The Fiction of Jessamyn West
[Jessamyn West's] depiction of adolescent girls, her low keyed plots, her occasional preference for historical themes, and perhaps even the quiet authority of her writing have deflected critics who are basically concerned with splashy techniques and perhaps the more immediate social and economic problems of the day…. It is likely that Miss West's work will reveal a durability not enjoyed by the more sensational and iconoclastic writers of her time.
Much of what Jessamyn West has written suggests her Quaker heritage. Not only do practicing members of the Society of Friends frequently appear as characters, but such stalwart Quaker virtues as sobriety, tolerance, industry, thrift, and integrity seem to be the criteria by which she judges and conceives people. (p. 299)
A good deal of Miss West's fiction has appeared in magazines, and some of the earlier stories remain uncollected. Her habit has been to select sufficient stories or sketches and to arrange them in chronological order to form such books as Cress Delahanty and Except for Me and Thee. Despite the absence of transitions from story to story the reappearance of the protagonists and even of some of the minor characters provides a superficial coherence which can substitute, at times quite effectively, for genuine plot development. But rarely is there a strong dramatic interest, or a narrative which gradually evolves and develops in intensity until a climax is reached. Even where the author from the outset apparently conceived of her story as a structural whole rather than as a grouping of disjunctive episodes, her habit of concentrating on scenes and sketches contravenes artistic unity. Indeed one might argue that her major limitation as a novelist is her lack of firm structure.
There are, to be sure, several books in which Miss West clearly wrestled with the problem of structure. In A Matter of Time, a chronicle of the Murphy family, it is the relationship between the sisters Tasmania and Blix which provides the backbone of the novel. (p. 303)
In South of the Angels,… Miss West has provided a huge cast…. In all some seventeen fairly important characters are introduced, described, interwoven with the events of the novel. But the artistic method of shifting back and forth among them leaves the reader puzzled to the end as to which figure is meant to be the protagonist. The technique utilized here is reminiscent of John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy in the days when such labels as the breadthwise novel were employed…. Almost anyone of [the characters] could have served the author as a central character; instead the narrative moves from one to another, from episode to episode, without sequence or apparent direction…. The story pattern is like a broken line in one's palm; life somehow continues but in leaps and bounds and even pauses. South of the Angels has considerable merit as a piece of fiction but its narrative appeal is slight. The characters too often seem to get out of hand.
Probably Leafy Rivers (1967) is Miss West's most successful book structurally, but it too is complicated by the intentional alternation of place and time. (pp. 304-05)
But even if the narrative thrust of Leafy Rivers is not always satisfactory, the novel like the rest of Miss West's fiction has other strong merits. Conspicuous among her artistic achievements is a magnificent sense of place. (pp. 305-06)
Part of Miss West's success in realizing [small] scenes derives from her control of the physical locale and her use of authentic and specific colors and objects…. Nor is this local color obtrusive. The Indiana and California backgrounds fit naturally into the story, providing both a backdrop and a proscenium for the narrative action.
The characters of Miss West's fiction form a diversified and well defined group with some basic similarities. In the novels about early Indiana they are of necessity rural and are often pioneer settlers. Towns play a small role since the interest is concentrated on the farm home, occasional barn raisings or quilting bees, the camp meeting, the country school, the tasks of field or kitchen…. Miss West's Hoosiers are farmers or nurserymen, stock raisers, rural pedagogues or physicians, itinerant peddlers, exhorters or backwoods preachers. (pp. 306-07)
In the California novels the occupations differ somewhat but the social level and the economic focus show no substantial change…. Miss West is not interested in the sophistication, or the crime and violence, of the big city…. The author's focus of concern remains the country. (pp. 307-08)
Miss West is not always successful or convincing in her depiction of male characters. The husbands in A Matter of Time are vague background figures who barely impinge on the reader's attention….
Some of the men in South of the Angels, to be sure, have stronger outlines. The real estate promoter Syl Perkins is an amiable shyster whom Miss West makes an error in not developing further. Lute Cope, despite being imposed upon by both his daughter and his wife, has a certain individuality which also might have been given further exposition. Basil Cudlip's willingness to take the law into his own hands, especially if his prospective victim is dark skinned, suggests that the mentality of the Old South can be transferred all too easily to southern California. And LeRoy Raunce, a combination of artisan and self-taught preacher, is a figure relatively well known in the vast amorphous region south of the angels. (p. 308)
Miss West's best drawn men are the Quakers, whose firm virtues she can sincerely admire and whose peccadilloes and gentle stubbornness she can review with smiling tolerance….
Above all there is Jess Birdwell, the hero of two books or, more properly, of a number of loosely connected short stories…. Jess Birdwell is one of the most attractive characters in recent American fiction.
With her females Miss West is almost consistently successful. Among the older women Eliza Birdwell, Lib Conboy, Tassie Murphy, and Eunice Fry have special vitality, (p. 309)
Miss West's most engaging portraits, however, are the adolescent girls, the young women reaching out for emotional and economic security, whose lives are strange juxtapositions of embarrassment, humiliation, surprise, and minor triumph. Leafy Rivers, Cress Delahanty, Emma and Cate Conboy are plausible and vibrant individuals, facing life with curiosity and eagerness, determined to establish their identities and to share the experiences of maturity. (p. 310)
Leafy Rivers, Cress Delahanty, and Cate Conboy are not shown as dramatic figures engaged in sensational actions. Rather the reader is interested in their day to day activities, in their petty disappointments and desires. In terms of years their stories are short. But their personalities are established by the author's careful selection of details and her sympathetic understanding of their whims and frustrations. There is no adolescent boy in Miss West's fiction who achieves equal distinction. But when she writes of the young girl growing up in a domestic environment and first trying out her fledgling powers, she is on firm ground.
Miss West is equally successful in her command of language, the colloquial diction of the backwoods and the farm as well as the use of striking analogies and similes. (p. 312)
[It] is not only the wealth of colloquial and diurnal diction which impresses the reader of Miss West's fiction. Equally vivid and original is her figurative language, often exemplified by surprising similes taken from ordinary life and observation. (p. 314)
Miss West is sensitive to proverbs too and uses them appropriately and often. More than one character relies on a proverb to express his attitude or his philosophy, and the maxim is more revealing than several sentences of dialogue. (pp. 314-15)
Jessamyn West's fiction … has many merits, but two certainly stand out: her characterization and her feeling for language. If her narratives seem unexciting and even incoherent at times, her people are a constant delight, freshly conceived, individual, even a bit eccentric. The fecundity of her imagination is surprising. Generally commonsensical but often endowed with a quirky humor or an ironical point of view, her characters enter the reader's presence in full stature and linger there like old acquaintances. (p. 315)
Whatever else might be said about Miss West's work, there can be no question about her dedication to her craft nor about the vitality of her people and the language which clothes them.
It is possible that readers might weary of the domestic environment, not to mention the rural setting, of many of the fictions and might demand characters with greater sophistication. But other novelists treat urban scenes, often with doubtful success or with a spurious sensationalism the appeal of which wanes almost as soon as it lures the reader beyond the opening chapters. Certainly few contemporary writers evince the ability to create people with the idiosyncracies, homeliness, honesty, wit, and simple humanity of those in whose portraiture Jessamyn West excels. A reader must be grateful for her precision, her authenticity, and her charm. She is a writer to be treasured. (p. 316)
John T. Flanagan, "The Fiction of Jessamyn West," in Indiana Magazine of History (copyright 1971, Trustees of Indiana University), Vol. LXVII, No. 4, December, 1971, pp. 299-316.
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