Writing for Her Life: The Novelist Mildred Walker

by Ripley Hugo

Book Overview

"You are either a Mildred Walker enthusiast," as the Philadelphia Inquirer once declared, "or you are missing one of the best writers on the American scene." As Mildred Walker's daughter, Ripley Hugo was in the latter category. This biography of the author of thirteen celebrated novels is also Hugo's search for the writing life of a mother known to her children as a socially correct middle-class doctor's wife rather than as the ambitious, imaginative, often struggling novelist she was as well. Drawing on family memories, letters, diaries, reviews, and, in particular, the notebooks that Mildred Walker (1905-1998) kept for each novel, Hugo fashions an absorbing account of how her mother's characters emerged in the landscapes that she visited again and again: Vermont, the Midwest, and, most frequently, Montana, the setting for the classic Winter Wheat. Alongside this developing picture of a writer at work--shaping her contribution to western America's literary history over half a century--Hugo shows us the proper mother and social creature as carefully and consciously crafted; between the two lovingly detailed portrayals, we glimpse the depths of a life thus divided.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803223838
• ISBN13: 9780803223837
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

I loved reading about Mildred Walker and her books

I've read all of Mildred Walker's novels and have often wondered why they were set in Vermont, the Midwest or in Montana and how the author had such different stories to tell in each novel. Reading about where the novelist spent much of her life and with whom, it all made sense. I am anxious to re-read each novel, and compare my memory with the insights that Ms. Hugo had added about the circumstances under which they were written.It was fascinating to read about about how Mildred Walker kept her life as a novelist separate from her life as a mother. And characters in her novels may not have been people she enjoyed associating with in life. Thank you Ripley Hugo, for adding to my enjoyment of your mother's books!