“A bitter book, remorselessly written, and quite against the current stream of tolerance for all human creatures. Perhaps it is wholesome for us to turn now and then from the genial process of admiring the best of us in the worst of us, and to behold how a Minnie looks, pinned fairly on the slide and set under a ruthless lens.” H. W. Boynton
+ Review 2:602 Je 5 ’20 550w + The Times [London] Lit Sup p426 Jl 1 ’20 100w
HOLDSWORTH, ETHEL. Taming of Nan. *$1.90 (2c) Dutton
19–19359
Here’s another tale of the taming of a shrew. She is a Lancashire working woman full of primitive savagery which she lets out in explosions of fiery temper towards her good-natured giant of a husband and her pretty pleasure-loving daughter. When both of the giant’s legs have been cut off by a train, she hammers away at him still, to break him still more, and not until he has found a new strength and a new independence do the fates discover her vulnerable spot and begin the breaking and taming process on her. And not until she has almost lost her soul and her daughter does she find the only outlet for the fierce life-force within her to be love and the ministrations of love.
“This is the old story of the reclaiming of a virago retold with considerable power.”
+ Ath p1018 O 10 ’19 120w
“For those readers who like character studies as well as plots.”
+ Booklist 16:204 Mr ’20