Between the Flowers is one of the best books I have ever read! I came across it in a library, thinking I would take it home, read a little bit, and see how I liked it. From the moment I got into it, I was hooked! I think that part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was that I could identify with the characters. I am a young woman asking some of the same questions about myself that Arnow sets forth in her book. Another strength is that the characters and situations are totally believable. I would definitely recommend it to anyone, especially those who are interested in Appalachian literature.

The main focus of this book is the conflict that exists between the appeal of a wandering life and the appeal of establishing roots. Delph and Marsh want different things from life, but they want each other, too. Delph wants to travel for once in her life and Marsh wants to settle down for once in his. As was typical of the time, the will of the husband wins out and Delph and Marsh settle down to a life of farming. I think one of the most heartbreaking aspects of this struggle between wandering and settling is how Delph and Marsh lose sight of each other. They throw themselves into the farming, Delph to forget what her life could have been and Marsh to make a success of himself. Between the Flowers is a story mixed with the triumps that Delph and Marsh have together, and it is also the story of how they fail each other. It is a wonderful study of everday life.

After having languished unpublished for over half a century, Harriette Simpson Arnow's magnificent "Between the Flowers" will rightfully restore her reputation as one of the twentieth-century's finest writers. Compared favorably with John Steinbeck at the onset of her literary career, Arnow's second novel, "Between the Flowers," failed to inspire publishers. The novel's dark naturalism and intricately detailed descriptions of the Cumberland River region of eastern Kentucky, now seen as extraordinarily rich qualities, appeared excessively regional and fatalistic to editors in Depression America. Fortunately, the Michigan State University Press has brought this book to a new generation of Americans, a generation which can appreciate the feminist slant to Arnow's characterization of Delph, the anguished and inarticulate conflicts in her husband Marsh and the exquisite detailing of a region of the United States either ignored or stereotyped by modern society.

Arnow's novel combines an overwhelming and frightening naturalism, two admirable, miserable characters who rage against their own flaws, social restrictions and elusive love and a sense of place that exalts the people who reside therein. Arnow's nature is not some beneficent prop; it is an indifferent overpowering force which mocks human attempts at control. Marsh and Delph's attempts to scratch out of a living in the midst of drought, heat and flooding appear small and futile in the face of the relentless battering factors of nature. One of the remarkable facets of this novel is the author's ability to make puny humans appear large in the face of overwhelming odds.

The greatest achievement of "Between the Flowers," however, is the creation of one of the most tormented and sympathetic couples in American literature. Bound to each other by hunger -- a deep and unfulfilled yearning for completion and self-respect, Delph and Marsh are ironically ill-suited for each other. Their passionate needs, which kindled their romance, ultimately cripple their possibilities for mutual happiness. Delph, the orphaned child of a family known for its rebelliousness, yearns for pesonal libeation, for travel, education and experience. Frustrated by the isolation of the Cumberland, she envisions an unbound future, kissed by urban experiences and inellectual growth. Rootless Marsh, a wandering oil-man, seeks place, solidity and permanence; he senses that land -- owning it, bending it to his will, husbanding it to produce -- will be his salvation. "Between the Flowers" is brilliant in its rendering of these two complicated, sympathetic people. The conflicts and tensions over "the having of things or the holding" advance both the narrative and the philosophical underpinnings of the novel.

Readers should not expect an easy time with this novel. Arnow's style is detailed, relishing in the opportunities to expound on the rugged beauty of the Cumberland, probing the consciousness and consciences of Delph and Marsh as they attempt to understand and live with their relationship. Arnow's themes of self understanding, family coherence, marital frustrations and disappointments, personal disappointment and self-hatred are given serious, thorough treatment. What publishers scorned as dense descriptive detail today appears as not only necessary, but enlightening. "Between the Flowers" deserves its belated praise.