly that Herbst in fact succeeded at storytelling. The book draws loosely on Herbst's family history, using Reconstruction's demise in Georgia to link the advance of free market capitalism to the North's abandonment of its commitment to racial justice...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252066529
• ISBN13: 9780252066528
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Psychology of the Entrepreneur

Josephine Herbst's neglect is an incredible injustice. She is truly one of the most perceptive novelists of the century. This volume is especially valuable for its insights into the motivations of a character trying to take advantage of rising capitalism in the reconstruction era. This is the historical novel as serious literature. The first in a trilogy about the Trexler family it should be ranked with Dos Passos' U.S.A. and Farrell's Studs Lonigan as some of the most insightful literature of the thirties.