One Hundred Years of Marriage (2nd Ed.)
by Louise Farmer Smith
DESCRIPTION
Now accepting pre-orders of 2nd Edition with new format, Book Club notes, and author interview by Ronna Wineberg, Senior Fiction Editor of the Bellevue Literary Review.
In a series of interlocked stories Louise Farmer Smith, the author of ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MARRIAGE, pierces the myths through four generations of one American family's mismatched marriages--the teenage girl lifted out of the hunger and chaos that followed the Civil War; the suicidal wife isolated on the Oklahoma prairie; the china painter whose husband cannot make a living; and her daughter who dreamed of luxury. Dark? Yes, but full of humor too. These six stories move backward in time to search out the influences on the next generation--the standards, prejudices, and overheard conversations that they forget but carry with them when they choose a spouse.
This novel in stories is a practical pre-history of the momentum leading to women's liberation. It is a substantial addition to the social history of American women. Thoroughly researched the stories compellingly paint the settings of post-Civil War pioneer life and the female-dominated 40s, with the men at war.
In a series of interlocked stories Louise Farmer Smith, the author of ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MARRIAGE, pierces the myths through four generations of one American family's mismatched marriages--the teenage girl lifted out of the hunger and chaos that followed the Civil War; the suicidal wife isolated on the Oklahoma prairie; the china painter whose husband cannot make a living; and her daughter who dreamed of luxury. Dark? Yes, but full of humor too. These six stories move backward in time to search out the influences on the next generation--the standards, prejudices, and overheard conversations that they forget but carry with them when they choose a spouse.
This novel in stories is a practical pre-history of the momentum leading to women's liberation. It is a substantial addition to the social history of American women. Thoroughly researched the stories compellingly paint the settings of post-Civil War pioneer life and the female-dominated 40s, with the men at war.
PRAISE FOR ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MARRIAGE
“I loved this book... Smith has given us a wonderfully satisfying work of imagination as well as a perceptive dose of social history. I also admired the surprise ending.”
—GAIL GODWIN, Author of Flora and Publishing: A Writer's Memoir
“One Hundred Years of Marriage is a brilliant and empathic journey into the prehistory of the modern women’s equality movement...the author explores the ways that dysfunction in one generation can have
unanticipated ripple effects in subsequent generations.”
—WILLIAM ESKRIDGE, JR., Garver Professor of Jurisprudence, Yale Law School, Teacher of Sexuality, Gender, and the Law.
“Louise Farmer Smith’s novel is as compelling as it is enchanting—full of wonderful tales, and with a lovely sense of the strange, sad, and touching ways our destinies are shaped.”
—JAY NEUGEBOREN, Author, Imagining Robert, 1940, The Other Side of the World
—GAIL GODWIN, Author of Flora and Publishing: A Writer's Memoir
“One Hundred Years of Marriage is a brilliant and empathic journey into the prehistory of the modern women’s equality movement...the author explores the ways that dysfunction in one generation can have
unanticipated ripple effects in subsequent generations.”
—WILLIAM ESKRIDGE, JR., Garver Professor of Jurisprudence, Yale Law School, Teacher of Sexuality, Gender, and the Law.
“Louise Farmer Smith’s novel is as compelling as it is enchanting—full of wonderful tales, and with a lovely sense of the strange, sad, and touching ways our destinies are shaped.”
—JAY NEUGEBOREN, Author, Imagining Robert, 1940, The Other Side of the World
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Louise Farmer Smith, granddaughter of pioneer dugout dwellers and chip gatherers, graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a BA in Letters. She has Masters degrees from Yale University and Goddard College.
She has worked as a high school and college English teacher, interned as a family therapist, and served on a U.S. Congressman’s Washington staff.
A PEN/New England Discovery, she has won Antietam Review, Potomac Review, and Glimmer Train first place fiction prizes.
Her writing has appeared online at Narrative Magazine, Fiction Brigade and Persimmon Tree, and in print in anthologies, I’ve Always Meant to Tell You, Letters to Our Mothers, (Pocket Books); What I’ve Never Said (Story Line Press); Going Home (Mint Hill Books); and Dots on a Map (Main Street Rag). Her many hard copy publications include Virginia Quarterly Review, Bellevue Literary Review which nominated her story, “Return to Lincoln” for a 2005 Pushcart Prize, and Cross Timbers which nominated “Voice of Experience” for a Pushcart Prize in 2014.
Her novel-in-stories, One Hundred Years of Marriage, is available from Upper Hand Press which will publish Cadillac, Oklahoma in November, 2016.
Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She was a 2005 Bread Loaf Fellow.
Smith lives on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, an endless source of material.
Ω Ω Ω
Publications
Louise Farmer Smith
Novels in Stories
One Hundred Years Of Marriage, Upper Hand Press, 2014,
2nd edition pub date September 15, 2016
Cadillac, Oklahoma, Upper Hand Press, November 1, 2016.
Literary Journals
“Sugar House,” Virginia Quarterly Review, Volume 73, Number 3, Summer 1997
“The Soloist,” Antietam Review, Fiction Prize Spring, 1997
“The Estate,” Weber Studies, Summer 1998
“A Deep and Comforting Voice,” Writer’s Forum, Winter ’99
“Expiration Date,” North Dakota Quarterly, Spring 2000. Read as PEN/New England Discovery, Radcliff College.
“Faithful Elders,” Potomac Review, Fiction Prize, Fall 2000
“From Wrona to Kath,” 1945, The Remarkable Life of Henry Wrona, Edited by Elaine Foster, February 2004
“Return to Lincoln,” Bellevue Literary Review, Spring 2004 Pushcart Nomination 2005. In collection, One Hundred Years of Marriage, 2012
“Dry Spell,” WritingSite.com Featured Writer, Spring, 2005
“Vita, 1985,” The Southeast Review, Fall 2005
“The Apartment on Riverside Drive,” First Prize for Short Story, GlimmerTrain 2007
“The Old Wife,” Potomac Review, Fall 2007.
“The Ladies’ Table,” Belleview Literary Review, Fall 2008.
“Heartsong’s Mother,” Persimmon Tree Fall 2008.
“Patricia,” published online as featured writer on Writer’s Site, 2010. In collection, One Hundred Years of Marriage, 2012.
“Not Totally Passive,” Fiction Brigade, Fall, 2011
“Teacher,” Santa Fe Review, 2012
“The Beautiful Mother of the Bride,” Say it at Your Wedding, Spring 2012
“Babies,” Delmarva Review, Spring ?, 2012
“Credit Check,” paperplates
“Waiting For Elinor,” Licking River Review
Anthologies
“Supper Alone,” I’ve Always Meant to Tell You: Letters to Our Mothers, edited by Constance Warloe, (PocketBooks, 1997)
“Memo,” To Fathers, An Anthology of Letters, edited by Constance Warloe, (Story Line Press, 2001)
“Sugar House,” Per Se, edited by Tima Smith, reprinted with permission from Virginia Quarterly Review.
“Don’t Turn Around,” Dots on a Map, edited by Kate Schultz, Main Street Rag Press, 2009.
“Guthrie Junction,” Coming Home, edited by Katey Schultz, Main Street Rag Press, 2010.
A. Oklahoma has always been the well I’ve drawn from in short stories
and books. Both of my parents were born there and their parents pioneered
there. I grew up in Oklahoma CADILLAC , OKLAHOMA 11/1/16, both are set in Oklahoma
Q. What is your favorite thing about being a writer?
A. I don’t have to get dressed in the mornings; I can just sit down
and write.
Q. What is the toughest part of being a writer?
A. Marketing the books.
Q. If you could not be writer, what would you do/be?
A. I have actually been a home stager for houses that were going on
the market or for homeowners who wanted a fresh start. I had a great time with
that. And, in my fantasies, I’m still a teacher.
Q. What would the story of your life be entitled?
A. Late Bloomer
Q. What is your favorite book of all time?
A. I have loved many books, but the one that taught me the most about
writing was one I didn’t come to until I was teaching high school English. MRS.
BRIDGE by Evan S. Connell taught me to write a spare sentence.
Q. Which character from ANY book are you most like?
A. I’m the oldest child in my family who always imagined that she was
responsible for everyone’s happiness, so Elinor Dashwood in SENSE AND
SENSIBILITY. Emma Thompson played the role in the 1995 movie. She’s one of my
favorite actors.
Q. What character from all of your book are you most
like?
A. I am most like Patricia in ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MARRIAGE. Although
she was braver on her wedding day than I would have been under the
circumstances.
Q. Which book would you love to take a weekend vacation inside
of?
A. My family was never good at taking vacations when I was a child,
and my husband and I haven’t got the hang of it either, so maybe I’ll choose
Lucinda Fleeson’s WAKING UP IN EDEN, so at least I’d get to go to Hawaii.
Q. What is your
favorite season?
A. I love the fall—crisp air, new pencils, blank notebooks, a time of
beginnings for the school year: classes and dances.
Q. What inspired your book cover(s)? Or what is your
favorite book cover and why?
A. I really like the cover of
Ronna Wineberg’s ON BITTERSWEET
PLACE
Q. Tell me something funny that happened while on a book tour
or while promoting your book.
A. I was on a book tour in Oklahoma
Q. Are you working on something new?
A. Of course. I’m telling the story of my grandfather’s family’s
pioneering into Oklahoma
Q. Anything you want to say to followers of this blog or those
that are just stopping by?
A. Hi. You are alive and reading at a very exciting time. New York
monopoly on publishing. All over the country small presses are growing up.
Writers are able to publish their own books. During the reign of the giant
bookstores, we lost the 50 year-old bookstore I could walk to. Amazon wiped out
the rest in the city I live in. But now,
right here in my neighborhood, a beautiful bookstore has just opened up. The
newspapers tell us it’s a good time to open a book store. People missed them.
And there are blogs like Mrs. Mommy to support writers and readers and help
them find each other. Rejoice, literary people! We live a an age of revival.
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