A Saloonkeeper's Daughter (The Longfellow Series of American Languages and Literatures)

About this book

"An authentic story of life in Minneapolis in the late nineteenth century. That ring of authenticity comes clearly from the mind and craft of an artist at work. For the contemporary reader the novel provides a glimpse of an immigrant society a culture in exile and the immigrants responses to the social scene . . . Drawing on the realistic and naturalistic trends in Europe and in America Janson has written an American novel that anticipates the works of such writers as Theodore Dreiser Stephen Crane and Sarah Orne Jewett."from the Preface by Gerald Thorson First published in Norwegian by a Minneapolis firm in 1887 Drude Krog Jansons A Saloonkeepers Daughter has been sadly neglected in the history of American literature despite its unusually forward-looking portrayal of a self-reliant career-minded woman and its importance within Americas regional and urban literary traditions. Jansons lyrical coming-of-age novel tells the story of the pensive beautiful Astrid Holm forced by her familys bankruptcy to abandon a comfortable middle-class life in Norway for a harsh new existence in Minneapolis living in an apartment above her fathers saloon. She attempts to escape this hardship through art (as an actress) and love (entering into an unhappy relationship with a brutish lawyer) until she finds her true calling as a Unitarian minister and fulfills her longing for meaningful companionship with Helene Nielsen a selfless doctor to poor immigrants. With this edition of A Saloonkeepers Daughter an important and prescient work of American fiction is finally available in English.