NPR’s All Things Considering offered a list of novels that won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and likely would provoke a perp
lexed “huh? who?”
Here’s that list. It includes three Ohio authors: Louis Bromfield, Josephine Johnson and Conrad Richter.
Johnson’s novel Now in November is not forgotten by me — it’s one I’ve given as a gift, a powerful story about a farm family struggling in the heart of the country during the 1930s drought and Great Depression. It’s written with poetic/seductive language and narrated by the memorable second of three daughters — a stunning work along the lines of best Willa Cather, totally worthy of a Pulitzer.
His Family by Ernest Poole, 1918
Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield, 1927
Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin, 1929
Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge, 1930
Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes, 1931
The Store by T.S. Stribling, 1933
Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller, 1934
Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson, 1935
Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis, 1936
In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow, 1942
Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin, 1944
Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens, 1949
The Way West by A.B. Guthrie, 1950
The Town by Conrad Richter, 1951
The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor, 1959
The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor, 1962
Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson, 1978
Read the NPR article. ABE books also compiled a list of Top 10 Forgotten Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novels (that also includes Now in November).
The Longest Chapter 