Edna Ferber's Hollywood reveals one of the most influential artistic relationships of the twentieth century—the four-decade partnership between historical novelist Edna Ferber and the Hollywood studios. Ferber was one of America's most controversial popular historians, a writer whose uniquely feminist, multiracial view of the national past deliberately clashed with traditional narratives of white masculine power. Hollywood paid premium sums to adapt her novels, creating some of the most memorable films of the studio era—among them Show Boat, Cimarron, and Giant. Her historical fiction resonated with Hollywood's interest in prestigious historical filmmaking aimed principally, but not exclusively, at female audiences.
In Edna Ferber's Hollywood, J. E. Smyth explores the research, writing, marketing, reception, and production histories of Hollywood's Ferber franchise. Smyth tracks Ferber's working relationships with Samuel Goldwyn, Leland Hayward, George Stevens, and James Dean; her landmark contract negotiations with Warner Bros.; and the controversies surrounding Giant's critique of Jim-Crow Texas. But Edna Ferber's Hollywood is also the study of the historical vision of an American outsider—a woman, a Jew, a novelist with few literary pretensions, an unashamed middlebrow who challenged the prescribed boundaries among gender, race, history, and fiction. In a masterful film and literary history, Smyth explores how Ferber's work helped shape Hollywood's attitude toward the American past.
A collection of short stories from Pultizer Prize winner, Edna Ferber
The short stories in this collection take the reader from small-town Wisconsin to the bustling streets of New York and Chicago and back again. While they range greatly in length and tone, they all share the trademark wit and affectionate insight of Edna Ferber.
Showcasing the facility with words that made her a mainstay at the Algonquin round table, Ferber explores some of her favorite themes: the role of women (especially strong or unconventional women) in modern society, the mores of the midwestern small town, and the changes over time in relationships between parents and children.
In “The Maternal Feminine,” a plain, overlooked child grows into a strong, resourceful businesswoman and forms a strong motherly bond with the children of her more attractive sister. In “April 25th, As Usual,” an aging Wisconsin couple reluctantly join their successful daughter in New York, where they try to adjust to a very different lifestyle. “Old Lady Mandle” is a bittersweet tale about an elderly Chicago mother coming to terms with the fact that she is no longer the most important woman in the life of her grown son. “One Hundred Per Cent” features Ferber’s celebrated heroine Emma McChesney, now re-married, seeing her husband off to war.
The stories gathered here are beautifully observed chronicles of early twentieth-century life and are filled with characters who, despite their very human foibles, are all bestowed by Ferber with warmth and dignity.
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