The Gentleman from Indianapolis: A Treasury of Booth Tarkington by John (editor) Beecroft, Booth Tarkington (Author), John Alan Maxwell (Illustrator)

An old book of my mother's, an anthology of short stories and novels by Booth Tarkington. I never have finished reading all the stories, but I read and reviewed one for LibraryThing in February, 2014.


I found this volume in my mother's home after her death and decided to keep it. It's in fairly good condition with the exception of the dust jacket, which I threw away keeping the end notes (blurbs).

Alice Adams (complete novel)
Reading from a 21st century perspective, I found the 1920s characters of Alice Adams and her mother very annoying and harmful to their family. The mother was constantly nagging her husband to better himself by leaving his secure if lowly position in a company to start a new business. Alice was a very cheerful person who seemed to get along happily with everyone, but she pretended to be of a social class higher than she was. She had been popular in high school, and thought that popularity alone could get her through adulthood. I found it strange that a 22 year old woman whose family's finances were almost stretched to the limit (partly because of hers and her mother's demands) would not be earning her own way.

I finally got through the novel, just to see how it would turn out, but it has put me off wanting to read the others in this volume: The Magnificent Ambersons and Penrod. I will give them a try though.