The Best Years (story)

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"The Best Years"
Short story by Willa Cather
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s) Short story
Publication
Published in The Old Beauty and Others
Publication type Short story collection
Publication date1948

The Best Years is a short story by Willa Cather, first published after her death in the collection The Old Beauty and Others in 1948. [1] It is her final work, [2] and was intended as a gift to her brother, Roscoe Cather, [3] [4] who died as it was being written. [5] Set in Nebraska and the northeastern United States, [6] [7] the story takes place over twenty years, tracing the response of Lesley Ferguesson's family to her death in a snowstorm. [8] [9]

The short story carries images or "keepsakes" from each of her twelve published novels and the stories in Obscure Destinies . [10] In keeping with her own literary tradition, the story has been described as being steeped in a "sense of place", where "land and physical realities" work alongside (both influencing and being influenced by) the characters and their emotions. [8] [11] It also deals with what Cather described as the "accords and antipathies" of family relationships, including those between generations, [12] [13] [14] [15] and the feelings of loss that accompany these relationships. [16] [17] [18] It has been described as her "final achievement" in pursuing the mystery genre, [19] and as "a rich portrait" by scholar Ann Romines. [20] It has been said to be "richer in domestic feeling than anything else she ever wrote", [21] but it has also been completely ignored by some scholars, [8] or seen as "a slackening into self-indulgence", [22] "minor", [23] "bad" or centered on "sentimental" "self-pity". [24]

The story draws heavily on Cather's own life, [25] [26] and is among her most autobiographical of stories. [27] [28] Her friend and teacher, Evangeline "Eva" King, is the model for the character Evangeline Knightly. [29] [12] According to Cather, after she moved with her family to Red Cloud, Nebraska, King, as a principal of the high school, was "the first person who interviewed the new county pupil" and "was the first person whom I ever cared a great deal for outside of my own family." [30] It has also been suggested that her brother, James Cather, served as a model for the character of Bryan Ferguesson; similarly, her brother John "Jack" Cather may be the basis for Vincent Ferguesson, [31] and Roscoe Cather is Hector. [5] Her own childhood home—in particular, the attic [32] —is also depicted in the story, chiefly as small and overcrowded. [33] [34]

While much of Cather's writing has been described as male-centered, "The Best Years" continues her end-of-life tradition of exploring mother-daughter relationships through the lens of women, rather than men, with careful use of a female protagonist. [35]

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References

  1. ↑ Gerber, Philip L. (1995). Willa Cather (Rev. ed.). New York: Twayne Publishers. p. 75. ISBN   080574035X.
  2. ↑ Cather, Willa (2009). Youth and the Bright Medusa: The Willa Cather Scholarly Edition. University of Nebraska Press.
  3. ↑ Brown, Marion Marsh (1980). Only one point of the compass : Willa Cather in the Northeast (1st ed.). [Danbury, CT]: Archer Editions Press. p. 128. ISBN   0890970173.
  4. ↑ Burgess, Cheryll (1990). "Cather's Homecomings". Willa Cather : family, community, and history (the BYU symposium). Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Humanities Publications Center. p. 52. ISBN   0842522999.
  5. 1 2 Lee, Hermione (1989). Willa Cather : double lives (1st American ed.). New York: Pantheon Books. p. 372. ISBN   0394537033.
  6. ↑ Brienzo, Gary (1994). Willa Cather's transforming vision : New France and the American Northeast. Selinsgrove [Pa.]: Susquehanna University Press. p. 95. ISBN   0945636660.
  7. ↑ Poore, Charles (2003). "The Last Stories of Willa Cather". In Reynolds, Guy (ed.). Willa Cather : critical assessments (2 ed.). Mountfield, East Sussex: Helm Information. p. 60.
  8. 1 2 3 Bush, Sargent (Spring 1968). ""The Best Years": Willa Cather's Last Story and its Relation to Her Canon". Studies in Short Fiction. 5 (3): 269.
  9. ↑ Harvey, Sally Peltier (1995). Redefining the American dream : the novels of Willa Cather. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University. p. 3. ISBN   0838635571.
  10. ↑ Skaggs, Merrill Maguire (2007). "Icons and Willa Cather". Cather Studies. 7.
  11. ↑ O'Brien, Sharon (1997). Willa Cather : the emerging voice : with a new preface. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. p. 85. ISBN   0674953223.
  12. 1 2 Woods, Lucia (1973). Willa Cather: a pictorial memoir. University of Nebraska Press. p. 102.
  13. ↑ Murphy, John J. (1982). "Willa Cather and Catholic Themes". Western American Literature. 17 (1): 53. doi:10.1353/wal.1982.0045.
  14. ↑ Nichols, David K. (December 2012). "Amy A. Kass, Leon R. Kass and Diana Schaub (eds), What So Proudly We Hail: The American Soul in Story Speech and Song: Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2011. 790 pp. $35. ISBN: 978–1610170062". Society. 49 (6): 567–570. doi:10.1007/s12115-012-9605-1.
  15. ↑ Jackson, Joseph Henry (September 22, 1948). "Bookman's Notebook". Los Angeles Times. No. II. p. 5.
  16. ↑ Bennett, Mildred R.; Rosowski, Susan J. (1984). "Willa Cather Today An Introduction". eat Plains Quarterly. 4 (4): 211–212.
  17. ↑ Murphy, John J. (2006). "William to Willa, Courtesy of Sarah: Cather, Jewett, and Howellsian Principles". American Literary Realism. 38 (2): 145–159. ISSN   1540-3084.
  18. ↑ Ugo, Joseph R.; Skaggs, Merrill Maguire, eds. (2007). Violence, the arts, and Willa Cather. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 71. ISBN   0838641571.
  19. ↑ Murphy, John J. (1992). "Willa Cather and the Literature of Christian Mystery". Religion & Literature. 24 (3): 41. ISSN   0888-3769.
  20. ↑ Romines, Ann (1996). "Her Mortal Enemy's Daughter: Cather and the Writing of Age". Cather Studies. 3.
  21. ↑ Wagenknecht, Edward (1994). Willa Cather. New York: Continuum. pp. 156–157. ISBN   0826406076.
  22. ↑ Murphy, John J. (1992). "Willa Cather: A Study of the Short Fiction by Loretta Wasserman". Studies in American Fiction. 20 (1): 124–125. doi:10.1353/saf.1992.0018.
  23. ↑ Grumbach, Doris (December 1984). "A study of the small room in the professor's house". Women's Studies. 11 (3): 327–346. doi:10.1080/00497878.1984.9978620.
  24. ↑ Randall, John Herman (1960). The landscape and the looking glass; Willa Cather's search for value. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 357.
  25. ↑ Thurin, Erik Ingvar (1990). The humanization of Willa Cather : classicism in an American classic. Lund: Lund University Press. p. 357. ISBN   0862382394.
  26. ↑ Quirk, Tom (1990). Bergson and American culture : the worlds of Willa Cather and Wallace Stevens. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 179. ISBN   0807818801.
  27. ↑ Pers, Mona (1976). "Repetition in Willa Cather's Early Writings : Clues to the Development of an Artist". American Studies in Scandinavia. 8 (2): 55–66.
  28. ↑ Fryer, Judith (1986). Felicitous space : the imaginative structures of Edith Wharton and Willa Cather. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 249. ISBN   0807841358.
  29. ↑ Bohlke, L. Brent (1986). Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches, and Letters. Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press. 1909: RED CLOUD.
  30. ↑ Cather, Willa. "Edwin J. Overing, Jr. (April 30, 1909) | Willa Cather Archive". cather.unl.edu. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  31. ↑ March, John (1993). A reader's companion to the fiction of Willa Cather. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. pp. 262–263. ISBN   0313287678.
  32. ↑ Synnott, Kevin A. (1994). "Defining Community in "Jack-a-Boy"and "The Best Years". Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial Newsletter. XXXVIII (3): 41.
  33. ↑ BENNETT, MILDRED R. (1982). "THE CHILDHOOD WORLDS OF WILLA CATHER". Great Plains Quarterly. 2 (4): 204–209. ISSN   0275-7664.
  34. ↑ Kraft, Stephanie (1979). No castles on Main Street : American authors and their homes. Chicago: Rand McNally. p. 98. ISBN   0528818287.
  35. ↑ O'Brien, Sharon (1984). ""The Thing Not Named": Willa Cather as a Lesbian Writer". Signs. 9 (4): 596. ISSN   0097-9740.
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