Twice he won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction: in 1919 for The Magnificent
Ambersons and in 1922 for Alice Adams. His play Clarence launched
Alfred Lunt on his distinguished career and provided Helen Hayes with an
early successful role. His Penrod books continued the American boy-story
tradition which started with the works of Mark Twain. Early in this
century, through his novel The Turmoil, he warned of sacrificing the
environment to industrial growth. Yet, since his death in 1946, Booth
Tarkington -- this writer from the Midwest who accomplished so much --
has faded from the memory of the reading public, and many of his works
are out of print. But his memory is fresh and vivid in the mind of his
grandniece Susanah Mayberry, and her recollections of him leap from the
pages of her book. She recalls that as a small child, before she was
aware of her uncle's fame as a writer, he emerged as the one figure
whose outline was clear among the blur of forms that made up her large
family.
"No one who met Booth Tarkington ever forgot him," says his great-niece.
So, she introduces the reader to this multifaceted individual: the young
man-about-town, the prankster, the writer of humorous letters (who drew
caricatures in the margins), the bereaved father, the inspiration of the
affection of three women (simultaneously), and the lover and collector
of art objects and portraits. The author of this volume draws primarily
upon her own personal experiences, family lore, and letters (some never
published before) to portray her amiable uncle. She tells of the
pleasure it gave him to entertain his young nephews and nieces at his
Tudor-style winter home in Indianapolis - where they played a spirited
form of charades. She recalls vacations which she, as a college student,
spent at his light-filled summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine - where
she met his famous neighbors. During all of those times, Uncle Booth was
a keen observer of yout who created Penrod and friends from his
observations, and the teacher of youth, who transmitted his own love of
art to his young relations. While recapturing memories of the
unforgettable Tarkington, Mayberry recreates an era of elegant and
leisurely living, when on the dining table "in the fingerbowls . . .
were nosegays of sweet peas and lemon verbena or geranium leaves."
Susanah Mayberry shares with the reader a treasure of family photographs
including Tarkington at various ages; interiors and exteriors of his
homes; her father and uncles as children (the models of Penrod); the
writer's indomitable sister who championed his early work; and his
devoted second wife, a "gentle dragon," who kept his day-to-day life
running smoothly. Indiana residents will feel "at home" with the
frequent references to the state and its people. Indianapolis of the
late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries influenced
Tarkington and his work. The city was his birthplace and his death
place. He spent a year at Purdue University where he met such
"brilliancies" as George Ade and John McCutcheon. Other famous and
not-so-famous Hoosiers became a part of Tarkington's life, and
they-along with international literary, theatrical, and political
luminaries-reappear in Susanah Mayberry's recollections of her amiable
uncle.
