Apple in the Attic

As its subtitle tells us, this book has the quality of a folk-tale or myth. It is not to be recommended to those who like their fiction sophisticated, swift and exciting. It is simple, direct, almost “innocent,” one might say, on the surface, but its roots are in reality and in the changeless and dateless truths of human nature and of the soil. It tells of a handsome, dominating Pennsylvania Dutch farmer and his gentle, dominated wife. Because she forgets to take some apple schnitz to market one day, thereby losing sales, her husband vows never to speak to her again. Her sufferings from this and from other matters are very great, but the conclusion brings a grim poetic justice: and not only justice, but a human hope.

The background of the tale is rich in yokel color. The houses, the farms, the markets, the superstitions, the feasts, the dialect, and the individual portraits of the Pennsylvania Dutch countryfolk introduce us to an unfamiliar but very vivid and fascinating world. E. D.