The Grandmothers is a 1927 novel by Glenway Wescott which received the Harper Novel Prize. Based upon Wescott's own Wisconsin-based family, it is told through the eyes of young Alwyn Tower who leaves the family farm to live in Europe, but who remains haunted and fascinated by his relatives of previous generations: grandparents, great-uncles and aunts, and others from both his mother's and father's side, many of whose lives were upended by the Civil War. Each chapter is devoted to a different family member.
Written in a lyrical, poetic style, The Grandmothers is Wescott's most enduring work. In a review in The Atlantic Monthly, Mary Ellen Chase praised the novel's "minute attention to concrete detail":
Editions The Grandmothers, a Family Portrait, Harper & Brothers (1927) ...with an introduction by Fred B. Millett, Harper & Brothers (1950) ...with an introduction by John W. Aldridge, Arbor House (1986) ...with an introduction by Sargent Bush, Jr., University of Wisconsin Press (1996)
References
External links
The Grandmothers (first edition) at the Internet Archive