| Edition |
First Scribner hardcover edition. |
| Description |
405 pages ; 22 cm |
| Summary |
"On a winter day in 1910, at a train station in Ohio, two girls wait in the cold with their mother to begin a new life in the West. Tommy, the eldest, feels responsible for her sister, and in the years to come, as their mother campaigns for women's suffrage and teaches in one-room schoolhouses across Montana, she takes care of Katherine: trapping animals, begging, keeping house, cooking, while her sister goes to school. But as soon as Katherine graduates, Tommy makes a decision that will change the course of both of their lives--separating the two sisters forever, sending one to California and the other to New York. A profound meditation on memory, history, and legacy, ten years in the writing, An Elegant Woman follows one woman over the course of the 20th century, taking the reader from a drought-stricken farm in Montana to a yellow Victorian in Maine; from the halls of a psychiatric hospital in London to a wedding gown fitting at Bergdorf Goodman; from a house in small town Ohio to a family reunion at a sweltering New Jersey pig roast. Through betrayals, revelations, separations, and reunions, the story illuminates the complexities of class, race, feminism, and family, the sacrifices and compromises that go into making a life."-- Provided by publisher. |
| Subject |
Sisters -- Fiction.
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Mothers and daughters -- Fiction.
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Families -- Fiction.
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United States -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction.
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United States -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Fiction.
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| Genre/Form |
Historical fiction.
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Domestic fiction.
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Social problem fiction.
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Historical fiction.
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Domestic fiction.
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Social problem fiction.
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| Other Form: |
Online version: McPhee, Martha. An elegant woman New York : Scribner, 2020 9781501179594 (DLC) 2020004876 |
| ISBN |
9781501179570 (hardcover) |
|
1501179578 (hardcover) |
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9781501179587 (paperback) |
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1501179586 (paperback) |
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9781501179594 (ebook) |
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