 UPPER HAND PRESS OFFERS
LOUISE FARMER SMITH’S FIRST THREE BOOKS
One Hundred Years of Marriage
Four generations of brides’ efforts to avoid the mistakes their
mother’s made.
Cadillac, Oklahoma
Though this town is said to be “wide but not deep,” it will surprise
you.
The Woman Without a Voice
Uses pioneer women’s diaries and her own family’s trek to Oklahoma..
Smith's New Book is Non-Fiction
"And this is my story as I've tried to uncover the mysteries
of the pioneer women in my own family--Ida, Mary Lillian, Zoe, and
Phebe Ann, the one they left behind."
"Saving Family Memories" workshop in the Genealogical Division of
the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Library.
PRAISE FOR THE WOMAN WITHOUT A VOICE
Louise Farmer Smith has written a part of history we aren’t taught in classrooms. She has shown us the true resilience of her female ancestors and provides a brief glimpse of what it really meant to be a wife of a pioneer. The Woman Without a Voice is a heartbreaking, moving, and ultimately inspiring memoir about the strength of women.
JoAnna Woolridge Wall, J.D.
Lecturer, Women’s and Gender Studies Program
University of Oklahoma
"Husband and wife sat side by side on the wagon bench. Though they looked down the same rough road, diaries suggest that they lived in different worlds.” Based on her own family’s experience, Louise Farmer Smith sets us squarely by the side of the woman...A compelling tale and an inspiration to anyone considering writing their family’s often complex and difficult history.
Lisa Kindrick
Librarian, Geneological Center, Albuquerque
To buy THE WOMAN WITHOUT A VOICE (September 29, 2017), click here.
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Welcome to Cadillac, Oklahoma,
a former Dust Bowl town with ambitions to be a garden spot. The two
main characters, the young sheriff and an aging lawyer, join forces
to defend a teenager accused of murdering her abusive father. Some
citizens take sides, but many in Cadillac's population are
overwhelmed with their own problems of domestic abuse, incest,
religious rivalry, and stale marriages. Chaos, politics, and a lot
of humor make this book both moving and funny. Book clubs will talk
their heads off. You know these people. Come find yourself in
Cadillac.
One character describes Cadillac as "wide but not deep.” So jump in anywhere and enjoy!
Praise for Cadillac, Oklahoma
"As Sherwood Anderson created Winesburg, Ohio, Louise
Farmer Smith presents a subtle, deep and generous
portrait of the fictional Cadillac, Oklahoma. The voices
and visions of its citizens are at turns sweet, cruel,
ignorant, and full of yearning, and always they are the
real thing. On every page of this smart collection,
Smith's good humor and light touch brighten the dusty
landscape." ---Bonnie Jo Campbell, bestselling author of
the story collection Mothers, Tell Your Daughters and
the National Book Award Finalist, American Salvage.
"Louise Farmer Smith has created a community of beguiling
characters living in the fictional town of Cadillac,
Oklahoma. I would place this collection of short stories on
the shelf between Spoon River Anthology and Winesburg, Ohio
but not far from the stories of Anton Chekhov that have
inspired writers for generations. The short story is one of
America's great contributions to literature, and if Louise
Farmer Smith has her way, the tradition will continue. She
takes her characters seriously allowing them and their
landscape to transcend territory and time. It is a very
impressive book." ---Edward Swift author of Splendora, Miss
Spellbinders Point of View and other fine books
"CADILLAC, OKLAHOMA... is a raw, beautiful, tender story
combining facets of Sherwood Anderson in its homage to Winesburg,
Ohio, with touches of Harper Lee...[and] with aspects of courtroom
drama, and psychological tension. Townspeople come face to face with
the quiet evil that wears a mask of religious and sexual purity."
---Collin Fletcher
Read the write-up in The Story Prize's Official Blog.
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Book Tour Highlights
A crowd of over 70 people gathered at THE MUSEUM OF THE WESTERN PRAIRIE for “The Woman in the Dugout,” my program of period photographs, history of dugout dwellers (beginning with a photo of my own family’s dugout in 1898) and the dugout story from ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MARRIAGE.
In the flat, treeless part of western Oklahoma where my family settled dugouts were necessary for shelter and buffalo dung was the necessary fuel for cooking and heating. This woman looks to be the same age as my great aunt Minn, an educated and lady-like woman who claimed to be the best chip gatherer in Custer County.
The cost emotionally, physically and financially was immense for these unknown settlers. My own family, seven adults and a baby girl, arrived in Custer County with two dozen hens, four pigs, two horses, a pony and a cow. They were $450 in debt and had 30 cents to live on until making crop.
The last to leave in a photo with the author at the winter book launch of One Hundred Years of Marriage.
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The Pushcart Prize is for short story writers the
equivalent of the Oscars for the movies. In 2005 "Return to Lincoln” was nominated for a Pushcart by The Bellevue Literary Review. This story is part of ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MARRIAGE. "Voice of Experience” which opens CADILLAC, OKLAHOMA was nominated for a Pushcart by Cross Timbers in 2014.
"Faithful Elders" was nominated by Upper Hand Press for a
Pushcart Prize in 2018.
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ATTENTION BOOK CLUBS: See the CADILLAC, OKLAHOMA
Discussion Suggestions below. The second edition of
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MARRIAGE includes Book Club Discussion
Suggestions as well as an interview of the author by Ronna Wineberg,
Senior Fiction Editor at Bellevue Literary Review.
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When you step off the train in Cadillac, Oklahoma, you'll wade through currents of hilarity and romance where the
sheriff is in love with the wife of a prominent lawyer, and the
banker's widow and a Las Vegas sex worker team up to beautify
Cadillac.
Not until a young female reporter cracks open the self-satisfied
surface of the town is the folly, anger, and pain revealed.
The resentments of tree-huggers, store-owners, and the town fathers
ignite over a proposal to create a New England-style town green in
this water-starved former Dust Bowl town. This is not
Concord, Massachusetts!
Citizens who don't care about town politics, deal with
domestic abuse, religious rivalry and stale marriages. The
sheriff, Jake Hale, seeks help from a retired
lawyer, Sloane Willard, in an effort to save the life of a teenage girl
accused of murdering the father who raped her.
The town's guiding forces of football, religion, and guns unite as praying church-goers overwhelm
Jake's attempt to manage a hostage
situation at Cadillac's Youth Detention Center.
Before you get back on the train, you will have grown to care about
these people and their thirst for love, beauty, justice and
water.
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Book Club Discussion Suggestions for Cadillac, Oklahoma
Reading a story collection is a different experience from reading a
novel. Each story has a beginning, a middle and an end and can be
read separately, so the reader can feel a sense of satisfaction
without finishing the book and can dip in any place, front to back,
to get a good read.
On the other hand, after finishing the first story, "Voice of
Experience," about a 17-year-old boy on the lookout for an older
woman to teach him about sex, the reader may wonder what kind of man
Sloane Willard turned out to be. In the next story, "The Estate,"
Sloane is over sixty years older, a retired lawyer, a town father,
and the head of an ordinary, squabbling family. The details of his
hard life--the loss of his wife and only child, the betrayal by his
next of kin, and his courage in putting his sterling reputation at
risk in one last court case--are told in other stories or only
glimpsed as you read by.
Cadillac, Oklahoma is a town one citizen described as "wide but not
deep," so jump in any place and enjoy.
The following questions are not homework. They are merely matches to
ignite your own thoughts and discussion :
- Did you find yourself in Cadillac?
- What was the effect on the town of Hillary's Cadillac Voices in
the local newspaper?
- Was the body count (six) alarmingly high or about right for a
town this size?
- Was the sheriff, Jake Hale, a tragic hero--flawed, but
admirable? Or was he just a weak man?
- Why was Hillary, the reporter and single mother, having trouble
sleeping?
- Victoria St. Buckingham, the sex worker from Las Vegas, enters
the story and then leaves. How did she change things in the town of
Cadillac?
- After being tempted to burn down her husband's new glass house,
in "The American Mind," how does Judianne remake herself by the end
of the book?
- Issues regarding the relationship of the sexes romp through this book including in the
story, "Sloane on Trial." Do these stories add up to an attitude by
the author, or are they representative only of the characters?
- In this book the women struggle with love and work. Are they
modern women? If not, what is holding them
back?
- "Sugar House," p. 182, is perhaps the oldest story in this
book. I wrote it in the middle 1990's and didn't believe it
would ever be published though it found a prestigious home in
the Virginia Quarterly Review. The editors' faith in it
encouraged me to believe in myself as a writer and to continue
to write about wonderful Oklahoma characters of the sort who
make up Cadillac, Oklahoma.
Enjoy!
Louise Farmer Smith
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