LABOUR OF A LIFETIME

Labour of a Lifetime ~ 171 ~ conversation. The word was passed on to a producer, then an agent, then the American BookClub. Each party found the book entrancing and worthy of a greater audience. Finally Helen Hooven Santmyer’s book, entitled “ ... And Ladies of the Club,” was nominated for the Book Club Award in January 1984. It won the Award, and with it a sum of over 1 million dollars. Helen Hooven Santmyer did not seek fame or wealth from her novel. Its topic—the story of two Ohio families in the period between the American Civil War and the great depression of the early 1930’s is obviously not aimed at the commercial market. The author believed that Sinclair Lewis had painted a false portrait of the American dream in his novel of the 1920’s, “Main Street”. She wanted to correct that picture. As Haynes Johnson writes in the Washington Post: The author was clearly not in the market for big bucks. She obviously was motivated by saying something in which she believed. The bare account of how she produced the work over the years, in her spare time, in sickness and in health, in it self