Country Place: A Novel

Country Place: A Novel

by Ann Petry (Author), Farah Jasmine Griffin (Contributor), Ann Petry (author ) & Farah Jasmine Griffin ( Cont (Author)

Synopsis

Originally published in 1947, Ann Petry's classic Country Place depicts a predominantly white community disillusioned by the indignities and corruption of small-town life.

Johnnie Roane returns from four years of military service in World War II to his wife, Glory. They had been married just a year when he left Lennox, Connecticut, where both their families live and work. In his taxi ride home, Johnnie receives foreboding hints that all has not been well in his absence. Eager to mend his fraying marriage, Johnnie attempts to cajole Glory to recommit to their life together. But something sinister has taken place during the intervening years--an infidelity that has not gone unnoticed in the superficially placid New England town.

Accompanied by a new foreword from Farah Jasmine Griffin on the enduring legacy of Petry's oeuvre, Country Place complicates and builds on the legacy of a literary celebrity and one of the foremost African American writers of her time.

$28.44

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Published: 30 Mar 2019

ISBN 10: 0810139766
ISBN 13: 9780810139763

Media Reviews
In this novel Ann Petry shows, through her compactness of style, increased fluidity of dialogue, and convincing character analysis, a marked advance over The Street. --Margaret Just Wormley, Journal of Negro Education, 1948

Gossip, malice, calculation, infidelity, adultery, attempted murder, sudden death, and a set of surprise bequests that more or less straighten things out--these are some of the dominant matters treated in Country Place. Yet this is, despite the violence of its events, a quiet book, carefully and economically phrased, and a good deal different from the author's best-selling The Street. --Richard Sullivan, New York Times, 1947