The Dollmaker
by Harriette Arnow
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Book Summary Information
Author: Harriette ArnowEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-06-09
ISBN: 1439154430
Number of pages: 688
Publisher: Scribner
Book Reviews of The Dollmaker
Book Review: Life in Michigan
Summary: 3 Stars
This was a long hard book of sadness and strife and by the end, I'd wondered why I'd chosen it, and yet I knew why I'd wanted to read this book. I was interested in learning more about Detroit. The place where all the cars came from, a part of Michigan, one that I'll never see in any other way. The Dollmaker showed me what life was like in Detroit and Flint during WWII through the eyes of the main character, Gert.
Gert was living peacefully in Kentucky when we first meet her. She's a big, strong, tall woman that had always been used as a farmhand by her family because of her strength. Times are tough everywhere but through sacrifice and careful planning, Gert has managed to save enough to buy a farm next to her parents and end being a sharecropper. She's been planning in secret, not telling her husband or kids until she was sure it was going to happen, but WWII is in full swing and like all the other men, her husband Clovis must go in to see if he will be needed for the war.
When Clovis fails to return, Gert moves ahead with her plan, while still hoping every day to hear from Clovis. She is able to purchase the farm of her dreams and she and her children start the work on it. When she finally hears from Clovis, he is in Detroit, working in a factory for the war effort. It's a steady paycheck and Gert thinks things will be fine and Clovis will come back after the war. Her meddling mother however kills her dream. She thinks Gert needs to be with her husband and the family should not be separated. She talks to the man that sold Gert the farm and he comes around and returns her money, saying he can't come between family.
Gert is crushed but has no choice but to take her children to Detroit on the train. Poor old Gert who had never left the country in the middle of all that noise and commotion is sad and scary but it's not the worst of it. Gert's life goes steadily downhill throughout the book. The rental unit, a factory house in a project, is so small, Gert barely fits in there and she has five children. When Clovis surprises her with the gift of a washing machine and the "Icy Heart", Gert can barely squeeze sideways through the narrow doors. It's so noisy and cold in Detroit, Gert does a little whittling in the hours she's awake during the nights, waiting for Clovis to get home.
I learned about Flint, old man Flint, Detroit, factories, strikes, walk-outs, picketing, sympathy and the housing projects. At first they thought Detroit was where the jobs and money were. Clovis, never quite understanding Gert, thought the washing machine and refrigerator he brought home were gifts for Gert when really she preferred the old way of doing things. This was also true in her whittling. She did work that amazed many people but Clovis, looking for the fast buck rigged up a jigsaw and continually urged Gert to make things out of cheaper wood, faster, less detailed and put less time into them.
This is such a long, sad story, I won't spoil the ending here but the detailed descriptions of life in the project and the learning to live in close proximity of all different types of people are the parts of the book that tell the story equally well as Gert's story does.
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