The Ford

by Mary Hunter Austin

Book Overview

Mary Austin's 1917 novel illuminates one of the crucial issues in California history--the usurpation of water from the Owens Valley. Ranging from the eastern Sierra to the financial district in San Francisco, the plot portrays the frenzied speculation in land and resources, labor protests, and feminist organizing of the time, exemplified in the successful efforts of an independent young woman to buy back her family's Owens Valley ranch.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520207572
• ISBN13: 9780520207578
• Release Date: May 1997
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 440 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

triply wonderful work

Our college comp lit professor used to say that a work of fiction will have one main emphasis out of these three: plot, characterization, theme. The Ford, however, has all three aspects equally strong. In it, Mary Austin tells a riveting story, reveals keen observational and descriptive powers vis a vis the many varieties of humankind (noble and less so), and educates the reader in Western land use and water rights while she's at it. A more complete novel is hard to find. I loved it.